Bill Malone kicks off Texas Rising Stars LIVE series

By Maria R. Gonzalez
University News Service
March 9, 2007

The Texas Rising Stars LIVE performance series kicks off with a performance by renowned music historian and former Texas State University history professor Bill Malone at 7:30 on April 4 at the Aquarena-Texas Rivers Center.

The series is a part of the university’s efforts to preserve and promote Texas’ natural and human resource treasures.

Malone’s concert is the inauguration of a performance series that will feature literary figures, musicians and artists on the first Wednesday of every month. A welcome reception for Malone will be held from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., and after the concert he will take part in a book-signing.  Malone will also perform at Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on April 6.

Highlights of Malone’s career in music history include teaching at what is now Texas State University and at Tulane University.  He also compiled the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Country Music in 1981 and is a nationally recognized senior country music history authority. Malone is also the author of numerous books including his most recent Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class under the University of Illinois Press (2002).  The book details the history of country music and personal reflections on its influence on the lives of the working class in the South.

The Texas Rising Stars LIVE Performance Series is sponsored by River Systems Institute, Center for Texas Music History, Southwest Writers Collection, Phi Alpha Theta History Society, Texas State University and Cheatham Street Warehouse. For more information, contact Jane Moore at lm47@txstate.edu.