Friday, March 29, 2024

Hank Williams’ Final Heartbreak

New Year’s Eve is the big musical party night of the year, with merriment in the mist as tipsy toasters dance the year away in glittery abandon. It’s ironic, then, that the major music event to occur in the hours connecting two years is significant mainly for the songs it prevented. In the quiet back […]

1995: The Year of Dave Grohl and Jay Farrar

It comes in cycles, this “year-in-music” stuff, and 1995 had the misfortune of following one of the most dramatic years in a long time, when such rock monoliths as Pink Floyd, the Eagles, and the Rolling Stones broke box-office records, while a disillusioned youth market shouted out, “Who killed Kurt Cobain?” when, after all, it […]

The Royal Rule: Listen or Leave

The party was far from over in a room across the courtyard of the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in March 2011, but the namesake of this Darrell K Royal Songwriters Homecoming sat in an otherwise empty amphitheater with his wife, Edith. Everyone at the party wanted to say hi to the iconic Texas […]