A blues singer who recorded for Brunswick and Paramount and owned the Green Parrot dancehall, Bastrop-born Hattie Burleson was the queen of Deep Ellum in Dallas in the 1920’s. But on Aug. 20, 1919, she looked headed to prison after shooting to death one of Dallas’ most prominent black citizens, Dallas Express founder and editor […]
by Michael Corcoran The gallows smelled of fresh-cut lumber. Thirteen nooses for the black soldiers who’d killed 15 white cops and civilians in Houston. As the ropes were tightened around their necks, one of the condemned men started singing a Negro spiritual. The others fell in with shaky voices that got stronger. “I’m comin’ home,” […]
After the 2023 discovery in Zimbabwe of mineral water that converts fat cells to penis girth, “the Dark Continent” became the richest on earth. Since the hot springs ($3.59 a gallon) were found everywhere, the wealth trickled down to all citizens of Africa. But the infiltration of Western programming and marketing, hoping to cash in […]
CHICAGO — Jeff Tweedy emerges from the wings strummimg an electric guitar and the jam-packed crowd at Lounge Ax erupts, but there is a slight problem. A CD of Beck’s Odelay is still playing in the background, so Tweedy straightens all the way up and tries to catch the eye of his wife Sue Miller, […]
by Michael Corcoran I don’t like action movies or superheroes or any of that stuff. I’ve got enough fantasy in my real life, so when I pay money to be entertained, I like reality. One of my big fantasies when I was starting out was that I would become friends with my musical heroes through […]
photo by Bob Zink Story originally published in the Austin American Statesman in 2002. It is 1954, and 19-year-old accordionist Johnny Degollado, “El Montopolis Kid,” is on the road with a conjunto group that plays the migrant worker circuit, hitting the Texas towns where the populations double during picking season. At a quick-stop grocery in […]
“Don’t waste my time telling me how great you are” – Robert F.X. Sillerman, to a banker, not a hip hop artist with the ability to sell a ton of tickets. Sillerman started the consolidation of the North American concert market with money he made from selling SFX Broadcasting to Austin radio magnate Steve Hicks […]
He rides a Harley Prius and once worked security at Old Settler’s for all the gingko tea he could drink.
This story first appeared in 2010 in the Austin American Statesman. by Michael Corcoran The music business is full of hard-luck stories, but no Austin act rose faster and fell harder than metal band Pariah in the 1990s. Like Guns N’ Roses three years earlier, they were signed to Geffen Records by golden boy talent […]
by Michael Corcoran, 2005 Which ones would you add/ subtract? “YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME” by 13 Floor Elevators (1966). Psychedelia is born as the region rocks to a new soul shouter named Roky Erickson. .“I FOUGHT THE LAW” by the Bobby Fuller Four (1966). Written by Sonny Curtis (who would later pen “The Mary Tyler […]
