
The Lumineers lead singer and cofounder on the power of lonesome songs during the holidays, and an apples-to-apples comparison between Willie and Bruce Springsteen.
John Spong writes primarily about popular culture. John was nominated for a National Magazine Award for his December 2009 story celebrating Texas dance halls, “Step Right Up,” and twice won the Texas Institute of Letters’ O. Henry Award for Magazine Journalism—for “Holding Garmsir” (January 2009), about a month he spent with a U.S. Marine platoon fighting in Afghanistan, and for “The Good Book and the Bad Book” (September 2006), about a censorship battle at an elite private school in Austin. He is the author of A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove, and his stories have been collected in Best Food Writing 2012 and The Best American Sports Writing 2009, among others. He lives in Austin with his wife, Julie Blakeslee, and their two boys, Willie Mo and Leon.
Nov 27, 2020 — By John Spong
The Lumineers lead singer and cofounder on the power of lonesome songs during the holidays, and an apples-to-apples comparison between Willie and Bruce Springsteen.
Nov 20, 2020 — By John Spong
The Texas singer-songwriter and country music star on a song she’s been singing since childhood, the origins of inspired lyrics, and how Texas country songs are designed for dancing.
Nov 13, 2020 — By John Spong
The lauded songwriter behind many of country’s greatest hits talks Willie's picking parties with Darrell Royal and why you should never beat Willie Nelson at poker.
Nov 6, 2020 — By John Spong
The country music legend remembers hearing it on the radio in rural Kentucky and describes Willie's kindness to her grandmother backstage at the CMAs.
Nov 1, 2020 — By David Courtney, Michael Hall, Andy Langer, Jeff Salamon, John Spong, Katy Vine and Christian Wallace
The New York–born singer-songwriter got to Texas as soon as he could—and spent the next five decades changing the lives of seemingly everyone he met.
Oct 30, 2020 — By John Spong
The singer-songwriter talks the surprising complexity of Willie’s songwriting and a special request President George H.W. Bush made while Ingram was playing for him.
Oct 23, 2020 — By John Spong
For Escovedo, the song conjures memories of his father, as well as ghost stories, old pot dealers, and a cowpunk music video.
Oct 19, 2020 — By John Spong
‘Whiskey River’ had only one verse and a chorus, but Willie Nelson said that was all it needed.
Oct 16, 2020 — By John Spong
The four-time Grammy winner talks the solitary nature of songwriting and a big wet kiss Willie once planted on Faron Young.
Oct 9, 2020 — By John Spong
In the first episode of our new series, the Grammy-winning artist talks about writing sad songs and tells a great dirty joke she learned from Nelson himself.
Oct 8, 2020 — By John Spong
We didn’t really need a reason to write a bunch of stories about the Red Headed Stranger. But we had a few.
Oct 8, 2020 — By John Spong
Most Willie Nelson fans know at least a little about his idyllic Hill Country world headquarters, home to his ranch, his golf course, his recording studio, and his Old West movie set, Luck, Texas. But lesser known in the lore is Willie World’s gritty urban prototype, a sprawling…
Aug 18, 2020 — By John Spong
A portrait of the man, in the words of those who know him best.
Apr 29, 2020 — By David Courtney, Michael Hall, Max Marshall, Joe Nick Patoski, John Spong and Christian Wallace
The recording career of country music’s greatest artist, surveyed, sized up, and sorted on the occasion of his 87th birthday.
Jun 16, 2019 — By John Spong
Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones discuss their friend, a Texas legend who leaves behind a brilliant body of work and definitive repository of Southwestern culture.
Jan 30, 2019 — By John Spong, John Nova Lomax, Larry L. King and Michael Hall
Appreciations by current and former staffers who know them all too well.
Feb 23, 2017 — By John Spong
Spoon is my favorite band. Spoon has a new album out. It is my favorite Spoon album. That is all.
Feb 22, 2017 — By John Spong
A tribute to Gary Cartwright, who died February 22, 2017, at age 82.
Nov 23, 2016 — By John Spong
It’s about more than character, recruiting, or staffing; it’s about how doing things the right way sometimes takes time.
Nov 18, 2016 — By John Spong
The King of Country returned to the dancehall—where he and Ace in the Hole once played monthly sets—to celebrate the release of a new box set.
Jun 9, 2016 — By John Spong
Elmo Henderson’s entire life story can be summed up in a single moment: when he stepped into the ring in San Antonio one night in 1972 and knocked out Muhammad Ali. At least that’s the way he tells it. And tells it.
Feb 24, 2016 — By John Spong
Big Bend roared back to life last year after spring rains unleashed a bounty of ocotillos, bluebonnets, and yuccas. Thankfully, photographer James H. Evans was there to capture it in living color.
Nov 18, 2015 — By John Spong
I always knew that the work my dad did as an Episcopal priest and grief counselor was important. But I didn’t understand how important until the birth of my son.
