As the ACM Awards Head to Dallas, Here Are 9 Things to Know About Texas Music
For the first time ever, Texas is hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards this Sunday night (April 19). It's a big one, the award show's 50th anniversary, so the Academy is holding it in the state where everything is bigger—and more specifically, inside the giant AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, which holds a crowd of 80,000.
To get the crowds, and those watching along at home, ready for the burst of Texas that's getting interjected into the ACMs this year, we've put together a list of nine things you need to know about Texas music–and to be honest it barely scratches the surface of great Texas music. For instance, we didn't even get to include Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, ZZ Top, the Geto Boys or Boz Scaggs.
But let this guide be your primer, especially into the wild, varied species of country music blooming in Texas. And by all means, enjoy your trip into the Lone Star State.
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1. When country music's 'outlaws' wanted to get away from Nashville, they moved to Texas.
Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allen Coe, Townes Van Zandt and Billy Joe Shaver are all associated with country's 1970s outlaw movement, a loose group of artists who weren't comfortable with the artifice of the Nashville scene and decided to get real by moving to (or, at least, spending more time in) Texas in order to write music, perform and do their own thing.
The Daily Beast has an great long reads excerpt from Robert Ward's anthology Renegades, which deals with How Country Got It's Texas Makeover. Ward details first person interactions with the outlaws, including that time David Allen Coe had a member of his motorcycle club pull a knife on him in a motel, and what Austinites really thought of the progressive/hippie country sound.
