MUSIC
Postcards From Texas, Miranda Lambert
September 13
For her eleventh studio release, the Lindale-raised star has assembled fourteen songs that she says are each “a letter from home.” The result is an album, which she recorded in Austin, that’s Texan from hat to spurs. She wrote or cowrote ten of the tracks, many with the help of songwriters from the Lone Star State, including Shane McAnally and her collaborators on 2021’s The Marfa Tapes, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall. Conroe’s Parker McCollum lends his pipes to one tune, and the chorus of another delivers what may be the best divorce gag since Mark Chesnutt was “goin’ through the Big D and don’t mean Dallas.” On “Alimony,” Lambert croons, “If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone, remember the alimony.”
BOOK
Cocaine & Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, by Tyler Mahan Coe
Simon & Schuster, September 3
In his popular podcast, Coe dives deep into country music history. The meticulously researched second season, now adapted as a book with illustrations by artist Wayne White, examines the turbulent lives—and passionate love—of Saratoga-born Jones, who’s been called the greatest country singer ever, and the legendary Wynette, the songwriter and voice behind the controversial classic “Stand by Your Man.” With their dozens of duets, they became country’s royal couple, but, as Coe chronicles in harrowing detail, the tumultuous romance was no fairy tale.
ART
“Cowboy”
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, opening September 28
The traveling exhibit brings to Cowtown more than sixty artworks by 27 artists that contemplate the cowboy’s significance in American culture. The paintings, photographs, sculptures, and multimedia pieces on display explore how an often romanticized figure has shaped our ideas about masculinity and our relationship to the land, while examining the cowboy’s Asian American, Black, Indigenous, and Latino influences.
This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Lone Star Legends Make It a Great Month in Texas Culture.” Subscribe today.
