“You Can’t Break My Heart” by Miles Zuniga
Miles performs "You Can't Break My Heart" for Austin Songwriter. If only that were... Read more →
Jimmie Vaughan
Jimmie Vaughan learned to play the guitar while growing up in Dallas, and headed south in the late sixties to help create the emerging Austin rhythm... Read more →
Blaze Foley by Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten remembers the immortal Blaze with a beautiful take on Oooh... Read more →
Janis Joplin
>Janis Joplin's short life illuminated many hard truths. The isolation of a social outsider, the perils that lay in wait for a willful and hard... Read more →
Ruthie Foster
Many fine artists had their beginnings in gospel. Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Al Greene, even Elvis and Jerry Lee. A surprising progression,... Read more →
“Dean Moriarty” by Eric Taylor
Eric Taylor performs his pensive "Dean Moriarty", with wife Susan, in The... Read more →
Shinyribs
It’s like you finally started listening to your old drunk uncle from Shreveport and realized he was channeling an enlightened hillbilly cocktail of... Read more →
Max Gomez
Max Gomez was raised in the starkly beautiful terrain that surrounds Taos, New Mexico. Nothing that the average American would recognize. Tall,... Read more →
“Secret Heart” by Ron Sexsmith
The sensitive boy from Canada with some sage and impossibly gorgeous... Read more →
“Copperhead Road” by Steve Earle
A young Steve Earle reminds us of the angst of the Vietnam... Read more →
Jo Carol Pierce
The empty spaces of West Texas have proven a petri dish for the fashioning of powerful but unorthodox art. Music, of course, but also literature,... Read more →
Patty Griffin
Patty Griffin lays herself bare in achingly beautiful meditations on love and all the things that bear on love. Work that is completely fresh... Read more →
Ryan Bingham
Ryan Bingham is the real thing. A real Texan, a real rodeo cowboy, a real songwriter. An old friend once remarked, after listening to a young Bingham... Read more →
Rodney Crowell
Rodney Crowell entered the world at Crosby (formerly known as "Lick Skillet"), Texas, and was raised in a musical family in Houston. He started... Read more →
Carrie Rodriguez tears up “I Cry for Love”
... Read more →
David Ramirez Rocks the Texas Hill Country
Ramirez lays it down on a twilight tour of the beautiful Texas countryside.... Read more →
“There Stands the Glass” by Ted Hawkins
The one and only Ted Hawkins lends his heart-stopping voice to this classic country song. This one will wake you... Read more →
“Groover’s Paradise” by Doug Sahm
Mr. Sahm called Austin his "Groover's Paradise". Enough... Read more →
“100 Miles to Mexico” by Vince Bell
Feed the dog and grab the keys. Vince is taking us to... Read more →
Bruce Robison
Bruce Robison hales from the storied Texas town of Bandera, way out on the western edge of the paradise they call the Hill Country. One of the... Read more →
Walt Wilkins Interview (November 23, 2016)
“Journeyman” usually refers to a seasoned and reliable guitarist or drummer, but what does it mean for a songwriter? In the case of Walt Wilkins,... Read more →
“Without Love” by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Ray Wylie’s simplest ode to love. Enough said. See his austinsongwriter profile... Read more →
Drew Kennedy
Drew Kennedy bases out of New Braunfels, a lovely Texas Hill Country town nestled along the banks of the Comal and Guadalupe rivers between Austin... Read more →
“Killing the Blues” by Chris Smither
The magnificent Chris Smither does Rowland Salley's "Killing the... Read more →
“John Doe No. 24” by Mary Chapin Carpenter
Mary Chapin Carpenter with an almost impossibly beautiful story about an impossibly beautiful... Read more →
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is a musical renaissance woman. An important songwriter, but also a dazzling guitarist and singer of extraordinary power with... Read more →
“Fold Your Wings” by Kevin Welch
