Category: Texas Music

The making of Wyatt McSpadden’s traffic-stopping photo of Abra Moore

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It’s a face that’s launched a thousand conversations at The Wittliff Collections. Wyatt McSpadden’s iconic photograph of singer-songwriter Abra Moore has been a conversation piece since it was first published in Texas Monthly in January 1996. The framed print — showing in that long-ago magical moment the impish-looking singer holding a guitar and on her …

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Funeral for a friend: Rita Vidaurri

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Golden Age ranchera singer Rita Vidaurri, who died January 16 in San Antonio at age 94, was a friend of The Wittliff Collections. Thanks to the Ramon Hernandez Collection, and a 2017 exhibition “Legends of Tejano: Highlights from the Ramon Hernandez Archives” curated by Hernandez and journalist Joe Nick Patoski, Vidaurri’s contribution to Texas music …

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Teen Canteen letters shed light on ’60s youth culture

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Sam Kinsey’s fabled Teen Canteen, a teen dance club which operated from 1961 to 1977 at various locales in San Antonio, wasn’t only an important rock venue of the era – the Sir Douglas Quintet, Mike Nesmith (pre-Monkees), Mike Post, Gene Thomas, Bubble Puppy, the Moving Sidewalks, ZZ Top and dozens of legendary teenage garage …

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The boys who wrote the songs

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  The Rogers & Hammerhead Show aired from 1996-1997 on the Austin Music Network on cable access TV. Freddy Powers and Bill McDavid created the show to shine a spotlight on songwriters who developed country music in Texas—and whose songs made various country musicians famous. Powers is a legend in his own right, penning hits …

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The mystery of Texas songwriter Rich Minus

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Making sense of the hard luck and career of forgotten “Laredo Rose” songwriter Rich Minus isn’t easy. There are lots of gaps in the story of the enigmatic San Antonio native who for a time ran with hard-scrabble singer-songwriters Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Blaze Foley, figures known as much for their drinking and …

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The Wittliff acquires Tejano Music collection of Ramón Hernández

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San Marcos, TX – As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University have acquired one of the largest known collections of Tejano Music materials and memorabilia in existence from renowned musicologist and collector Ramón Hernández. “Hernández is universally respected in the Tejano music community,” said Wittliff Collections director Dr. David …

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“It’s Only Rock ’N’ Roll” now digitized

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Forty-one issues of the indie music newspaper It’s Only Rock ’N’ Roll have been digitally preserved by The Wittlliff Collections at Texas State University. You can view the inventory here. Published in San Antonio by music journalist Ron Young, the preserved issues cover the period from March 1978 to April 1982.  It’s Only Rock ’N’ …

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The unvarnished outlaw country collection of Sam Kindrick

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It’s been nearly 50 years since the birth of the outlaw country music scene in Texas. At the beginning of the 1970s, it was known as progressive country, redneck rock and cosmic cowboy music. Its earliest proponents were Michael Martin Murphey, B.W. Stevenson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Doug Sahm, Freda & the Firedogs with singer Marcia Ball …

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Willie Nelson OBJECTified

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(by Katie Salzmann) We never know who might request to use material from our archives, and earlier this summer the folks at the television show “OBJECTified” reached out to us for images of Willie Nelson to complement their hour-long interview with him. We provided 33 photos of Willie throughout his career, and we are curious …

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VIDEO: A Conversation With Jerry Jeff and Susan Walker

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In June of 2018, The Wittliff Collections’ curator of Texas Music, Hector Saldaña sat down for a candid conversation with Texas music legend Jerry Jeff Walker and his wife / manager Susan. This event was in celebration of The Wittliff’s exhibition, “¡Viva Jerry Jeff: The Origins and Wild Times of a Texas Icon.” Music was …

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