Rock-and-roll Postcards

Houston isn’t known as a music town. 

It’s funny. I’m conceding this point as I sit in my Houston music school, where every one of our practice rooms is full of students taking music lessons. Half a dozen guitar lessons, drum lessons, piano lessons, bass lessons, and other instruments are being taught to kids and adults, beginners and advanced players.

Bojangles is upstairs at Rockin’ Robin, one of the oldest and most beloved guitar shops not only in this city, but in the world. We’re also across the street from Cactus Music, one of the finest––and busiest––record shops anywhere. 

In Houston, everywhere you turn, music isn’t just there. It’s thriving. So why does it sometimes feel like nobody knows it?

Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Memphis, Detroit, Muscle Shoals, and yes, Austin––these are the places that dominate the popular narrative tracing where this country’s music has been and is made. But those cities are only part of the story––business hubs and creative communities that have attracted talent from elsewhere. What about where that music came from in the first place? Where was it born and nurtured?  

Houston, that’s where we come in––and where we’ve been criminally overlooked. Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

We gave the world Lightnin’ Hopkins’ sparse blues, ZZ Top’s muscly rock-and-roll, DJ Screw’s chopped-and-screwed gumbo, Geto Boys’ rhyming cool, Rodney Crowell’s smart country, and Jandek’s dissonant beauty.

Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen? They’re from Houston. Jack Ingram and Hayes Carll? Houston. 

Love Lizzo? Then you love Houston.

The biggest star on the planet today is from Houston. And her first group, Destiny’s Child? Houston. 

We are a pioneering hip-hop town and a folk incubator, home to blues godfathers and godmothers and rock-and-roll royalty.  

And while I initially deferred the role of capturing sounds born elsewhere to the better-known hubs around the country, Houston’s had a major hand in putting magic on tape: Sugar Hill Recording Studio recorded landmark music from the Big Bopper, George Jones, the Sir Douglas Quintet, Roy Head, Freddy Fender, Lucinda Williams, Asleep at the Wheel, Destiny’s Child, Solange Knowles, Frank Black, and so many more.

Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Mickey Newbury, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Doc Watson met in Houston. Guy wrote his first songs and played his first gigs where?

Houston.

That spirit of creative community that nurtured Guy and Townes still echoes throughout the city. In recent years, the Suffers and Robert Ellis have made us proud, as Khruangbin redefined Houston music. Any night of the week, Houstonians can catch John Egan or the Mighty Orq, Matt Harlan or the Will Van Horn Trio or Los Skarnales.

For a long time, I let Houston’s omission from music’s pop-culture zeitgeist chafe without consciously attempting to remedy it. The story of American music is so entrenched. What’s a guitar teacher to do? And why does this matter to a music school? 

The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves matter. Kids growing up here need to know about the music that’s happened and continues to happen here, both to be inspired by the foundation and to build upon it. 

That means that Houston must do a better job of telling our story, not necessarily to the rest of the world, but to each other. 

Here at Bojangles, we tell Houston’s music story. We’re also adding to it: Bojangles is what can happen when an artistically rich city’s best local players are also instructors with their doors wide open to anyone who wants to learn. Here, Houstonians have taken music lessons from musicians who have played with giants like Lyle Lovett––Houstonians studying under Houstonians who play with already-legendary Houstonians. That circle is as unbroken as it gets.  

Houston, we are a music town. And now, I realize it doesn’t matter whether the rest of the world catches on or not. We’ll keep sending them rock-and-roll postcards anyway.