Music of Texas - Country Music

Country Music

Texan honky-tonk country musicians like Milton Brown and Bob Wills helped invent Western swing while Grammy Award winning artists like Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel tour the country and release recordings that keep Western Swing alive. Other genres of country evolve, like Marcia Ball, combining country with Cajun influences. The Texan Ernest Tubb, and his country song "I'm Walking the Floor Over You" was a song which set the stage for the rise of stars like Lefty Frizzell and Johnny Horton.

Ponty Bone, Joe Ely, Lloyd Maines, Butch Hancock, Terry Allen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Tommy Hancock, among others, helped invent the 1960s Lubbock sound, based out of Lubbock, Texas. Outlaw country was another offshoot that had roots in Texas, with Texans like Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker and Willie Nelson leading the movement, ably supported by writers like Billy Joe Shaver. It was this scene, based out of Austin, that inspired performers like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, whose poetic narratives owed much to the folk tradition and who proved enormously influential on younger Texan artists as Nanci Griffith and Steve Earle who inspired the later alternative country scene.

Tex Ritter and Jim Reeves both grew up in Panola County in East Texas. Another song writer Lester D. Thornton known as Lester D./Texassongwriter (Colors) comes from Cushing, Texas north west of Nacogdoches the town that produced Bob Luman back in the 50's.

Mac Davis is a singer and songwriter from Lubbock. He became one of the most successful country singers of the 1970s and 1980s.

Kenny Rogers, from Houston, has a career spanning for over 50 years. His album, The Gambler, remains one of the most famous country albums ever released, having sold a reported 35 million copies world-wide. Despite his huge success he has yet to be inducted into either The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame or Country Music Hall of Fame. However, the BBC did name him the second best performer of all-time in a 1999 Country Music television special.

Also from the Houston area are Clint Black (grew up in Memorial), Robert Earl Keen (Sharpstown), and Lyle Lovett (grew up near Klein).

Modern musicians like George Strait continue to carry on the tradition of country music in Texas. George is an American country music singer, actor, and music producer. Strait is referred to as the "King of Country," and critics call Strait a living legend. He is known for his unique style of western swing music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, and fresh yet traditional Country music. George Strait holds the world record for more number-one hit singles than any other artist in the history of music on any chart or in any genre, having recorded 58 number-one hit singles as of 2011.

Within country music, the works of singers such as Robert Earl Keen, Kevin Fowler, Cory Morrow, Jack Ingram, Mark David Manders, Jerry Jeff Walker, Pat Green, Wade Bowen, the Eli Young Band and others are often dubbed "Texas music". Brian Burns, a product of Central Texas, sometimes called The Last True Texas Troubadour, has achieved note especially through his historical ballads about Texas.