A Short History of West Texas Music

Weslaco, Texas. FSA (Farm Security Administration) camp.
Drake family playing for a Saturday night dance (Library of Congress)

Eck Robertson

(Encyclopedia of the Great Plains) Defined by the dramatic landscape of the Llano Estacado, a vast mesa 3,000 feet high and 300 miles across with accompanying canyonlands, the high plains of Texas are bordered by Oklahoma on the north, the Edwards Plateau on the south, New Mexico on the west, and I-35 on the east.
This land, commonly known as West Texas, possesses a distinctive regional culture shaped by the cattle, cotton, and oil industries, a perennial wind, and a seemingly endless sky.
One of the most meaningful manifestations of this regional culture is a tradition of music making that has influenced the shape and style of popular music since Amarillo's Eck Robertson made the nation's first country music recording in 1922. Continued