The Sounds of Houston

As the fourth biggest city in the country, Houston’s musical presence might seem unsurprising. Numbers are on its side. But sharing a state with the self-ordained “Live Music Capital of the World” in Austin — as well as a widespread, erroneous sense of the Bayou City’s lack of beauty — often leaves Houston howling from an underdog position. Until one starts listing names. Kenny Rogers, Rodney Crowell, and Robert Earl Keen. Megan Thee Stallion, Travis Scott, and Lizzo. ZZ Top. Beyoncé. Lyle Lovett.

Maybe it’s the elements. The city is regularly beset by hurricanes and “500-year floods” that leave devastation behind when the waters finally recede. The heat and humidity are unabating.

Or perhaps it’s the intersecting histories of both cultural diversity and petroleum wealth that spur artists to song. Spiritual and evangelical traditions sound their own cacophony in every corner of the city, and world class art institutions provide further inspiration for aspiring musicians.

From some hardscrabble combination of these factors came Turtlebox Audio, founded by four friends who wanted to create a speaker worthy of their city’s musical legacy — with the loudest, clearest, and most portable speakers on the market. Waterproof, dustproof, and crushproof, Turtlebox is fit for any of Houston’s historic venues, rain or shine. 

Chopped and Screwed

One of the city’s most lasting contributions to music is the style of hip-hop originated by Robert Earl Davis Jr., better known as DJ Screw. Screw would create remixes by slowing down the pitch and tempo of a vinyl record, then splicing lyrics and adding effects with his turntable and microphone. Not only did these “Screw Tapes” bring the then–largely East Coast phenomenon of the mixtape to a new audience, but they catapulted Southern hip-hop onto the international stage.

Forming the hip-hop collective the Screwed Up Click (S.U.C.), Screw brought local artists together and enabled many to launch successful solo careers of their own. Founding S.U.C. members Big Hawk, Fat Pat, and Kay-K also started Dead End Alliance and the eponymous record label, named after the dead-end street off Martin Luther King Boulevard on Houston’s south side where brothers Big Hawk and Fat Pat grew up.

Melting Pot

Houston has always been a homebase for experimentation and collaboration, and not just at the Johnson Space Center. The raucous blues artist Lightnin’ Hopkins exemplified the scene on Dowling Street (renamed Emancipation Avenue in 2017).

Born in East Texas, Samuel John Hopkins first heard the rhythm of the blues from famed traveling musician Blind Lemon Johnson. But it was Houston’s Third Ward where Hopkins was discovered, bussing between the Black and white neighborhoods to perform and busking with the likes of pianist Wilson Smith, who conveniently went by “Thunder.” Whether whining on an electric guitar or riffing on a popular melody, Hopkins drew from farflung, unexpected sources of inspiration — jazz and rock, stories of picking cotton as a child or serving time on a chain gang, gigs at the Troubadour and Carnegie Hall — all with a uniquely Southern swing. 

Decades later, “That Little Ol Band from Texas” also formed around a fusion of blues and boogie. ZZ Top got its name from lead vocalist and guitarist Billy Gibbons, who was inspired by the music posters covering the walls of the band’s apartment in Houston. They would go on to sell more than 50 million records, earning a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cult Classics

Houston’s largest venues have played host to national and global festivities, from several Super Bowls to next year’s FIFA World Cup. But off the beaten path, achieving their own kind of celebrity, bars and clubs have long served as talent incubators. Establishments such as the Continental Club (the bayou satellite of the Austin institution) can also boast of welcoming superstar acts such as U2 and Ronnie Wood. Ani DiFranco and the Chicks have played McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, an Irish pub known for more than its shepherd’s pie.

The Heights Theater, with its distinctive Art Deco façade, first opened as a movie theater in 1929, surviving an arson attack, decades of dereliction, and multiple rounds of renovation before reopening as an indie music venue in 2016. The status of oldest operating live music venue in the city, however, goes to the Last Concert Cafe, founded in 1949 as the first woman-owned cafe in post–World War II Houston. The audience used to have to knock at an unmarked door to be admitted to the speakeasy, a hub for local rockers as well as an infamous weekly drum circle.

The folk venue of choice has always been Anderson Fair. One of the oldest acoustic music venues in continuous operation in the country, the wood-sided building looks like something out of a Wes Anderson movie (also a native Houstonian). 

Country Standards

Generations of singer/songwriters from Houston have been known for poetic lyricism that befits their Bible Belt origins. Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen both grew up in Houston, and went from playing campus bars together in College Station to the top of the charts.

Playing and singing in Emmylou Harris’ band — who, along with REK, was a vanguard of the burgeoning Americana genre — was Houston-born Rodney Crowell, whose fifth solo album, Diamonds and Dirt, would become the first country album to earn five number one singles. It’s his most critically acclaimed record, however, that is named The Houston Kid, in homage to his roots.

Singer/songwriter Hayes Carll is a standard-bearer for the poetic presence of Houston’s country music. His original songs have been covered by such greats as Lee Ann Womack, Kenny Chesney, and Brothers Osborne (all of whom, alas, are not from Houston). 

On With the Show

What’s Rodney Crowell up to these days, one might ask? Touring his latest album, with support from Turtlebox ambassador Thomas Csorba on his Texas dates, including a stop at the Heights Theater. Csorba is not the only contemporary musician who credits their hometown roots, besides even the iconoclastic rappers already mentioned. 

Bands such as The Suffers, Blue October, Khruangbin, and even Arcade Fire all have ties to Houston. (Arcade Fire’s third album, The Suburbs, is inspired by growing up and leaving behind their home in The Woodlands, a suburb of the city.) 

And who knows how many breakout stars are yet to be discovered? Practicing ’til their fingers bleed, criss-crossing the city’s sprawl to catch shows, or studying up on their musical forebears — with their speakers as loud as they can go.