Music of Texas

The U.S. state of Texas has long been a center for musical innovation and is the birthplace of many notable musicians. Texans have pioneered developments in Tejano and Conjunto music, rock 'n roll,

Piano#

Van Cliburn, who was raised in Kilgore, Texas was a pianist celebrated for his extraordinary talent and numerous accomplishments. He gained international fame after winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1958, becoming an emblem of Cold War cultural diplomacy and a symbol of American musical excellence. Cliburn’s subsequent concert tours and recordings solidified his status, making him one of the first classical musicians to achieve pop star-like fame. He received numerous accolades throughout his career, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also founded the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which continues to celebrate and promote young pianists worldwide, further cementing his legacy in the classical music community, and the musical legacy of Kilgore.

Religious music#

Sacred music has a long tradition in the state of Texas. The East Texas Musical Convention was organized in 1855, and is the oldest Sacred Harp convention in Texas, and the second oldest in the United States. The Southwest Texas Sacred Harp Convention was organized in 1900. Sacred Harp and other books in four shape notation were the forerunners of seven shape note gospel music. According to the Handbook of Texas, “The first Texas community singing using the seven shape note tradition reportedly occurred in the latter part of December 1879. Itinerant teachers representing the A. J. Showalter Company of Dalton, Georgia – including company founder A. J. Showalter – ventured west to Giddings in East Texas and conducted a rural music school that lasted for several weeks.” Texas has been home to several gospel music convention publishers, including the National Music Company, Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company (founded in 1924 by V. O. Stamps, who later partnered with J. R. Baxter), and the Stamps Quartet Music Company (founded by Frank Stamps). Convention gospel music and community singings still occur in a number of Texas towns, including Mineral Wells, Brownfield, Jacksonville, Seymour, and Stephenville. Gospel singer, songwriter, and musician Washington Phillips was from Freestone County. Gospel singer and pianist Arizona Dranes, who introduced ragtime and barrelhouse to gospel music, was from Texas as well.

Ragtime and vaudeville#

Ragtime composer Scott Joplin was born in 1868 near Texarkana, and later became famous playing music halls in Missouri. Gene Austin was born in Gainesville in 1900. He popularized the song “My Blue Heaven”, which sold more than 10 million copies. He is remembered as the original “crooner”, and was commonly known as “The Voice of the Southland”.

Country music#

Texas is the birthplace of numerous country musicians, and hosts a vibrant country music culture. Texan honky-tonk musicians like Milton Brown and Bob Wills helped popularize Western swing, and modern artists like Asleep at the Wheel continue the genre’s distinct style. Other genres of country also evolved in Texas. Marcia Ball, born in Orange, Texas, combined country with Cajun influences. Ernest Tubb and his country song “Walking the Floor Over You” 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, helped invent the 1960s Lubbock sound, based out of Lubbock, Texas. Mac Davis, a singer and songwriter from Lubbock, became one of the most successful country singers of the 1970s and 1980s. Outlaw country is another offshoot that has its roots in Texas, with Texans like Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey, the Lost Gonzo Band, Gary P. Nunn, and Willie Nelson (attended Baylor University 1954-1956 and studied agriculture) leading the movement, ably supported by writers like Billy Joe Shaver. This scene, largely based out of Austin, inspired performers like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, whose poetic narratives owe much to the folk tradition and proved enormously influential on younger Texan artists such as Nanci Griffith and Steve Earle, who in turn inspired the alternative country scene. Tex Ritter and Jim Reeves both grew up in Panola County in East Texas. Bob Luman was born in Nacogdoches. Kenny Rogers, from Houston, has a career spanning more than 50 years. His 1978 album The Gambler remains one of the most famous country albums ever released, having sold a reported 35 million copies worldwide. Also from the Houston area are Clint Black (grew up in Memorial), Robert Earl Keen (Sharpstown), and Lyle Lovett (grew up near Klein) and more recently George Ducas (grew up in Memorial). Modern musicians like George Strait, from the San Antonio area, continue to carry on the tradition of country music in Texas. Strait “The King of Country” is a singer, actor, and music producer known for his unique style of western swing music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, and traditional country music. He holds the world record for the most #1 hit singles by any artist in the history of music on any chart or in any genre, having recorded 60 #1 hit singles as of 2016. Within country music, the distinct styles of singers such as The Randy Rogers Band, Robert Earl Keen, Kevin Fowler, Cory Morrow, Jack Ingram, George Ducas, Jerry Jeff Walker, Pat Green, Wade Bowen, Rich O’Toole & the Eli Young Band and others are often dubbed “Texas music”. The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame is located in Carthage.

