Keeping the Groove With Texas Bass Players, From Conjunto to Country and Polka to Punk
Bass is the heartbeat of Texas music, from the hard-rocking roadhouse blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan to the conjunto-revival sounds of Los Texmaniacs. Whenever you go out dancing to live music, the underlying tones of the upright bass fiddle or electric bass guitar drive your every move across the floor—and that’s true whether you notice the person playing the instrument or not. Read More »
Red Steagall, Country Hit-Maker and Cowboy Poet, Talks Texas Spirit and Overcoming Polio
Driving the backroads northwest of Fort Worth, you’d never know that one of the luminaries of Texas country and western music lives just around the bend. Down a gravel road, a pickup marked with Red Steagall’s “RS” brand signals that Steagall is around today. Inside his office, framed records and photos signed by the likes of Ronald Reagan line the wall, hinting at Steagall’s influential career. Read More »
Eh-Ha-Ha! Downtown Galveston Concert to Remember Influential Gulf Coast Cajun Fiddler
The Galveston Historical Foundation on Saturday will celebrate Harry Choates music with a free concert at Hendley Green with a performance by Gulf Coast musicians Kevin Anthony & G-Town, who’ve recently recorded an album of Choates’ songs. Read More »
A Masterpiece in the Heartland: New Book Tells the Story of Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum
In 'Of the First Class: A History of the Kimbell Art Museum,' author Tim Madigan chronicles the beginnings of one of the nation's great art museums in what was then an unexpected place, Fort Worth Read More »
All About that Bass Playlist
Listen to a playlist of songs mentioned in the October 2019 feature "All About that Bass" Read More »
El Paso Has a Fascinating Connection With a Small Himalayan Country
In 1914, National Geographic published an article about the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a remote Buddhist country tucked between India and China. El Paso resident Kathleen Worrell, who was married to the dean of the college that became the University of Texas at El Paso, was intrigued by the photographs of Bhutanese fortresses and monasteries. She also noted a resemblance between the rugged Himalayas and the Franklin Mountains that soar over El Paso. Three years later, as the college’s new campus was being built in the Franklin foothills, Worrell saw an opportunity. She asked her husband: Why not construct those buildings in the Bhutanese style? Read More »
Six Years After Moving to Mexico, Lauded Chicana Writer Sandra Cisneros Looks Back on Her 29 Years in San Antonio
Last spring, the writer Sandra Cisneros returned to San Antonio to meet with her accountant, address some computer issues, and have her mother’s fur hat professionally cleaned. Cisneros has lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, since 2013, but she resided in San Antonio for most of the 29 years prior, living in the King William District, where she stirred controversy for painting her Victorian cottage periwinkle. Her visit coincided with Fiesta San Antonio, and Cisneros appeared on the float “March To Your Own Drummer”—a fitting theme. “I think I can quote Fidel Castro here,” she says. ‘“History will absolve me.’” Read More »
Milton Brown, Bob Wills, and the Fort Worth Origins of One of Texas’ Most Beloved Musical Styles
Western swing was born about 4 miles southwest of downtown Fort Worth at the Crystal Springs Dance Pavilion, although you wouldn’t know it when driving past the now-empty lot near the West Fork of the Trinity River. In the early 1930s, the cavernous pavilion drew hundreds for the “hillbilly jazz” of Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies. While the venue burned down in 1966, Western swing is still going strong—a style that’s among the most recognizable roots of Texas music. Read More »
An Iconic Dance Hall in Big Spring Hosts an Eclectic Crowd
The fog is so thick that when I drive directly over the roadkill—the wheels of my Honda Civic eliciting a terrible ... Read More »
Sedrick Huckaby Makes Art for the People: From the Streets of Poly to a U.S. President
Sedrick Huckaby is a Big Momma’s boy. The Fort Worth contemporary artist is devoted to the spirit of his late grandmother, Hallie Beatrice Carpenter, or “Big Momma,” and finds inspiration in her century-old home. Located in Fort Worth’s Polytechnic Heights neighborhood, or Poly to locals, the house’s raw shiplap walls are adorned with Huckaby’s paintings of family and neighbors. Huckaby creates works here, but next year the space will take on new life when Huckaby opens it as a project space for artists, tentatively called Big Momma’s House. Read More »
Summer For Procrastinators: Honky-Tonks in Dallas
Where to indulge your Urban Cowboy fantasy in the heart of the big city Read More »
8 Summer Art Exhibits to See Now
Giant LEGO dinosaurs, superhero-themed paintings, and photographs of famous musicians are currently on exhibit at museums in Texas—but they won't be for much longer. Read More »
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