Jess Williamson

Texas Extra: My KUTX

March was all about music for Texas Standard. We debuted our latest Texas Standard special – “Rap to the Ranch: The Ballad of Mason ‘Bric’ LaDue.” And we celebrated ten years of the show with a top 10 list of our favorite music interviews and stories from the past decade.

The first weekend in March, the music partner of our home station KUT actually let the Texas Standard team take a turn as guest DJs! Our playlist is very different from our top 10 list because these are *personal favorites in one way or another.

Please note, for podcast purposes, we couldn’t play the whole song – so you’ll just hear little teases. Here’s the playlist:

1. Asleep At The Wheel – “Bob Wills Is Still The King” (feat. Clint Black) [David Brown]

2. The Black Angels – “You On The Run” [Alexandra Hart]

3. Selena – “Tus Desprecios” [Raul Alonzo]

4. Freddy Fender – “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” [Kristen Cabrera]

5. Jess Williamson – “Chasing Spirits” [Leah Scarpelli]

6. David Halley – “Loose Diamond” [Shelly Brisbin]

7. Khruangbin – “The Infamous Bill” [Casey Cheek]

8. Scarface – “Good Girl Gone Bad” [Wells Dunbar]

9. Amanda Shires – “Mineral Wells” [Gabrielle Muñoz]

10. Margo Price – “Hands of Time” [Rhonda Fanning]

11. Black Pumas – “Colors” [Laura Rice]

Texas Standard is a listener-supported production of KUT & KUTX Studios in Austin, Texas. You can support this work at supportthispodcast.org.

Shakey Graves & Jess Williamson: “True Love Will Find You In The End” (Live at Longhorn Cavern)

When it comes to natural landmarks, Texas is absolutely teeming with them. From meteor craters and sinkholes to canyons, rivers, forests, mountain ranges, lakes, and caverns, our vast landscape offers a ton of variety to make up for those long car rides. And none of that Earth-born beauty could be conserved as well as it has been without the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation, who just celebrated the centennial of Texas State Parks last year.

If you missed it, TPWF recently teamed up with KUTX favorite Walker Lukens to produce Texas Wild, a collection of iconic Texas tunes performed by some of the Lone Star’s finest to commemorate that hundred-year legacy of astonishing state parks. That eleven-track vinyl packs a wallop on its own, no doubt, but because everything’s bigger when you’re here, the Texas Wild team just had to make some extra hay for this salute.

So, alongside the KUTX Multimedia Crew, Walker, The Bright Light Social Hour, Shakey Graves, and Jess Williamson took a field trip out to Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet to bask in the ancestral acoustics and primal reverb that only an eon-old limestone cave can provide. Their chamber-filling rendition of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End” can haunt any home stereo, but to fully immerse yourself in this one-of-a-kind space, you gotta check out the video. Because like witnessing all-star set of stalagmites suddenly come to life, with outward reverence for their surroundings and instruments at the ready, it’s a visual treat that plants you into a truly magical habitat, one you won’t want to leave when the music’s over.

Texas Extra: An extended conversation with musician Jess Williamson about her new album

We’re experimenting with bonus episodes here at the Texas Standard and we’d love to know what you think. You can let us know here: https://www.texasstandard.org/contact-us/

This is a director’s cut version of our interview with musician and North Texas native Jess Williamson. There was so much we loved in this conversation that we couldn’t fit on tomorrow’s show — so you’re actually getting both a preview and an extended listen, beautifully produced by director Leah Scarpelli.

Here’s our 2020 conversation with Williamson: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/jess-williamsons-album-sorceress-is-her-most-texas-record-yet/