Austin Singer-Songwriter Releases New Album Inspired by Patsy Cline

Our daily roundup of Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelOctober 6, 2016 11:20 am,

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for new music from Texas artists in our series “Cut In.” Writer Lyndsay Knecht introduces us to Molly Burch, a breakout singer-songwriter from Austin who’s earning comparisons to retro-revivalist Angel Olsen and Patsy Cline.

As Knecht explains, there are more voices echoing in Burch’s work:

“Patsy Cline gets a lot of credit – It’s not as if she doesn’t deserve it,” she says. “The wistful queen of early 60s Nashville – and, later, the confessional ballad – is held close as an inspiration by so many young singer-songwriters for her articulation of feeling. Austin’s Molly Burch is one of those young singer-songwriters.”

Burch celebrated her first 7-inch single at a release show Wednesday night. 

“There’s something about an exciting new female voice that dips so blatantly into an expressive history, that makes me savor all these voices again, all carrying a certain breakable thing we can trust them to carry,” she says. “I hear Ella Fitzgerald, the greatest singer of all time, who took stages and made eyes water before Cline did – and, of course, I hear Judy Garland, whose range communicates a longing just as enormous.”




The Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays face off today in Arlington for their first game of the American League Division playoff series – and the two teams have a history of bad blood. KERA’s Rick Holter takes us back to the final playoff game between them last year and the moment when Blue Jay Jose Bautista clinched the victory for Toronto.

“Bautista’s dramatic home run would win the series – to make matters worse, he flipped the bat into the air,” Holter says. “That’s a baseball no-no … and both teams rushed the field. Ultimately, Toronto won, and advanced.”

In May, the final game in the only series the two rivals would play in this regular season ended with a brawl.

“Texas led by a run in the eighth inning – a Ranger pitch hit Bautista, who went to first,” Holter says. “The next batter hit a ground ball, which was thrown to – you guessed it – Rougned Odor at second base. Bautista plowed into him. The benches cleared, and Odor landed a punch for the ages.”

The brawl left Odor with a seven-game suspension and bruised knuckles. Bautista got a sore jaw and the Blue Jays, a 7-to-6 loss.

The revenge matchup begins Thursday, October 6, at 3:30 p.m.




Commercial space company Blue Origin oversaw another successful test launch at their West Texas Launch Site on Wednesday.

This time, employees tested out the escape system on their reusable New Shephard rocket. It marked the fifth, and probably final flight for the craft.