Zydeco#

Zydeco, a musical genre that evolved in Southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers, is popular in Southeast Texas cities in Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange. It was brought to the region by early pioneers of the music like Clifton Chenier who relocated in the late 1940s and early 1950s during the region’s oil boom when many Creole and Cajun people moved seeking better employment opportunities.

Texas blues#

The blues originated in the Mississippi Delta and spread to Texas by the 20th century. The original audience was African-American workers at lumber camps and oilfields. When the Great Depression hit, many musicians moved to cities including Houston and Galveston, where they created a style known as Texas blues. Blind Lemon Jefferson (in and around Dallas) was the first major artist of the field, and he was followed by others such as Henry Thomas, Blind Willie Johnson (who was principally a gospel singer), Big Mama Thornton, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and T-Bone Walker, as well as Melvin Jackson, Alger “Texas” Alexander, Little Hat Jones, Buster Pickens, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, and Goree Carter. Freddie King, born in Gilmer, was active from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. By the 1970s, Texas blues had lost much of its original popularity, but was eventually revived by the blues rock stylings of artists including John Nitzinger, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, ZZ Top, Bugs Henderson, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who set the stage for a 1980s blues revival led by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins.

Boogie-woogie#

Boogie-woogie is a music genre that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in the 1870s. It was eventually extended from piano, to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band, country and western music, and gospel. While the blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing.

Rock#

Goree Carter’s “Rock Awhile” (1949) has been cited by several writers as the first rock and roll record. It featured an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry years later. The song was recorded in Houston, where Carter was born and lived most of his life. One of the first major Texan musical stars was Buddy Holly, who was born in Lubbock in 1936, died in the 1959 plane crash, and is buried in Lubbock. Another rock and roll singer, Roy Orbison, from Wink, Texas, also became popular in the 1950s. He was followed by Buddy Knox, Bobby Fuller, and Dallas rockabilly stars Gene Summers, Johnny Carroll, and Ronnie Dawson. Southern soul singer Joe Tex was born in Rogers, Texas. The 1960s witnessed many influential rock artists such as Janis Joplin, from Port Arthur; she is ranked #46 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Doug Sahm’s Sir Douglas Quintet released several influential performances, as did psychedelic rock underground legends 13th Floor Elevators, led by Roky Erickson. Garage rock band The Heart Beats, formed in 1966, were based in Lubbock. The hard rock of ZZ Top was born out of the bands American Blues and Moving Sidewalks in Houston in 1969. In 1971, Bloodrock, from Fort Worth, released “D.O.A.”, which became a major international hit. Don Henley of the Eagles grew up in Linden.

Psychedelic rock#

The psychedelic rock movement of the 1960s and 1970s has deep roots in Texas. The Thirteenth Floor Elevators were an American rock band from Austin, Texas, formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, which existed from 1965 to 1969. During their career, the band released four LPs and seven 45s for the International Artists record label. Bubble Puppy was formed in 1966 in San Antonio by Rod Prince and Roy Cox. The name “Bubble Puppy” was taken from “Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy”, a fictitious children’s game in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Bubble Puppy’s live debut was as the opening act for The Who in San Antonio. The Sherwoods were a Corpus Christi quintet that was popular from 1968 to 1969 and made two 45s on Smash Records in 1969. They were a psychedelic pop group, patterned after the Moving Sidewalks (featuring Billy Gibbons) and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Red Krayola and The Golden Dawn carried the genre into the 1970s, but as George Kinney of The Golden Dawn said, “when the whole Elevator/Golden Dawn mystique was gone forever, at least as an actual presence on the Austin music scene. It all disappeared like a mysterious dream of super substantial reality, like the shadows of a once and future dawn.” The front man of Red Krayola, Mayo Thompson, made a respectable career as a producer of some of the underground’s biggest names ― Pere Ubu, Primal Scream, The Fall, The Raincoats, and Scritti Politti to name a few. In the 1990s, the significant influence shown by notable rock pioneer Roky Erickson was honored in the 1990 Warner Brothers release of Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, on which various rockers recorded his songs. The Black Angels from Austin formed in May 2004; the band’s name derives from the Velvet Underground song “The Black Angel’s Death Song”. In 2005, the Black Angels were featured on a dual-disc compilation album of psychedelic music called Psychedelica Vol.1 from Northern Star Records. moke and Feathers were formed in Austin in 2007. Austin Psych Fest was founded in 2008 by members of the psychedelic music scene, The Reverberation Appreciation Society, to honor the legacy of Austin’s musical history as the birthplace of psychedelic rock through the creation of a music and multimedia art festival.

