David Halley
Born in Oklahoma City and reared in Lubbock, David Halley blew into Austin in 1983 and commenced blowing minds with 1990’s Stray Dog Talk, a stone... Read more →
Songwriter Profiles
Our favorite songwriters who have paid their dues and earned their stripes. Many have Texas roots and many more have been impacted by the Austin music scene. It’s a pretty long list, and it just keeps growing.
John Hiatt
John Hiatt was born in Indianapolis, but you'd swear from his lyrics that he was a southern son of Memphis or New Orleans, maybe even Muscle Shoals.... Read more →
Ana Egge
Ana Egge’s voice pulls from some deep well, somber and strong, calming but bracing. With roots in North Dakota, New Mexico, Austin, and now... Read more →
Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen married careless soul with country smart-ass and came up smiling. He has captured the coarse irony of good people tumbling across... 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 →
Joe Ely
In 1977, Joe Ely came blowing out of Lubbock with his first record, Joe Ely, after sowing the early seeds of the High Plains scene with other hardy... Read more →
BettySoo
BettySoo writes profound pop/folk with just enough country to makes things comfortable. At once powerful and vulnerable, she handles us like a big... Read more →
Jason Isbell
Jason Isbell’s music is raw in substance but perfectly polished in execution, sort of like Neil Young sitting in with Crosby, Stills & Nash... Read more →
Darden Smith
Since moving to Austin in the early eighties to attend the University of Texas, Darden Smith has grown into a renowned songwriter and performer, as... Read more →
David Ramirez
David Ramirez writes melodic, brooding songs of love and life, delivering them with perfect pitch and regret. Young, but hopeful despite his... 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 →
Terry Allen
It is no secret that West Texas produces musicians of uncommon creativity and grit, likely the result of too much flat land and steady wind.... 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 →
Carolyn Wonderland
Resurrecting Texans from Freddie King to Janis Joplin, Carolyn Wonderland burns the blues with her rolling originals, piercing voice and blistering... Read more →
Blaze Foley
The story of Blaze Foley, the songwriter, is too often lost in the legend of Blaze Foley, the “Duct Tape Messiah”. Hard drinking, homelessness,... Read more →
Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith was born to musical parents in Seguin, Texas, and was playing clubs down the road in Austin by the age of fourteen. She continued to... Read more →
Jesse Winchester
It is absolutely worth your while to rediscover the recently passed Jesse Winchester, a writer of uncommon heart, wit and grace. Born in 1944 in... Read more →
Sam Baker
Heralded as among America’s finest songwriters since his debut in 2004, Sam Baker is a stone cold original with no discernible influences other... 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 →
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison's voice might have been enough, as strong and versatile as ever to grace American roots music. But stack that voice next to the... Read more →
Freddie King
Hailing from Gilmer, Texas, Freddie King held his own with B. B. King, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, and other masters of the electric blues. In the... Read more →
Michael Fracasso
Michael Fracasso’s voice is high, pure and lonesome, but full of hope and strength, and his delicate songs beg us to feel a little deeper. On-stage... Read more →
Ted Hawkins
Ted Hawkins lived a hard life, but his journey was a gift to us all. Born black and poor in Mississippi, he did time in reform school and prison... Read more →
Justin Trevino
If you’re a two-stepper, find Justin Trevino in a Hill Country beer joint and travel back a few decades. Born in Brownsville, raised in Austin and... Read more →