Jun 10, 2015 — By John Spong
A playlist of late-seventies and early-eighties country pop made popular by Urban Cowboy.
May 14, 2015 — By John Spong
It was part musical, part dance movie, and part love story, and in June 1980 it unleashed an unprecedented fervor for country music, Western wear, and, yes, mechanical bulls. More than three decades later, the film’s stars (including John Travolta, Debra Winger, Mickey Gilley, and Johnny Lee) and many Gilley’s regulars recall the movie that made America fall in love with Texas.
Apr 20, 2015 — By John Spong
How my wife and I got more than we bargained for on a trip to Boquillas.
Mar 23, 2015 — By Texas Monthly and John Spong
To gain pop culture literacy, you could spend a long weekend taking in works produced for the big screen (Giant, Dazed and Confused) and the small box (Lonesome Dove, Friday Night Lights). But the quicker route would be an afternoon surfing YouTube. Search for the terms below, but don’t blame us if you end up falling down a Van Cliburn rabbit hole.
Dec 9, 2014 — By John Spong
He’s the brashest, most generous, most foul-mouthed trial attorney in the country. And at 89, Joe Jamail can still command a courtroom, mother%*!$#@.
Oct 21, 2014 — By John Spong
Lone Star was just a brew for dads and cowboys, until Jerry Retzloff helped turn it into the coolest beer in the country.
Sep 25, 2014 — By John Spong
The photographer from Big Bend known for stunning landscapes gets out of his comfort zone. Here, a first look at several images from his latest collection.
Jun 24, 2014 — By John Spong
It might yet be the craziest thing he’s done for the Texas landmark.
Jun 5, 2014 — By John Spong
During a 1984 tour through Texas.
May 21, 2014 — By John Spong
Listen to all of King George's greatest hits.
May 21, 2014 — By John Spong
“Unwound,” “The Chair,” and “Easy Come, Easy Go” have all sprung from the powerful pen of Dean Dillon.
May 16, 2014 — By John Spong
After a career that’s spanned more than thirty years, George Strait is wrapping up his 48-stop farewell tour this month. For those of us whose lives he has captured so inimitably in song, country music will never be the same.
Mar 20, 2014 — By John Spong
Sixteen photographs of some of the cooler moments of Austin history, as taken by Scott Newton, the longtime official photographer of “Austin City Limits.”
Jan 29, 2014 — By John Spong
In 1978 Punk magazine sent photographer Roberta Bayley to Texas to chronicle the band’s tour through the South. Her photos of the two Texas shows capture the surreal collision of two radically different cultures.
Dec 6, 2013 — By John Spong
How did Guy Clark become the most revered songwriter in Nashville? One hard-won tune at a time.
Dec 5, 2013 — By Texas Monthly and John Spong
You know, when you’re surveying the struggles of Longhorn nation from Joe Jamail’s skybox, things don’t look so bad.
Jun 19, 2013 — By John Spong
Soldiers and their families wait desperately—and courageously—for the moment when they will be reunited. And when, for the lucky ones, it finally comes, it does not disappoint.
Jun 10, 2013 — By John Spong
After more than a decade of combat, Texas soldiers are finally coming back for good. But the real journey home still lies ahead.
Mar 11, 2013 — By John Spong
Ten years after their remarkable fall from grace, no one is quite sure why the onetime Nashville darlings tumbled so far—and never got back up.
Jan 23, 2013 — By John Spong
Austin is booming with jobs, condos, festivals, traffic, hipsters, joggers, and high-concept dive bars (anyone for Lone Star and seared foie gras?). Does that mean it’s no longer Austin?
Jan 21, 2013 — By John Spong
Senior editor John Spong talked with Jan Reid about his new Ann Richards biography, ‘Let the People In.’
Jan 21, 2013 — By John Spong
Bobby Jackson has taught students in the Aransas County school district about the Plains Indians, the Battle of San Jacinto, and Spindletop since the state celebrated its sesquicentennial. How he does it bears no resemblance to the class I took when I was stuck in middle school.
Jan 21, 2013 — By John Spong
In the late seventies, Ted Nugent (a.k.a. “the Nuge” or “Uncle Ted”) had the country’s biggest hard-rock touring act—a wild-ass blend of in-your-face energy, obscene language, and a well-placed loincloth. Now he’s the country’s biggest gun rights advocate—and all that’s changed is the loincloth.
Jan 21, 2013 — By John Spong
Forty years ago, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, and a whole host of Texas misfits grew their hair long, snubbed Nashville, and brought the hippies and rednecks together. The birth of outlaw country changed country music forever.
Jan 21, 2013 — By John Spong
Before cameras were allowed in courtrooms, artist Gary Myrick and his assortment of colored pencils provided Texas television audiences with a vivid look at the state’s high-profile legal proceedings against figures like T. Cullen Davis, Henry Lee Lucas, and Charles Harrelson.
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