On the eve of South by Southwest the hippies are about. Camping stoves sizzle on the busy sidewalk outside the Moody Theater in Downtown Austin. For the past 50 years, a caravan of bohemians, hitchhikers, bikers, soul-searchers, music obsessed fans and vendors have followed Bob Weir around, setting up mobile cities in the parking lots […]
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Keith Kallina and the Ghost of Etta Place On a vast southwest landscape as the bright sun starts to rise Keith Kallina pulls into a traveler’s outpost. He fills up his SUV for a busy weekend of touring as he tells the legend of Etta Place, one of the most compelling members of Butch Cassidy’s […]
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Jaimee Harris at C Boy’s Heart and Soul A faded sign advertising mixed drinks for the once established Rome Inn hangs above the back door at C Boy’s Heart and Soul. The popular nightclub is a living shrine to the soul artists that put the Lone Star State on the map, with large murals on […]
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On the eve of his fortieth birthday, singer-songwriter Justin Upshaw filled one of the finest listening rooms in the Southwest. The Redbird Listening Room has built a name over the past two years hosting performances by Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chris Knight, Bill Hearne, Willis Alan Ramsey and other notable songwriters. “Howdy,” Upshaw said as he […]
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Todd Snider, Jack Ingram, and Halleyanna Finlay played a show in Luckenbach Christmas lights line the walkway leading into Luckenbach, the well known geographical oddity on the outskirts of Austin that boasts a population of three. The ceiling is adorned with Christmas wreaths and a cool breeze floats through the propped open plywood windows. A […]
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Lori Ellen — “Ghost” There’s a school teacher in South Austin that spends her evenings moonlighting with the Midnight Girls, her summers volunteering for the Kerrville Folk Festival, and her fall in the Terlingua Desert in Far West Texas. Lori Ellen’s first single “Ghost” is an intimate portrait of the memories scribbled in her songbook. […]
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Caleb Wilbourn — Out West Now I rinsed out my eyes for the fifth time as purple clouds escaped over the Santa Elena Canyon. The dust storms can really put a callus on your pupil out in Far West Texas, home to picturesque settings that could serve as the backdrop in a John Ford western. […]
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Kerrville Folk Festival 2022 The mixmaster I’m keen to has eight freeways colliding like rapids on an expedition… where you grip the wheel and grind your teeth as you twist like a bobsled in a corkscrew. The 50th annual Kerrville Folk Festival has a much more inviting mixmaster, one paved with gravel and steeped in […]
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Craig Marshall — “Turn Around” A blurry image of someone pushing through the exit door of a South Austin honky tonk serves as a guide for Craig Marshall’s new single “Turn Around.” “It was late somewhere, it was closing time,” Marshall sings as Grahame O’Shea plays a subtle train beat for anticipation. “I was only […]
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Redbird Listening Room’s One Year Anniversary I’m crunching stones on a gravel road in the river beds of Blanco, Texas praying my crumbling tires won’t explode. I’ve got an hour to cut around Canyon Lake and cruise through Wimberley for the Redbird Listening Room’s one year anniversary. “This old house was built in the 30’s,” […]
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