It’s that week again. Larry Joe Taylor Fest is nigh upon us. Out in Stephenville, the gates are opening, the campers are rolling in, and the long arc of Texas Music is bending back toward Melody Mountain Ranch for another year of LJT. No matter how many festivals pop up, no matter how many lineups get debated, this is still the flagship and tentpole of Texas Music. It’s the one everything else quietly measures itself against. We had our run of attending, twenty years straight. We were the...

When the conversation turns to great Texas songwriters, Dub Miller’s name still feels criminally under-discussed. But those who know, know. Miller is about as Texan as they come. A former student and Corps member at Texas A&M, he’s worn just about every hat a working Texan can wear. He’s worked ranches and farms, spent time around oil rigs, worked in John Dickson’s production office, and even flirted with law school before living a purposeful life as a husband and father on the edge of the...

There are artists you admire and then there are artists who become part of the fabric of your life. Merle Haggard was the latter. Ten years after his passing, his presence has not faded. If anything, it has settled deeper into the bones of the places and people that shaped us. On a cold fall night in 2001, I saw one of my musical heroes in the flesh for the first and what would be the only time. It was a strange season in the country. Life was moving fast in the wake of 9 11, and I was fully...