The very next night, I went to my second show: James McMurtry. I am not being overly dramatic when I say it was like a religious experience. My eyes were opened: I was sold on Texas music!

You may be asking, "What is Texas music, anyway?" There are different definitions, depending on who you talk to. My Texas-born-and-bred friend Phil and I like to say that Texas music is "whatever we like!" We live in Texas, so why not? But that's not really an answer, now, is it?

There really is a "Texas music," at least one that I've formulated in my own mind, and that's what rules my portion of the universe, so here you go. It includes musicians who:

• write and perform their own songs;
• are from or who live in Texas, or who play music cool enough to be Texan; and
• have a country or bluesy or country-bluesy, but certainly a Texas-y kinda sound

The second criterion is deliberately broad, and the last one is very loose and not easily interpreted. That's just the way I like it. That lets me include (and exclude) whoever I want to! The emphasis in my mind, though, is really on the songwriting -- Texans love a good song. And, sure, there's lots of non-country-sounding music being produced in Texas, and some of it's very good, but we're not too concerned about that on this website. Not yet, anyway. T4TX.com will continue to evolve as it ages.

Anyway, back to the story how this website got started. I fell in love with Texas music, so I went in search of websites that support the genre and didn't find much. I wanted a website that told me where to go in San Antonio for my favorite artists. I didn't find it. (NOTE: Since we started this site, we've discovered several great new websites. Check out our links page to visit our favorites.) Since I do web design as my primary job, I thought I'd just start up my own website that served my needs as a Texas music fan -- and if it served others' needs as well, then all the better.

But what would I do for content? My job keeps me pretty busy, so, although I love writing, I don't have time to do a lot of it, and the artists have their own websites, anyway, that can give you all the information you want about them. I then toyed with the idea of a site that showcases the outstanding backing musicians, like Nathan Hamilton's guitarist, Billy Brent Malkus, or James McMurtry's bass player, Ronnie Johnson. That would be really cool, but I didn't think it was enough, and there was that content thing again -- I'd have to sit down and write it.

Then, one day I was looking through the collection of snapshots I'd taken at live shows with my digital camera. I had some good ones of Jackson Parten, Guy Forsyth, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Junior Brown, and many others. I'd sent some to their webmasters -- some were published on the websites, but, for the most part, they were not. That's when it hit me. What we need is a site for fans to publish their photos!

But I didn't want this to be a free-for-all. That would create the danger of inappropriate photos being put up here. I want it to be a place where you and we can display the pictures we've taken of our favorite Texas music artists, but I, along with a group of advisors, want to be able to decide which should be displayed. In addition to photos, we want to know what's good in Texas music, so we'll need a place for media, because we want to present some of our favorites for you to listen to and maybe even some of the best Texas music you've never heard.

So, here we are: T4TX.com. By the way, if you don't know, T4TX is short for "T for Texas", an old Jimmie Rodgers tune (a Texas musician from Mississippi -- you see how that works?). You may have heard a version of the song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, among others. I thought T4TX would be easy for people to remember. Hope it works out that way.

By the way, when you display a photo or publish a demo here, you retain the rights. I only want the right to display it on T4TX.com for as long as you allow it. Any other place you want to publish it is up to you. In fact, one of my hopes is that this site can become a place for publicists and the artists themselves to come when they need a photo for an article or CD cover or whatever. They can see the photos here and contact the owners for the right to use them. Sound like a plan?

Right, then, let's go!

--Steve Circeo, Texas Music Lover