Summer Dean
Photo: Scott Slusher
The second annual Fort Worth Music Festival and Conference will unfold across seven different venues in the Fort Worth Stockyards, starting Wednesday and continuing through Saturday.
The participating stages include Billy Bob’s Texas, Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall, the White Elephant and Love Shack, among others — an outdoor stage will be featured as well.
A limited number of single-day general admission passes are on sale now for the four days of the festival (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). Each pass provides general admission for that day to performances at all participating venues. A single-day general admission pass will set you back $39.50.
The annual festival and conference is produced by Live Nation in partnership with Tim Love and Larry Joe Taylor, and “aims to generate awareness surrounding the Texas music scene while working to build an infrastructure where artists can establish and grow their career in Texas and beyond,” according to a press release.
There’s lots of great performances to choose from over the coming days, but to help narrow your choices a little, we’ve assembled a playlist of five can’t-miss artists descending on Fort Worth during this year’s festival. (You can view the full line-up at fortworthmusicfestival.com.)
Summer Dean (8 p.m. March 1 at the White Elephant)
One of the sharpest singer-songwriters in Fort Worth, Summer Dean is a relentless road warrior who wins fans by the fistfuls with her raw, real country music and dynamic live presence. Dean’s latest studio album, The Biggest Life, was produced by no less a Texas music titan than Bruce Robison.
Jack Ingram (8 p.m. March 1 at the Cowboy Channel Studio)
The Dallas singer-songwriter has won just about every accolade under the sun, but earlier this year, he added a new trophy to his case, when he was inducted into the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame. Although he hasn’t released a solo album since 2017’s Midnight Motel, Ingram has kept busy, most recently collaborating with Miranda Lambert and fellow Hall of Famer Jon Randall on 2021’s The Marfa Tapes.
Angel White (6:45 p.m. March 2 at Tannahill’s Music Hall and Tavern)
Another phenomenal singer-songwriter, hailing from Dallas, White unveiled his knock-out debut, Ghost of the West, last year. In keeping with the state’s idiosyncratic artistic impulses, White freely fuses R&B, country and folk in his songs, creating an intoxicating blend all his own.
Abraham Alexander (7 p.m. March 2 at the Cowboy Channel Studio)
A fast-rising star, armed with his superb debut LP SEA/SONS, singer-songwriter Abraham Alexander is no stranger to Fort Worth stages. In between opening for A-list acts across the country and around the world, Alexander is also fresh off his inaugural headlining tour. If 2023 was any indication, he’s just getting warmed up.
Shinyribs (8:15 p.m. March 2 on the Busch Light Stage)
Trying to describe precisely what musician Kevin Russell (who performs as Shinyribs) alchemizes is tricky — his own social channels characterize his sound as “a melting pot of Texas blues, New Orleans R&B-funk and horn-driven Memphis soul.” There’s also just a spark of the freewheeling about the Austin singer-songwriter, which makes him a blast in concert.
The Fort Worth Music Festival and Conference, Fort Worth Stockyards. Feb. 28-March 2. Tickets are $39.50-$599.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
