Carrie Rodriguez
Trained in classical violin at the Berkeley School of Music and expertly apprenticed in songwriting and performing by the great Chip Taylor, Carrie... 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.
Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson is a living testament to the ethic of the singer-songwriter. Introspective and gregarious, astute observer of the ebb and flow of... Read more →
Mickey Newbury
The songs of Mickey Newbury came from a place of serenity and sadness, beautiful recollections of the ones we left behind, pretty portraits of... Read more →
Guy Clark
Guy Clark, who left this world on May 16, 2016, was one of the Texas songwriters who made the path and led the way. His work embodies all... Read more →
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Someone, can’t remember who, once said that Van Morrison was the only musician to have invented a personal emotional equivalent of the... Read more →
Kelly Willis
Kelly Willis was born in the red dirt of Lawton, Oklahoma and lived the displaced life of an army child, unable to put down roots in any one place... Read more →
Mary Gauthier
Having been mentioned, with other visionaries, in Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Name Droppin’”, Mary Gauthier has plenty of Texas cred and the life... Read more →
Steve Earle
Following the 1986 release of Guitar Town, Steve Earle was hailed as the savior of country music. Three decades later, and despite personal detours... Read more →
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 →
Eliza Gilkyson
Few songwriters have achieved Eliza Gilkyson’s poetic soup of inventiveness, gravitas and sheer emotion. Her songs are a flowing literature of joy,... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Amanda Shires
Amanda Shires songs are grounded but ethereal, enchanting original work delivered with a husky voice that can suddenly erupt into a bird-like trill.... 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 →
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 →
Houston Marchman
It’s a safe bet that Houston Marchman’s breath is tinged with road dust and a little farm-grade diesel. His songs are classic Texas folk, weary... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
