Order your copy here:
http://www.oxfordamerican.org
The Oxford American is proud to release the 16th annual Southern Music Issue, which honors the profound musical history of TEXAS in 160 pages of writing and art, along with a 25-song CD compilation.
The cover features a stunning portrait of Guy and Susanna Clark taken in 1975 by iconic Nashville photographer Jim McGuire. Guy Clark’s song “My Favorite Picture of You,” the title track from his Grammy-winning 2013 album—written for his wife just a year before she died in 2012—is a highlight of the CD.
Along with Clark, the Texas compilation features music that best exemplifies the state’s rich, diverse sounds and traditions. Artists showcased on the album include Ray Price and Bob Wills, Billy Joe Shaver and James McMurtry, Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings, Lee Ann Womack, Ornette Coleman, Sarah Jarosz, Freddy Fender, Willie Nelson, Barbara Lynn, Johnny Winter, and others.
In the magazine: Tamara Saviano on the poetry of Guy Clark; Joe Nick Patoski profiles Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer, Paul “The Devil” English; Amanda Petrusich remembers Houston hip-hop genius DJ Screw; Dom Flemons interviews Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz; Rachel Monroe tries on Roy Orbison’s glasses; Michelle García searches for the birth of Tejano music; Margaret Moser pays tribute to the Austin music scene; Tom Maxwell, Cynthia Shearer, and Nathan Salsburg profile Texas folklorists and the musicians they recorded—and much more. The issue also presents new poetry by John Poch, Naomi Shihab Nye, and David Tomas Martinez, and short fiction by Bret Anthony Johnston.
The Oxford American’s Southern Music Issue has generated high praise during its years of publication. The Houston Chronicle described it as “the single best music-related magazine of any given year,” while the Boston Globe simply termed the issue “a welcome fix.” Chris Issak called it “a great, great magazine . . . like getting four years of Rolling Stone all in the same magazine.” In December of 2012, New York Times critic Dwight Garner wrote that the Music Issue CDs “practically belong in the Smithsonian.”
The Texas Music Issue was funded, in part, by a successful kickstarter campaign that raised $53,757 from 1,008 individuals.