Center for Texas Music History

Saddened to hear of the passing of Michael Corcoran, one of the premier modern chroniclers of Texas Music. He started out as Lester Bangsian gonzo gadfly of the 80s Austin scene, grew into the prestigious role of the Statesman music beat, and in recent years sneakily joined his early punk fervor to deep historical research, winning Grammy noms in the process. His work on Arizona Dranes, Washington Phillips, and Blind Willie Johnson completely upended scholars' prior sense of those early Texas gospel artists, and his upcoming tome on the long history of the Austin scene may yet be his magnum opus (though it's of course hard to top 2020's Ghost Notes). Pictured here with Texas State grad students during a class visit in 2023. Few-if any-matched his knowledge of Austin music history, and Corcoran proved to be exceedingly generous with young writers who shared his interests and passions. He will be sorely missed.

Freddy Fender launches his country music comeback! 🪕🎙️ NEW Texas Music History 🚨 This Week In Texas Music History - Freddy Fender releases “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” 🌾🌄 In June 1975, Freddy Fender released a new version of his song “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” recorded at Houston’s historic SugarHill Studios. Audiences hadn’t heard much from the velvety San Benito singer for a while. Born Baldemar Huerta, Freddy Fender launched his career in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in the 1950s as a bilingual rockabilly with Spanish-language covers of Elvis Presley and Ray Charles. He signed to Imperial Records and was launching a second chapter in his career as a Swamp Pop crooner in Louisiana when a trivial drug best yielded serious prison time. He first recorded “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” in 1959. His prison term started in 1960.  When Fender got out, he returned to South Texas and worked as a mechanic, his music career seemingly in the rear-view mirror. In 1974, notorious producer Huey Meaux sought Fender out, and they recorded his song “When the Next Teardrop Falls” as a country ballad with Spanish verses. It struck a chord, and in 1975, Fender returned to the studio to make the iconic version of his signature tune, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”  Catch up on your Texas Music and Country Music History over at KUTX.org! 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - Freddy Fender comesback with “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” #thisweekintexasmusichistory #freddyfender #countrymusic #texascountrymusic

We were excited to hear the news about our friend Tara Lopez’s (@taramartinlopez ) book launch in El Paso last weekend at @sounddecayrecords ! Tara presented her work about women in El Paso’s punk scene at the Center for Texas Music History last spring (swipe for an image from that event!). 🎸 Chuco Punk explores the influential and predominantly Chicanx punk scene in El Paso, TX. You can buy Tara’s new book at the link in our bio 📖 Be on the lookout for an appearance from Tara in Austin in September! More info on this coming soon… . #chucopunk #taralopez #taramartinlopez #elpasopunk #chicanxpunk #texasmusic #texaspunk #texasmusichistory #utpress #elpaso

50 years of booze, brawls and bands behaving badly! 🍻🎂 NEW Texas Music History 🚨 This Week - a Hole in the Wall opens in Austin. 🕳️ On June 15, 1974, fifty years ago, Billie and Doug Cugini opened the Hole in the Wall as a casual bar across the street from the University of Texas at Austin. It didn’t book music from the beginning, but enough musicians hung out there in the progressive country heyday that it started to foster performance as a natural next step. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Doug Sahm, and Townes Van Zandt spent time there, but the Hole really excelled in fostering new and eccentric talent. Take Timbuk 3, the folk-rock duo of Pat MacDonald and Barbara K, who played the Hole in the Wall accompanied by rhythm tracks on cassette. Bookings at the Hole paved their way to an appearance on MTV and the indelible 80s hit “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.”  It wasn’t the only top 40 single forged in the Hole. In 1998, another venue stalwart, the band Fastball, found national success with the wistful love song “The Way.” A whole book could be written of the music made in the Hole in the Wall between the years of those two hits, 1986 and 1998. That it was across the street from the Austin City Limits studios also meant that big names popped by now and again, a surprise visit from Emmylou Harris or a Don Henley game enough to sit in with Mojo Nixon for a rousing version of “Don Henley Must Die.”  There’s a Spoon music video and Alejandro Escovedo’s glam project Buick MacKane, an early Nanci Griffith residency and seedy lore on Courtney Love... Find more Texas Music History and lore on @hitwatx over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - The Hole In The Wall opens in Austin! #austinmusic #thisweekintexasmusichistory #austinhistory #divebar

