The focus will be on country music stars and legends such as Cindy Walker for the 37th Heart of Texas Country Music Festival, which runs from Thursday, March 19 through Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Brady, Texas. Tickets are available at www.heartoftexascountry.com under the Music Festival tab, or by phoning (325) 597-1895.
One of the new highlights this year takes place on Friday, March 20, from 11:00AM-12:00PM, when Bill & Bobbie Malone and Kent Calder present “The Music and Story of Songwriter Cindy Walker, with Two Guitars and a Mandolin” at Heart of Texas Music Museum.
“We will talk about Cindy’s life in the context of her music,” said Bill Malone. “We’ll tell stories of her life, what kind of songwriter she was over her history, and play bits of her songs to illustrate what we are presenting.”
Walker started in the music business when she walked into a recording studio and got Bing Crosby to record a song that turned into a top 10 hit. Walker was 22 years old.
“She knew what she wanted out of the music business,” Bill said. “She wanted to supply songs to these people. She was very precocious when it came to writing. She was a genius at writing a wide range of songs, yet she could write a song to fit the style of each individual performer.” Her songs ended up being recorded by the likes of Bob Wills, Gene Autry, Jim Reeves, Perry Como, Ernest Tubb, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, Tex Ritter, Englebert Humperdinck, and many others in several genres.
The Malones were drawn to tell Walker’s stories as they were “always impressed” by the range of her songs. Some of Walker’s best-known compositions include Bubbles in My Beer, Cherokee Maiden, Miss Molly, You Don’t Know Me, and Dream Baby.
Bobbie Malone grew up in San Antonio and earned a PhD in American History from Tulane University, where Bill Malone is Emeritus History Professor. His history of country music–“Country Music, USA”–served as basis for the narrative in the Ken Burns Country Music series, in which Bill appeared.
The couple are currently working on a book about the importance of the disc jockey in shaping and preserving country music, which brought them to Brady, Texas, to interview Tracy Pitcox, organizer of the Festival.
“He’s made Brady into something so special,” Bill said. “We couldn’t get over the museum, we couldn’t get over the crowd, we couldn’t get over the musicians. He’s amazing to us, all that energy. Tracy is going to be the leading star of the epilogue in our book.”
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