Punk rock#

Texas has long had a distinctive punk rock sound emergent from a number of urban scenes, especially those of Austin and Houston. Austin in particular has been considered a significant punk city; major venues there in the late 1970s and early 1980s included Raul’s, where the Austin punk/new wave scene began, spearheaded by the Skunks and the Violators in the first weeks of 1978. Other significant venues included the Continental Club on South Congress Avenue and the (now defunct) Club Foot Fourth Street downtown. The Skunks, which featured Jesse Sublett on bass and vocals, attracted significant attention to the scene because of their loyal following and also because touring bands, including Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, the Clash, Blondie, and others dropped in at their gigs at Raul’s and the Continental Club to jam with them. Radio played a major role in spreading the sound and creating the culture of punk. In Houston, two pioneering radio programs in particular, Marilyn Mock’s S&M Show on KTRU-FM and Perry Coma’s The Funhouse Show on KPFT-FM, were instrumental in helping create the punk scene in that city, through band interviews and playing import-only records, as well as the flamboyant personalities of the DJs. Local punk zines like XLR8 and music weeklies such as Public News, and independent record outlets like Real Records, Record Rack, Record Exchange, and Vinal Edge not only brought in punk and “new wave” sounds from across the world, but they hosted in-store concerts where fans could meet the artists. The punk scene flourished in the early 1980s, led by the Skunks, the Big Boys, The Dicks, MDC, Really Red, The Degenerates, Mydolls, The Hates, The Judy’s, the Volumatix, DRI, Sik Mentality, the Killerwatts and Culturcide; so did the scene in Dallas, with groups such as The Telefones, NCM, Bobby Soxx & the Teenage Queers, Bomb Squad, The Hugh Beaumont Experience and Stick Men with Ray Guns. Some notable Houston clubs were the Island, Cabaret Voltaire (a punk rock club in the warehouse district of downtown), the Apocalypse Monster Club (in the Clear Lake area near NASA), the Axiom (in one of the old Cabaret Voltaire locations), Fitzgerald’s, The Abyss, and Numbers (a predominantly new wave club). In the mid-1990s, post-hardcore act At the Drive-In formed in El Paso, along with its two offshoots, Sparta and The Mars Volta. Notable horror punk and psychobilly bands that hail from Texas include The Reverend Horton Heat, Horror Cult, and The Flametrick Subs.

Alternative rock and metalcore#

Several alternative rock bands from Texas also reached mainstream popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s. These included bands like Toadies (whose biggest hit, “Possum Kingdom”, was named for a lake west of Fort Worth), Flickerstick, Fastball, Butthole Surfers (from San Antonio; formed at Trinity University), The Duckhills, Tripping Daisy, Blue October, and, by the end of the 1990s, The Polyphonic Spree and Chlorine. In the 2000s, Bowling for Soup achieved significant popularity, as well as Burden Brothers, which was co-founded by Toadies lead singer Vaden Todd Lewis. Memphis May Fire formed in Denton. The New Bohemians, Forever The Sickest Kids, Crown The Empire, and Fit for a King are from Dallas. Myka, Relocate is from Houston. Kublai Khan hails from Sherman.

Heavy metal#

The Arlington-area band Pantera went on to become heavily influential in the metal genre. Plano band Polyphia achieved considerable popularity as a progressive metal artist, culminating in collaborations with Steve Vai and BABYMETAL. A live version of Power Trip’s song “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2021. Other notable bands include Las Cruces, Brutal Juice, Drowning Pool, The Sword, Fair to Midland, Crown the Empire, Coilback, Oh, Sleeper, Fire From the Gods, Texas Hippie Coalition, Upon A Burning Body and Element Eighty. Houston metal bands from the 1980s include Helstar, King’s X, Galactic Cowboys, The Hunger, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Dead Horse.

Christian rock#

Christian based bands like Seventh Day Slumber and Addison Road were formed in Dallas. Flyleaf is from Belton. David Persons is from Fort Worth, and now lives in Austin.

