Sammi Smith is most frequently cited as a member of country’s Outlaw movement — her friend and touring partner Waylon Jennings dubbed her “Girl Hero” — but her music, at least on the surface, didn’t sound a thing like Waylon’s or Willie’s. In fact, she most often recorded in the very style that’s usually considered [...]

While Billy Jack Wills may not be nearly as well-known as brothers Bob and Johnnie Lee, he and his short-lived band created some of the most exciting and innovative Western swing ever recorded.
The youngest of the Wills brothers, Billy Jack got his start playing in his older brothers’ bands — first for Johnnie Lee in [...]

Billy Joe Shaver is the real deal. Born in Corsicana, Texas, raised in Waco. Mother worked in a honky-tonk. Shaver himself worked as a bull rider and a bronco buster, in addition to more pedestrian go-rounds as a gas station attendant, car salesman and sawmill worker, where he lost parts of four fingers on his [...]

Bobby Fuller has always been one of rock ‘n’ roll’s great mysteries. His death at age 24, caused by asphyxiation from gasoline, was ruled a suicide, a verdict commonly thought to be incorrect. Fuller had gasoline all over his body, and other clues from the crime scene hint strongly that it was a murder, though [...]

While Gene Autry is best-known for his classic Western songs, it may surprise some of his fans to discover that at the beginning of his career, he was an unabashed Jimmie Rodgers imitator who sang the blues with gusto.
A number of the songs included on Blues Singer 1929-1931 are Rodgers covers, though the bulk are [...]