JTMH Volume 24 | Letter from the Director
In the spring of 2024, the Center for Texas Music History lost a good friend and supporter with the passing of Tommy Foote, a Southwest Texas alum, early Ace in the Hole drummer, and longtime road manager with George Strait. We share this loss with others, and Tommy’s friends and family have generously launched a new Tommy Foote Memorial Scholarship that the Center and the Bobcat Country ensemble are honored to steward to make a difference in the lives of our students. See our website to learn more. It has been a season of losses, as we also pause to remember the irascible singer-songwriter Kinky Friedman, pianist and former Texas State lecturer James Polk, and Michael Corcoran, one of the most accomplished authors and researchers in our field. It is also a time of transition. History is like that, a cascading series of beginnings and endings. This marks Alan Schaefer’s last issue as co-editor of the journal. Alan joined us in 2015 and has had a remarkable imprint on the journal, both with his eagle eye for line-edits and his encyclopedic knowledge of Texas music. I cannot fully express the gratitude that we have for his contributions, and we all offer him our thanks.
We have had an exciting stretch of Center programs in the past year for students, faculty, and community members. In Brazos Hall, we hosted book talks by Kevin Mooney on jazz singer Louise Tobin and by Langston Collin Wilkins on Houston hip-hop. We paired with Austin’s Texas Music Museum and author Gene Fowler to explore the career of glam rocker Bevis Griffin. We brought in the UTSA-based team behind the West Side Sound Oral History Project and heard from Smithsonian music curator John Troutman. Our work on the Texas Music History Trails project with the Texas Historical Commission and Texas Music Office is entering a new phase with a pilot program in the Panhandle, and be sure to check out our continuing episodes of This Week in Texas Music History on radio stations KUTX and KUT.
This year’s journal explores some fascinating topics. Todd Cambio profiles the indispensable Acosta family of luthiers in San Antonio, told with unprecedented access to their family archives. Justin Brummer introduces us to the Texas elements of his Vietnam War Songs project, an attempt to document every song recorded about the Vietnam War. The public face of the project is a YouTube channel where you can listen to many rare 45s unavailable on any streaming service. Book reviews this issue cover Houston hip-hop, women in 21st century country music, and the global impact of conjunto. We round things out by commemorating the seventieth birthday of blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughan with an image and remembrance from photographer Tracy Anne Hart.
The Center looks forward to upcoming visits from old friends and new. We will be celebrating the homecoming of “the dean of country music historians” Bill Malone, recently retired to San Antonio. We will also be hosting legendary London-based producer Joe Boyd, who played an important role in the careers of such artists as Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, and Nick Drake. We also have upcoming events related to Johnny Cash, 90s Texas country, and music heritage in Houston. In our book series at Texas A&M Press, we’ve been excited by the response to Dave Thomas’s extensive history of Willie Nelson’s picnics and anticipate new volumes on Nanci Griffith by Brian Atkinson and the history of Americana by Tamara Saviano.
To learn more about the Center, please contact us or visit our website. As a reminder, the journal is also available online at www.txstate.edu/ctmh/publications/journal.html. There is no charge to receive the journal by mail. Simply contact us at avery.armstrong@txstate.edu with your address, and we’ll be happy to put you on our list. You can connect via our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts as well.
Of course, we could not have done any of this without the hard work, advice, and financial contributions from our friends and supporters. This journal is a group effort of Alan Schaefer, Savannah Menchaca-Trujillo, Avery Armstrong, and myself. We also offer our sincerest thanks to Gary Hartman, Adam Clark, Tammy Gonzales, John McKiernan-Gonzalez, Jeff Helgeson, Mary Brennan, Thom Lemmons, Madelyn Patlan, Roberta Ruiz, Hector Saldaña, Katie Salzmann, Peter Babb, Clay Shorkey, Steve Ray, and the Center’s Advisory Board. And thanks to all of you who remain invested in the study and preservation of Texas music history.
Dr. Jason Mellard, Director
Center for Texas Music History
Department of History
Texas State University
601 University Drive
San Marcos, TX 78666
(512) 245-1101
jasonmellard@txstate.edu