The Center’s Administrative Coordinator, Avery Armstrong, had the opportunity to attend the International Country Music Conference last week in Nashville, TN. Presentation topics ranged from nature in country music; to unsung Black country artist Howdy Glenn; to how the Birthplace of Country Music Museum restored a damaged recording of Bristol’s radio program “Farm and Fun Time”; to the mass exodus of women from country music…and so much more! The conference held a special event this year with @rick_rockdriguez and @orlandojmendezmusic about Latino influence in country music, moderated by @greish01 (swipe for an amazing performance!) 🪗 Avery also had the opportunity to tour the Grand Ole Opry with @jennruchyoung , a @txsthistory alumni and current Opry employee! As always, the conference concluded with a singing of “Happy Trails” (last slide)…’til we meet again 🎻 . #countrymusic #internationalcountrymusicconference #icmc2024 #icmc24 #grandoleopry #nashville #nashvillecountry

The Clash Rock The Drag 🌇📽️💥 NEW Texas Music History 🚨 This Week in Texas Music History, Middle Eastern politics, English punks, and Austin audiences converge in an iconic 80s music video. 📹🎸 On June 8 and 9, 1982, the English punk band the Clash filmed the video for 80s anthem “Rock the Casbah” in Austin. It wasn’t their first encounter with the Lone Star State. While the rival Sex Pistols booked a 1978 Texas tour to start fights and make headlines, what drew Joe Strummer and the Clash was a genuine affection for Buddy Holly, Texas rockabilly, and Western mythology. When they met Lubbock’s own Joe Ely in London in 1978, the band’s affair with the state kicked into high gear. They first came to Austin the next year for a show at the Armadillo World Headquarters, and a picture from that date figures into the album art for the classic Clash album London Calling. In 1982, they launched the Combat Rock tour in Amarillo, and their Texas appearances encompassed Wichita Falls and Laredo, sites not typically on the itineraries of globe-trotting rock stars.  Which means it would be no surprise when the Clash chose Austin for the “Rock the Casbah” video, directed by their producer and musical partner, punk icon Don Letts. Learn more about The Clash and Austin’s Music History over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - @the_clash film ‘Rock The Casbah’ in Austin! #theclash #texasmusichistory #austinmusic #rockthecasbah

The Dicks out at Punk Prom ⁉️⚒️🧨 On May 16, 1980, the band the Dicks made their performance debut as part of the Punk Prom at Austin’s Armadillo World Headquarters. The capital’s emerging punk bands had tended to stick to their own venues like Raul’s near UT rather than the country-rock temple of the Armadillo, but they had appeared with touring acts there before. The Skunks opened for the Ramones and Terminal Mind for Iggy Pop, but 1980’s Punk Prom was the first bill comprised entirely of local punk bands at the iconic Armadillo World Headquarters.  The spring of 1980 was a time of transition. The Armadillo was in its final year of operation, but before the stage that had seen Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, and Count Basie darkened, it hosted this full-on punk prom. In reconstructed and tattered formal dress, the Big Boys, the Next, Reactors, and Sharon Tate’s Baby performed, plus a new band with a big future, the Dicks, fronted by an agitated purple and pink-mohawked vocalist, Gary Floyd.  Floyd, a gay man fronting a punk band in Texas, helped ignite a queer punk revolution. While their debut performance was only a few weeks after the band had formed, the Dicks’ sound was forged and hatched a new wave of Austin punk. Gary Floyd’s lyrical attacks against police brutality, homophobia, and other injustices were brash and unfiltered, while Glen Taylor’s acidic guitar and the rhythm section of Pat Deason and Buxf Parrot laid blueprints for the emerging hardcore punk sound.  Floyd told writer David Ensminger that Austin punk “had nothing to do with the Sex Pistols or the Ramones. It had to do with your own personal life changing.” In the first half of the 1980s, the Dicks made that clear, energizing a politicized punk scene with representation for all. Learn more about Texas Music History and Gary Floyd’s legacy over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - The Dicks debut during Punk Prom at Armadillo World Headquarters. #thedicks #garyfloyd #texasmusichistory #austinmusic #punkrock

