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Lucinda Williams on December 27, 2019 in New York City.Lucinda Williams was just another no-name singer-songwriter when she moved to Austin the second time, in 1981, and rented a dirt-cheap apartment in a sketchy complex on South Congress that residents jokingly called “the Willie Hilton.” In its heyday in the sixties, the fourteen-acre property had been billed as the state’s largest motor court lodge, though its fortunes had fallen mightily by the time Willie Nelson bought it in 1978, its accommodations converted to month-to-month bungalows and efficiencies. When he took the spread over, he refashioned the old motel conference center as the Austin Opera House, making it his home base for concerts and the city’s premier road show venue. But he pretty well left the apartments as he found them, and they gradually filled…

The post Lucinda Williams on the Pure Poetry of Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Why Dallasites Are Traveling to Marshall Just to Drink WineFor a long while in Marshall, a town of 23,000 in far northeast Texas, there wasn’t a place where you could purchase a glass of wine. Like many other towns and counties in the region, it elected to go dry several years before the start of Prohibition and effectively remained so for decades after its repeal. Marshall’s folly was ironic because since at least the 1870s it considered itself “the Athens of Texas” because of its relatively well-educated citizenry and, eventually, its abundance of colleges. The Greeks, after all, were fueled by their viticulture, but that fact apparently found no purchase in a town with two Baptist churches (the Prohibitionists’ house of worship) flanking the courthouse square.So when I visited Marshall in the fall, armed…

The post A Once Dry East Texas Town Now Has One of the Best Wine Lists in the State appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Texans You Should Know: Roxy GordonNobody could tell a story like Roxy Gordon. He would stay up all night on the porch of his house in East Dallas—this was in the eighties and nineties—surrounded by artists and musicians, spinning tales, singing songs, drinking vodka. Roxy, who wore his dark glasses even at night, had the charisma of a rock star, with long black hair spilling out of his cowboy hat, a coyote-tooth necklace, and a tattoo of an eagle on his left forearm. In his deep West Texas drawl, he would talk about growing up in a small town near San Angelo, going off to Montana to live on the Fort Belknap Indian reservation, or the time he met Willie Nelson. The books he’d written, the albums he’d made, the…

The post His Art Was Real. His Native American Heritage Wasn’t. appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Total-Solar-Eclipse-Texas-By-The-NumbersIt’s been 124 years since Texans saw a total solar eclipse—and even then, not much of the state bore witness. The path of totality only brushed past our southern tip. You’d have to travel another 22 years back to 1878 to find more than just a corner of Texas experiencing totality. That year, the path spanned from East Texas to the Panhandle. This year, on April 8, the path of totality runs in the opposite direction, from the southern Hill Country to the northeast corner of Texas. Come that fateful day, we can confidently expect celestial wonder (even if the skies aren’t exactly clear) and busy if not stalled highways. As April 8 approaches, Texas Monthly writers have been marveling at the impressive preparations for and…

The post $1,247 Airfare, 231 Confused Critters, and Other Outrageous Texas Eclipse Numbers appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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How to Throw an Eclipse Party, According to the ProsThe last time Dallas was in the path of totality for a solar eclipse it was 1878. It’s been even longer for Austin: 1397. So when the sun and moon align over much of the Lone Star State on April 8, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call it the party of the century. And while there are plenty of places to watch the eclipse, many Texans will be able to view the phenomenon from their own backyard, making it the perfect excuse to throw a get-together for family and friends. We asked three professional party planners to share their event-throwing tips and favorite items from local businesses (or companies that offer quick shipping) for the ultimate celestial celebration. Nail down the timeline and gather the essential…

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Celebrity Bracket Champion AnnouncedOver the past week, we’ve had occasion to reflect on the many famous Texans—whether they be native, of the “got here as fast as they could” variety, or even downright newly minted—who help define the state, both to those of us who live here and to the rest of the world. There are certain qualities that you can find in most, if not all, of them: Musicians as diverse in style as Beyoncé, Miranda Lambert, Megan Thee Stallion, and Bobby Pulido have an iconoclastic, defiant streak in the music they choose to make. Figures from disparate fields, such as Tommy Lee Jones, Lyle Lovett, and Nolan Ryan are unified by their interest in ranching and horsemanship. Texan athletes including Simone Biles, Mia Hamm, and Patrick…

The post The Ultimate Texas Celebrity Bracket Crowns Its Champion, and the Winner Will Shock You* appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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The fourth episode of Shane and Sally explores the first of several key suspects in the investigation: Steve Schafer. As Karen and Rob delve into the evidence, they come upon new information that causes them to rethink his involvement. Karen Jacobs and Rob D’Amico return to the podcast studio to review more behind-the-scenes footage and discuss their reporting.

The post Inside the Episode: Bonus Video for ‘Shane and Sally’ Episode 4 appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Shane and Sally: Episode 4Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read the transcript below.Learn more about the case with original videos, archival photos, and documents from our reporting in our episode guide. Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Spotify “This is the devil’s playground down here, and you have to be very careful.”—Steve Schafer’s auntIn this episode, we take a closer look at two of the people investigators have suspected: Steve Schafer and John Gilbreath. Witnesses told authorities that Schafer was the leader of a local satanic group whose members included Shane and Sally, though Schafer says he was never part of the group.Gilbreath is the man who, in 2017, was found to have suspicious evidence in his home, including a lock of hair, a fingernail, and notes about…

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Meet Jensen Ackles's #1 Fan, My MomNot a lot of people know Jensen Ackles by name. They might recognize him on TV; say, “Oh, it’s that one guy. From that one thing.” But one fact of my life for the past thirteen years is that I know his favorite song and his children’s names and his political affiliation, courtesy of my sixty-something mom, who runs an Instagram account dedicated to him that has, as of publication, 143,000 followers. She’s an expert on Ackles, on the show Supernatural, and on the nuances of online fandom.When Texas Monthly announced its Texas celebrity bracket last week, we received more comments for him than for any other celebrity, demanding to know why we didn’t include Ackles, who was born in Dallas and lives with his…

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King-of-Diamonds-Rina-Pederson_horiz-featThe crime that triggered all the excitement happened on a bone-cold night in 1959. A “blue norther” had blown across the barren stretches of Texas into Dallas. Rich women in Dallas turtled down into their mink coats and said “Brrrrr!” to their husbands as they hurried out to cocktail parties. Few realized it at that moment, but they were living in auspicious times. The country was entering a new era that year—and so was Dallas. Dwight Eisenhower was finishing his last term in the White House. Despite Cold War tensions, he remained one of the most popular presidents of all time. He rarely spoke to his vice president, Richard Nixon, but he didn’t much want to. Lyndon Baines Johnson, the arm-twisting, vote-counting Master of the Senate, had his eyes…

The post The Daring Jewel Thief Who Preyed on Dallas High Society appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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