Today is the birthday of Mac Davis. He would be 85 today. Scott Davis was born in Lubbock, Texas on January 21, 1942, in the same flat, sun-hammered West Texas world that produced Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings. Unlike them, Davis didn't stay in music's underground. He went straight for the mainstream and hit it […]
Today is the birthday of Angela Strehli. She is 81 today. Angela Strehli was born in Lubbock, Texas on January 22, 1945. She could have stayed in West Texas. Instead, she moved to Austin in the late 1960s and helped build something from the ground up. Strehli co-founded Antone's Records and became a central figure […]
Today is the birthday of Blind Willie Johnson. He would be 130 today. Blind Willie Johnson grew up near Temple, Texas, and violence took his sight as a child. He never let that darkness silence him, though. Instead, he picked up a guitar and played it with a pocketknife slide. His voice rasped like gravel […]
Today is the birthday of Johnny "Guitar" Watson. He would be 92 today. Johnny "Guitar" Watson grew up in Houston, Texas, playing piano in his father's church. But a neighbor named Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown changed everything. Watson traded the piano bench for a guitar, and he never looked back. He played it behind his head. […]
Today is the birthday of King Curtis. He would be 93 today. King Curtis grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, blowing saxophone in local church bands. He moved to New York as a teenager, chasing bigger stages and bigger paychecks. But his Texas honk never left his playing, not for one second. That raw, gritty […]
Today is the birthday of Ernest Tubb. He would be 113 today. Crisp, Texas sits in Ellis County, about thirty miles south of Dallas. It barely registers on a map. But Ernest Dale Tubb was born there on February 9, 1914, and that matters. He grew up listening to Jimmie Rodgers records and was devoted […]
Today is the birthday of Joe Ely. He is 80 today. Joe Ely was born in Amarillo, Texas on February 9, 1947. The Panhandle stamped itself on him permanently — the flat horizons, the wind, the sense that you're always standing on the edge of something too big to name. He moved to Lubbock as […]
Today is the birthday of Gary Clark Jr. He is 43 today. Gary Clark Jr. was born in Austin, Texas on February 15, 1984. He grew up playing guitar around East Austin, getting noticed at Antone's while still in his teens. Clifford Antone himself started booking Clark when he was seventeen. That kind of early […]
Today is the birthday of Megan Thee Stallion. She would be 32 today. Megan Thee Stallion entered the world in San Antonio, but Houston, Texas made her a star. Her family moved to Houston's South Park neighborhood when she was young. She freestyled over Houston's slow, syrupy beats before major labels ever knew her name. […]
Today is the birthday of Lou Ann Barton. She is 73 today. Lou Ann Barton was born in Fort Worth, Texas on February 17, 1954. She moved to Austin in her early twenties and immediately became one of the most in-demand voices on the Sixth Street blues circuit. Her voice could do things other singers […]
Today is the birthday of Johnny Bush. He would be 92 today. Johnny Bush grew up in Kashmere Gardens, a working-class Houston, Texas neighborhood. He wrote "Whiskey River" in 1972, then watched someone else turn it into an anthem. Willie Nelson adopted the song as his concert opener for over fifty years. Bush recorded it […]
Today is the birthday of Buddy Tate. He would be 114 today. Buddy Tate's tenor saxophone sounded like a Sunday sermon shouted over a rowdy dance floor. He grew up in Sherman, Texas, soaking up gospel and blues from an early age. Buddy Tate's Sherman, Texas roots gave his tone a warmth that never turned […]
