With all the earnestness of a love letter, country singer William Beckmann sings classic country tales of pining—for the one that got away, for the red-dressed women from the bar. Over the sounds of his staple bluesy harmonica, he swings from raucous boot-stomping music to ballads with the relaxed feel of a sunlit drive through the Texas towns he sings about. The common denominator is honest storytelling, and an undeniable energy that’s propelled him from his home in Del Rio to venues such as the Corona Club in Acuña, Mexico, which hadn’t seen a country act in almost two decades before Beckman ..read more

Country singer Parker McCollum epitomizes cowboy swagger. His usual white tee, gold chain, and heavily starched jeans are as much of a uniform as Orville Peck’s mask of fringe. Heck, he even has a whole album, Gold Chain Cowboy, dedicated to the classic look. It’s the cowboy version of effortless chic. McCollum says his fashion sense is a tribute to MTV Cribs and Pure Country, the shows he spent his youth watching in Conroe, north of Houston. “I grew up cowboying a lot from my granddad but also, I wanted to be a country singer and have a big ranch, have a bunch of cars, and maybe some jew ..read more

Kendrick Lamar surprise-released a new single on Monday, and Drake had a bad day. The track, a six-and-a-half minute instant classic, was a howl of rage and mockery at the Canadian megastar, escalating a war of words that had recently tipped from cold to hot in a way that effectively salts the earth beneath poor Drake’s feet. Neither of those fellas are Texans, though, so why are we writing about it? You won’t believe this, but it’s because of Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen.Nearly five-and-a-half minutes into the track, Lamar drops yet another brutal simile in a song full of devastating ..read more

When a celebrity’s name starts trending on social media, there’s a question fans have to ask: Is this for a good reason, or a bad one? When that celebrity is elderly, the fear that folks might be talking about them because there’s bad news is heightened. So we are here to tell you, if you’ve seen Willie Nelson trending today, April 29, everything is fine. It’s just his birthday! Happy birthday, Willie!Today is Willie’s ninety-first birthday, putting him in the ranks of the estimated 2.8 million Americans who have entered their tenth decade of experiencing life on this planet of ours. Last year ..read more

The dance steps come in on the lyric, “Did your boots stop workin’?”: Right heel, left heel, right heel, lift and tap the right foot forward then back, pivot turn, and swirl an arm overhead like a lasso. Some online guides will tell you the lasso move is optional, but you will need to do it if you want to perform the line dance just as pop-country star Dasha does on TikTok.“I really wanted to get people dancing at my shows,” says the 24-year-old singer, who also created the choreography. “I’ve gone out line dancing so many times in Nashville and I see how the culture isn’t as big in my generat ..read more

There are infinite ways to decorate a room. Cover the walls with photos of your loved ones. Stack your precious literature into columns. Litter the shelves with mementos you’ve collected while traveling. Make it kitschy, dress it cute, or keep it formal; it’s yours to do with how you please. It takes confidence to ensure your room remains just yours, a haven despite a world beyond its walls. Which is why it feels vulnerable to open your door and let others inside. Khruangbin, Houston’s psychedelic soul-rock trio, unhinges the doors to their room entirely. With their fourth studio album, A La S ..read more

“It’s giving Cher,” celebrity stylist Savannah Mendoza told me from Austin, where she was prepping to dress the small town of Crawford’s second-biggest export, country singer Mickey Guyton, for Sunday night’s Country Music Television Awards. Mendoza was referring to the dress she and Guyton, a nominee for Collaborative Video of the Year for “Nothing Compares to You,” with Kane Brown, had chosen: a silver-fringed gown that would have looked just as at home in a banquette at Studio 54 as on the Moody Center red carpet. For the second year in a row, the CMT left its Nashville HQ behind in fa ..read more

Old 97’s released their debut album, Hitchhike to Rhome, thirty years ago. Since then, the band’s lives have changed a lot—back in 1994, they were young hell-raisers in their early twenties, tearing up Deep Ellum and rising out of a Dallas scene that included the Reverend Horton Heat, Toadies, and Tripping Daisy, with a country-meets-punk-rock sound so fresh the name for it hadn’t even been coined yet. Over the years, those circumstances changed. Their music came to be known as “alt-country,” and the nineties major-label feeding frenzy saw them feted by folks with deep pockets. They signe ..read more

Over the past week, we’ve asked Texas Monthly readers to make difficult choice after difficult choice in determining the winner of the Ultimate Texas Celebrity Bracket. You’ve had to weigh Beyoncé versus George Strait, Tommy Lee Jones against Matthew McConaughey, Simone Biles versus Tim Duncan, and Bun B against Chip and Joanna Gaines. These figures have helped define the Texas identity, both to ourselves and to the rest of the world, over the course of many years. When it comes to longevity, few icons can come close to the legacy our two finalists have carved for themselves: Willie Nelso ..read more

So much of the Texas spirit is reflected in one of our state’s most beloved quotes. As Davy Crockett allegedly told the Tennessee legislature before setting off down south, “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.” There is defiance in it, and the perhaps imprudent confidence that is the backbone of Texas pride. I hear that spirit all over Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. On the album, which dropped on March 29, Beyoncé is telling us she gets to do whatever she wants. She hops between genres (country, indie rock, Italian cinema scores, opera, pop, trap, and more) and across decades. (Some ..read more