The Mt. Rushmore of Our Music Towns

Texas Music and Red Dirt isn’t just a genre, it’s a lifestyle. A subculture stitched together by songs. It’s music made on back porches and backroads, born from life and honed on stories.

And while these days you can hear it worldwide, there are four towns where it took root and changed lives.

Stillwater. Lubbock. College Station. San Marcos.

DFW and Houston have the population. Austin has the prestige and history. New Braunfels and Stephenville have played vital roles. But when you step back and ask where the true soul of this movement was formed, where the music found its identity, it all points back to those four towns.

Stillwater, OK

Josh Crutchmer could and has explained this much better and in great detail with his books. Essentially, this is where it all started. Where Bob Childers gathered a ragtag bunch of poets on a farm outside of town and called it home. The Farm wasn’t a venue, it was a revolution.

From those humble jam sessions grew a scene unlike any other. It gave us Jimmy LaFave and Mike McClure. Cody Canada and Jason Boland. Stoney and Turnpike along with so many other all trace their roots to Stillwater.

Stillwater didn’t care about charts or labels. It cared about truth. It created a sound that was truth and defiance. Red Dirt was born in a living room with mismatched couches and cold beer. And it has never forgot that.

Lubbock, TX

Lubbock is where songwriters go to bleed on the page. It’s an isolated city that somehow keeps producing the most passionate voices this music has ever known. Buddy Holly set the precedent, but the legacy carried on with The Flatlanders, Terry Allen and soon enough Cory Morrow and Pat Green. Together they turned the entire game upside down.

Pat proved it could happen. You could be a superstar and never leave the Red and Rio Grande. He figured that out in Lubbock. Wade Bowen came next and made The Blue Light and landmark. Josh Abbott followed and built a pipeline. William Clark Green sharpened the edge. Cleto Cordero took lessons from them all and headed to arenas. Lubbock taught its musicians to write with conviction and sing like the world might end before the encore. They’ve taken that mindset across Texas and the world.

College Station, TX

You may not think of College Station and immediately think of music. But you should.

Robert Earl Keen created a blueprint on his front porch with Lyle Lovett 50 years ago and everyone is still chasing it.

Tucked between tailgates and midnight yells is a supportive group of passionate listeners that helped birth some of the most essential voices of this music. Jamie Lin Wilson, Dub Miller, Roger Creager etc. A&M isn’t just about traditions, it is about connections. Guitars on porches. Nights on Northgate. The songs that start there and cross the globe.

San Marcos, TX

And then there’s San Marcos.

Where the river flows slow but the music still hits as hard as it ever has. Where the ghosts of George Strait’s earliest gigs still hover over Nephew’s and Cheatham Street Warehouse. Where Kent Finlay built a songwriting haven and let the misfits come as they were.

It’s where Randy Rogers cut his teeth, grew a model career and has mentored countless songwriters who have followed in his footsteps.

San Marcos doesn’t just support the music, it is the music. And when you’re standing in that old shack by the tracks with a song in your chest, it all makes sense.

These towns aren’t just places you plug into your GPS, they’re important pilgrimages. . They’re the compass points of Texas/Red Dirt music. Each one shaped the scene in its own way.

Stillwater gave us the name and the ethos.

Lubbock gave us the attitude.

College Station gave us the blueprint.

San Marcos gave us the soul.