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 […]
Today is the birthday of Johnny Winter. He would be 83 today. Beaumont, Texas sits in the Golden Triangle — the industrial coastal zone where the refineries run day and night and blues music grew up in the roadhouses between the shift changes. John Dawson Winter III was born there on February 23, 1944. He […]
Today is the birthday of Steve Jordan. He would be 88 today. Steve Jordan of Elsa, Texas, played the accordion like it owed him money. He lost sight in one eye as a child, then turned that limit into legend. Fans nicknamed him "El Parche," Spanish for "the patch," after his eyepatch. Critics later called […]
Today is the birthday of Erykah Badu. She would be 56 today. Erykah Badu grew up in South Dallas, Texas, surrounded by gospel, jazz, and incense smoke. She started performing as a teenager at Dallas's famed Black Forest Theatre. Badu released her debut album Baduizm in 1997, and it went triple platinum. Fans still call […]
Today is the birthday of Bob Wills. He would be 122 today. James Robert Wills was born on March 6, 1905, on a farm near Kosse in Limestone County, Texas. His father played fiddle. His grandfather played fiddle. The fiddle was already in the blood. He grew up dancing to it at breakdown dances across […]
Today is the birthday of Townes Van Zandt. He would be 83 today. John Townes Van Zandt was born in Fort Worth, Texas on March 7, 1944, into a family that had given the city its name — the Van Zandts were Texas founders. He grew up wealthy and restless, studying law briefly, then falling […]
Today is the birthday of Ornette Coleman. He would be 97 today. Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was born in Fort Worth, Texas on March 9, 1930. Fort Worth's Southside was a thriving Black neighborhood with its own clubs, its own music economy, its own culture. Coleman grew up inside it. He taught himself to play […]