Come dancing! 🪕🎶 On May 8, 1954, Hoyle Nix and his brother Ben of the band the West Texas Cowboys opened the Stampede dance hall just outside of Big Spring, Texas. On that night, more than 1,000 Western swing fans and dancers squeezed into the 500-person-capacity venue. A long, narrow building with unfinished walls and exposed rafters, the Stampede featured stage murals of cattle-roping cowboys and, most importantly, a hardwood dancefloor.  The Nix brothers formed the West Texas Cowboys in 1946, and the Stampede was a successful effort to capitalize on Hoyle Nix’s regional renown while providing a reliable venue for dances. Among Hoyle Nix’s claims to fame was writing and popularizing the Western swing standard “Big Ball’s in Cowtown.” For 31 years, Nix and the West Texas Cowboys were the house band at the Stampede, and since 1985, Hoyle’s son Jody Nix has led his band the Texas Cowboys at the dance hall. A roll call of honkytonk and Western swing artists has played the Stampede, including Bobby Flores, T. Texas Tyler, and Johnny Bush… Brush up on your Texas Music History featuring plenty of swing and dancin’ over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - The Stampede opens in Big Spring! #thestampede #westernswing #texasmusichistory #bigspringtx

OH YEAHH! LETS ‘RASSLE 🏆🤼‍♂️🚨 On May 1, 1953, the Sportatorium burned down in Dallas amid rumors of arson by rival promoters. The popular venue had operated since 1935 and was the home of the Big D Jamboree, a country music variety broadcast that was Dallas’s answer to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry or Shreveport’s Louisiana Hayride. Owner Ed McLemore wasted little time in rebuilding. By September 22, 1953, the new 6,300-capacity structure, dubbed “The Millon Dollar Sportatorium,” resumed activities on South Industrial Boulevard. Over the years the venue hosted a who’s who of country and rockabilly, including Johnny Cash, Wanda Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Hank Williams, Sr. 1956 saw the Jamboree debut of an artist closely associated with the program, Waxahachie’s Ronnie Dawson, aka “The Blonde Bomber,” with his hard-edged teen rockabilly anthems like “Action Packed” and “Rockin’ Bones.” And while the Big D Jamboree alone solidifies the Sportatorium’s place in pop culture history, wrestling played an equal part in the venue’s success... Find more Texas Music History along with more on the Sportatorium & Big ‘D’ Jamboree over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - the Dallas Sportatorium burns down. #sportatorium #bigdjamboree #texasmusichistory #rasslin

Happy 91st Birthday, Willie! 🎂 Photo by Dan Winters via Texas Monthly. . #willienelson #texasmusic #texasmusichistory

Like father like son. 👥🪗🎶 On April 24, 1913, conjunto accordionist Santiago Jimenez, Sr. was born in San Antonio. The accordion runs in the family. Santiago’s father, from Eagle Pass, was also an accordionist and had Santiago playing the instrument by age eight. Santiago’s sons Flaco and Santiago, Jr., too, would each leave indelible marks on the conjunto genre. As for Santiago Sr., by the 1930s he was playing professionally on San Antonio radio station KEDA and made his first Decca recording in 1936. Jimenez’s midcentury style blended tradition and innovation, pioneering the use of the tololoche bass as accompaniment while also sticking to the two-button accordion as others moved on to fancier versions of the instrument. Jimenez recorded many of his classic tracks during WWII, including the enduring “Viva Seguin” in 1942, celebrating a town that supported his early performances. In the 1960s, Jimenez left San Antonio and professional recording for Dallas and other opportunities. His sons, Flaco Jimenez and Santiago Jimenez, Jr., took up the accordion where their father left off, mirroring his particular blend of tradition and innovation... Check out some more Texas Music History along with more conjuto history over at KUTX.org 🎖️ KUTX is partnering with @centerfortxmusichistory to bring you This Week In Texas Music History. This Week - the birth of Santiago Jimenez Sr. #santiagojimenezsr #conjunto #texasmusichistory

🎶 “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas”…this Sunday! 🎶 📖 Join author @davedaltonthomas for a book release party and book signing of his new work on Willie’s Picnic. The perfect place to celebrate!! 🎟️ This event is FREE and begins at 1pm on Sunday, April 28th. If you still haven’t grabbed your copy, head to the link in our bio to find the A&M Press website. . #luckenbach #luckenbachtexas #willienelson #williespicnic #texasmusic #texasmusichistory #cosmiccowboy #progressivecountry