Austin: Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas at ACL Live
Michael Martin Murphey brings his Cowboy Christmas show to ACL Live at the Moody Theater in Austin on Friday, Nov. 27, 2026, the day after Thanksgiving. The 8:00 PM performance mixes Western holiday songs with the hits that made him famous, and tickets start at $53.
About Michael Martin Murphey
Born in Dallas and raised in Oak Cliff, Murphey was part of the wave of literate Texas songwriters who reshaped country music in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His early songs were recorded by artists ranging from the Monkees to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and his own records, including the 1972 album Geronimo’s Cadillac, helped define the progressive country sound coming out of Austin at the time.
In 1975 “Wildfire,” his haunting ballad about a ghostly horse, became a top-five pop hit, and he later reached No. 1 on the country chart with “What’s Forever For” in 1982. Starting with his 1990 album Cowboy Songs, Murphey turned his attention to traditional Western and cowboy music, a body of work that includes his Cowboy Christmas recordings and has made him the genre’s best-known modern ambassador.
Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas tour has become a holiday tradition in Texas, mixing carols, campfire ballads, and stories of ranch life into a show that feels equally at home in a dance hall or a theater. He has been active on the road in Texas this fall too, including a stop covered on our map at Red River Station in Saint Jo.
A post-Thanksgiving night out at the Moody is a good way to kick off the holiday season with family. Get your tickets on StubHub before the long weekend.
Doors typically open an hour before showtime. Black Friday shopping and holiday events can make downtown busier than usual, so leave extra time for traffic and parking.