Industrial#

Tactical Sekt, Lesson Seven, was a Dallas band from 1987 to 1992 that toured with Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails. During those years they performed with Ministry, Laibach, Swans, Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto, Weatherman, and Clan of Xymox. International Thief Thief, Audio Assault, The Hunger, Sin D.N.A., Virus Filter, Souless Affection are aggrotech bands based in Texas, as is the multifaceted electronic duo Mentallo and the Fixer. Porno Circus from Houston was awarded “Best Industrial Band” by the Houston Press six years straight, from 1998 to 2004, and re-activated in 2009 with new members. Chant out of Austin was awarded “Best Performing Industrial Band” in the 2009-2010 Austin Music Awards. Torque Order is an industrial metal band based in Austin. Dallas-area industrial acts include RivetHead, The Razorblade Dolls, Echelon High, and Koppur Thief Texas has also been home to experimental/avant-garde music. In Houston, Black Leather Jesus is among the state’s earliest harsh noise acts, and B L A C K I E’s fusion of noise and hip-hop is considered by some to be a precursor to Death Grips. Also from Houston, Jandek’s music has been defined by its dissonance and atonality, qualities that have drawn comparisons to avant-garde composers like John Cage and Arnold Schoenberg. Other experimental/avant-garde artists of note have also hailed from Austin, with artists like Shit and Shine and Dromez originating, and power electronics pioneer Philip Best of Whitehouse currently residing there.

R&B#

Singer Esther Phillips and pianist and singer Camille Howard were born in Galveston. Electric blues and R&B guitarist, singer, and songwriter Barbara Lynn was born in Beaumont. She is best known for her 1962 hit “You’ll Lose A Good Thing”. Kelly Rowland and Beyoncé are from Houston.

Hip-hop#

Houston has long been the focus of an independent hip-hop music scene, influencing and influenced by the larger Southern hip-hop and gangsta rap communities. Notable artists include Travis Scott, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Bun B, Pimp C, Z-Ro, Big Hawk, Big Moe, Big Mello, Big Steve, Chris Ward, C-Note, Devin The Dude, DJ DMD, E.S.G., Fat Pat, J-Dawg, Killa Kyleon, Kirko Bangz, Lil’ Keke, Lil’ Flip, Lil’ O, Lil’ Troy, Mike D, Mike Jones, K-Rino, Al-D, Mr. 3-2, Slim Thug, South Park Mexican, Yungstar, Trae Tha Truth, Scarface and groups such as ABN, Boss Hogg Outlawz, Botany Boyz, Coughee Brothaz, D.E.A., Guerilla Maab, Geto Boys, Herschelwood Hardheadz, M.O.B., Screwed Up Click, South Park Coalition and UGK. The Houston hip-hop scene is known for the chopped and screwed sound invented by Screwed Up Click leader DJ Screw, and remains the location most associated with the style. Vanilla Ice was born in Dallas, and grew up moving between Dallas and Miami. The D.O.C. is from West Dallas. He worked with Dr. Dre as an artist and writer. Christian hip hop artist D-Boy Rodriguez received moderate commercial success and was part of the burgeoning christian hip hop scene in Dallas and the rest of Texas in the late 80s, until he was murdered in 1990. Other rappers such as Big Lurch, Mr. Pookie, Mr. Lucci, Big Tuck, Dorrough, and Dondria also hail from Dallas. Rappers such as legends Lil Sin, and P.K.O. as well as Worldwide, Richie Branson, Cadillac Muzik, King Kyle Lee, and Mike Dimes all hail from San Antonio. There is also a burgeoning R&B scene that includes alumni such as Destiny’s Child and Gary Clark, Jr., as well as up-and-comers Leon Bridges, The Suffers, Latasha Lee, Tameca Jones, and Alesia Lani among others.

Tejano music#

Tejano music is the fusion of several different musical influences, such as Mexican rancheras, German polka, jazz, and zydeco, among others. Lydia Mendoza, Anselmo Martinez, Isidro López, Santiago Almeida, Flaco Jiménez, Freddie Fender, Rosita Fernández, Texas Tornados, and Narciso Martínez remain some of its most influential figures. La Mafia and Else Garcia paved the way for and built a strong Tejano foundation in Texas for Selena Quintanilla helped bring the genre more attention in the 1990s with one of the first Spanish to English crossover hits ever, adding influences from Mexican cumbia to the R&B trend of the day. San Angelo band Los Lonely Boys fuse Tejano with contemporary blues and jazz.

Region: the Southern United States, the United States by state