Horse Racing & Rock ‘N’ Roll: How America’s Live Music Capital Tripped Out, Cowboyed Up and Shook the World

Behind the scenes is not just a phrase, but an actual world of its own. No matter who’s in the spotlight, there’s a dimly lit hive of frenetic activity behind them, including lawyers and managers who cut the deals, backstage technicians who make the event happen, and suppliers who provide everything from electricity to cocaine. For decades, Woody Roberts has been a renowned backstage force in the weird cultural swirl that created a global music center in Austin, Texas, and in this memoir, he invites us to take a trip inside the hive.

• Jim Hightower, populist author, radio commentator, & editor of The Hightower Lowdown, HightowerLowdown.org.

Woody Roberts hits a home run in this well-written, fast-moving account of how Texas became a major hub in American music. From the chaotic first Willie Nelson Picnic, to the heyday of Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, to the ethnic-flavored scenes in San Antonio, through the madcap near-miss scheme to marry rock and roll with quarter horse racing at Manor Downs, this is the ground-zero take on it all. Take a ride with Willie, Janis Joplin, the cosmic cowboys, Doug Sahm, the Grateful Dead, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Austin’s punk rockers. You’ll be glad you did.

Jan Reid, author of The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock