Curated playlist
Singer-songwriters from Texas
- Buddy HollyBuddy Holly was back on tour in 1959 because his royalties were frozen in a lawsuit. He died in a plane crash at 22.
- Don HenleyDon Henley told interviewer Charlie Rose in March 2001 that "rock bands work best as a benevolent dictatorship." He knew the arrangement from the inside. Henley is a drummer, singer and songwriter, and a founding member of the Eagles. In…
- Hilary DuffHilary Duff was a child actor cast in the pilot of the NBC comedy Daddio, and producers removed her from the cast before it aired. A week later she won the title role in a new Disney Channel series. Years after that, in 2026, Time named…
- Megan Thee StallionMegan Thee Stallion's mother took her to recording sessions instead of daycare.
- Roy OrbisonRoy Orbison died weeks after finishing the best-selling album of his career. He never heard Mystery Girl released.
- Kelly ClarksonKelly Clarkson's first single debuted at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. The following week it rose to number 52. Then it shot to number one, breaking a record for the biggest leap to the top that The Beatles had…
- Willie NelsonWillie Nelson plays a classical guitar with a hole worn through its face. Decades of strumming with a pick have scoured a wide sweep of wood away beside the sound hole. Classical guitars are made for fingers, so this one has no pickguard…
- Usher (musician)Usher, the American singer, songwriter, dancer and actor, drew 123 million viewers within the United States to his Super Bowl LVIII halftime show in 2024. Very few performers ever stand in front of a crowd that size. Fewer still get there…
- Travis ScottTravis Scott, born Jacques Bermon Webster II, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer from Houston, Texas. Within a single twelve-month span, three of his songs entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number one. No artist…
- Janis JoplinIn the summer of 1962, the campus newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin printed a profile of a student named Janis Joplin. The issue was dated the 27th of July, and the headline read “She Dares to Be Different.” The writer noted…
- Townes Van ZandtTownes Van Zandt earned one of the boldest compliments in American songwriting from his friend Steve Earle. Earle said Van Zandt was "the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and…
- Meat LoafMeat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, and by his own account he was bright red for days afterward. His father took one look at the baby and said he resembled "nine pounds of ground chuck." The father then talked hospital…
- St. Vincent (musician)The musician St. Vincent took her name from a hospital in a Nick Cave song. It is where poet Dylan Thomas died.
- Billy PrestonBilly Preston got his name on a Beatles single. The 1969 "Get Back" was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston."
- MGKMGK, born Colson Baker and known for years as Machine Gun Kelly, took his original stage name from a gangster. The nickname belonged to George Kelly Barnes, a criminal of the Prohibition era. The man who borrowed it became a rapper,…
- Mckenna GraceMckenna Grace was four years old when her great-grandmother gave her a collection of Shirley Temple films on DVD. That present was the first time she showed any interest in acting. Within a few years she was standing in front of cameras,…