Hey Baby, It's the Fourth of July

In other places, like on the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet, they talk about the salt of the Earth. Here in Texas, we have the dust of the earth. It gets in our clothes, hair, fingernails, mouths, and noses. We write our names in it on cars and stir it up if we drive down a dirt road. Sometimes it clouds our minds, too. KVET played "Pancho & Lefty" a couple of Fridays ago, appropriate since Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard are headlining Nelson's annual Fourth of July picnic, and the VET is sponsoring it. But the deejay said it was Willie and Waylon, then announced Waylon as part of this year's lineup. Whoops. Waylon played last year, reduced to the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme and pouting through "Luckenbach, Texas." Presumably, there's no danger of a surprise Janie Fricke duet, so Haggard's set should be fine. He packed Hang 'em High last October sounding spry and curmudgeonly as ever. Besides a just-confirmed appearance by Dwight Yoakam, look also for the true space cowboy Jimmie Dale Gilmore; picnic perennials Leon Russell, Little Joe y la Familia, Steven Fromholz, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kimmie Rhodes, and Titty Bingo; Austin favorites Joe Ely, Loose Diamonds, and 81/2 Souvenirs; legendary Cherokee Cowboy Ray Price; and the usual permutations of the extended Willie Family. This year there's no rural punk of the Supersuckers or Tenderloin, with Houston's Jesse Dayton about as insurgent as it gets, but the Geezinslaws are back. Expect more horns than usual, as King Soul and the Bells of Joy raise the picnic's soul quotient, but don't expect a K-Juice van in front of the Luckenbach country store. KVET probably needs the room to dust off its fact-checking corps. -- Christopher Gray

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[To get to Luckenbach, drive almost all the way to Fredericksburg and follow the line of cars. Tickets for Willie's Fourth of July Picnic are $24.50 at Star Tickets, Ticketmaster, or call 1-800-966-SHOW to charge. Gates open at 8am, music starts at 10am.]