Kevin Welch explores the layers of regret that can settle over long time love. He asks his lover to forget the pain, if only for a little while, and... Read more →
Saxon Pub
Consistently excellent music is served up at the cozy Saxon Pub seven nights a week. Comfortably worn around the edges, this iconic venue is a... Read more →
Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez
While their significant individual accomplishments are also profiled here, Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez also collaborated for several... Read more →
“Save Her Love” by Michael Fracasso
A young Michael with some sage... Read more →
Chris Smither with Dylan’s “Desolation Row”
Smither, who ranks with the great Jimmy LaFave in interpreting Dylan's work, with an early... Read more →
John Prine’s “Hello in There”
John Prine's favorite song. A gorgeous portrait of the dusty realities of growing... Read more →
Eric Taylor
Eric Taylor’s voice sounds a little like God’s might, starting off low and considered and ending up booming and insistent, as though he were... Read more →
“Walnut Street” by Walt Wilkins
Walt's tribute to wooden walls full of memories and dimpled windows that still let in the... Read more →
Eliza Gilkyson with her meditation on love, “Coast”
... Read more →
“Up To The Mountain” by Patty Griffin
The incomparable Patty Griffin with her ode to the struggles of Dr. Martin Luther King. Do something beautiful... Read more →
B. W. Stevenson
Looking a bit like an Amish Hoss Cartwright, B. W. “Buckwheat” Stevenson turned heads even in the spectacle of seventies Austin. A native of... Read more →
Vince Bell
Vince Bell was born in Dallas in 1951 and the road has since taken him to homes in Venezuela, Houston, Austin, California, Fredericksburg, Nashville... Read more →
Leeann Atherton
"Sass" is a revered quality in Texas, a blend of joy, spunk and casual fearlessness. If you've got it, you'll have friends aplenty in the Lone Star... Read more →
Carrie Rodriguez sings “Lola”
In a beautiful call to the past, Carrie dreams of Lola Beltran and Javier... Read more →
Van Morrison
Austin Songwriter reluctantly concedes that the best living songwriter is not from Texas, not even born on American soil. This person’s name is not... Read more →
BettySoo with the classic “You Don’t Know Me”
BettySoo's gorgeous take on the eternal classic by the legendary Cindy... Read more →
Kat Edmonson sings “Hopelessly Blue” by Miles Zuniga
... Read more →
Lucinda Williams
It is impossible to exaggerate Lucinda Williams’ significance to the evolution of alternative country music. An early voice of independence and... Read more →
Doug Sahm
Doug Sahm’s influence on Texas music is not well enough known, but impossible to overstate. With his original stew of rock and roll, country, soul,... Read more →
Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”, by Ruthie Foster and Blues Traveler
Everything's gonna be... Read more →
Joe Ely and his stunning “Slow You Down”, with Joel Guzman
A lotta love, a little lust. Joe Ely slow dances his truck stop girl into highway... Read more →
Lyle Lovett’s “Flyswatter/Ice Water Blues”
Lyle... Read more →
Billy Joe Shaver
Stories abound about Billy Joe Shaver, the tragedies endured, the stands taken, the paths chosen. Suffice to say that there is not an insincere bone... Read more →
Stephen Bruton
Raised in a Fort Worth musical family, Stephen Bruton grew into a pillar of the Austin music scene before his death in 2009. He made his name as a... Read more →
Shinyribs’ “All About That Bass”
The genius of Kevin Russell. See his Austin Songwriter profile... Read more →
“Waves” by Sam Baker
With help from Carrie Elkin and Chip Dolan, Sam paints the eternal beauty of fifty years of marriage. Performed live at the Folly Theater in Kansas... Read more →
Kevin Welch
Another Hill Country master with a streak of Oklahoma red dirt, Kevin Welch cuts a handsome swath of contemplation, sincerity and integrity.... Read more →
Alejandro Escovedo’s haunting “Rosalie”
I guess we've all had our "Rosalie". Or wish we... Read more →