It is with great pride that I announce my article "Texas Jack Takes an Encore" has been awarded the 2023 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America (WWA) for Best Western Short Nonfiction. This is a tremendous honor and a validation of the interest Texas Jack still commands when presented to western audiences. On February 22, the same article was announced as the winner of this year’s Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Magazine Article by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Museum. I was amazed to learn that this marks the first time that an individual has won both prestigious awards for short nonfiction since 1983. "Texas Jack Takes an Encore," explores the fascinating life of John B. Omohundro, better known as Texas Jack, a legendary figure in Western history and the man at the foundation of our cowboy mythology. His unique place in both Western and pop culture history makes him a fascinating subject to research and write about, and I am glad that my work contributes in a meaningful way to some renewed interest in his story. I am incredibly humbled to have the WWA include my article alongside Patrick H. Hoehne's "Apostles of Disorder: Montana Merchants, Vigilantes, and the Interconnectivity of Extralegal Violence" in Montana The Magazine of Western History and W.K. Stratton's "A Sacred Refuge" in Texas Highways magazine. To be included in such esteemed company is a great honor and further proof of the vibrancy and quality of Western writing. As someone who has long been passionate about the American West and its rich history, this award is truly meaningful to me. It is a recognition of the importance of preserving and sharing the stories that make up our cultural heritage and a reminder of the power of good storytelling. I am grateful to the Western Writers of America for this honor and for the support of Wild West magazine in publishing my work. I hope this award will inspire others to continue exploring and celebrating the unique and fascinating world of the American West. In addition to Texas Jack Takes an Encore, Spur Award winners this year include: Biography: Before Billy the Kid: The Boy Behind the Legendary Outlaw by Melody Groves (TwoDot). Children’s Picture Book: The Rowdy Randy Wild West Show: The Legend Behind the Legend by author Casey Day Rislov and illustrator Zachary Pullen (Mountain Stars Press). Contemporary Nonfiction Book: A Place of Thin Veil: Life and Death in Gallup, New Mexico by Bob Rosebrough (Rio Nuevo Publishers). Contemporary Novel: Beasts of the Earth by James Wade (Blackstone Publishing). Documentary Script: The Battle of Red Buttes by Candy Moulton and Bob Noll (Boston Productions Inc./National Historic Trails Interpretive Center). First Nonfiction Book: American Hero, Kansas Heritage: Frederick Funston’s Early Years, 1865-1890 by Clyde W. Toland (Flint Hills Publishing). Historical Novel: Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins (Simon & Schuster). Juvenile Nonfiction Book: American Ace: Joe Foss, Fighter Pilot by Hector Curriel (South Dakota Historical Society Press). Juvenile Fiction: Wish Upon a Crawdad by Curtis W. Condon (Heart of Oak Books for Young Readers). Original Mass-Market Paperback Novel: Dead Man’s Trail by Nate Morgan (Pinnacle/Kensington). Poem: “New Mexico Bootheel: A Triptych” by Larry D. Thomas (San Pedro River Review). Short Fiction: “No Quarter” by Kathleen O’Neal Gear, published in Rebel Hearts Anthology (Wolfpack Publishing). Short Nonfiction: “Texas Jack Takes an Encore” by Matthew Ross Kerns (Wild West). Song: “Way of the Cowboy” by Randy Huston, released on Times Like These(Outside Circle Records). Traditional Novel: The Secret in the Wall: A Silver Rush Mystery by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press).

My cover story on Texas Jack from Wild West magazine in April 2022 won the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Magazine Article. https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/collections/awards/wha/texas-jack-takes-an-encore/ Proud and humbled that the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum has chosen my article Texas Jack Takes an Encore, the cover story of Wild West Magazine's April 2022 edition, as their Western Heritage Award-winning Outstanding Magazine Article. The Western Heritage Awards honors individuals who have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works in literature, music, television, and film that share the great stories of the American West. Texas Jack Omohundro was the first cowboy to rise to a place of prominence in America and was the first to incorporate the trappings of the cowboy lifestyle into a stage performance. He introduced the lasso act to the stage when he and his best friend, Buffalo Bill Cody, launched their acting careers together in December of 1872. Texas Jack was inducted into the museum's Hall of Great Western Performers in 1994 and remains the earliest-born person to be so honored. In addition to Texas Jack Takes an Encore, Western Heritage (Wrangler) Award winners this year include: Dark Winds "Monster Slayer" - Outstanding Fictional Television Drama The Long Rider - Outstanding Docudrama Dead for a Dollar - Outstanding Theatrical Motion Picture Red Steagall is Somewhere West of Wall Street - Western Lifestyle Micki Fuhrman "Westbound" - Outstanding Traditional Western Album Andrew Giangola "Love & Try" -Outstanding Nonfiction Book Anouk Krantz "Ranchland: Wagonhound" - Outstanding Photography Book Casey Rislov "The Rowdy Randy Wild West Show" - Outstanding Juvenile Book Mary Clearman Blew "Thinking of Horses" - Outstanding Western Novel W.K. Stratton "Last Red Dirt Embrace" - Outstanding Poetry Book Red Steagall - Lifetime Achievement Award Pete Coors - Western Visionary Award Lou Diamond Phillips and Bob Wills are this year's inductees into the Hall of Great Western Performers. The Award Ceremony will take place in Oklahoma City on April 14th and 15th, 2023, and is usually broadcast online. https://www.dimelibrary.com/post/western-heritage-award-2023

Posted on Facebook by Dave Sparkes, who said, "Some more images I shot from the crowd at the first Australian tour, Hunter Valley, 2007. This was an outdoor gig at Bimbadgen Vineyard, the stage basically a bowl looking out over a lovely grassy hill, a natural tier set up. You could crack a bottle of the cellar door wine and listen in style. First pic is Walter about to sing Haitian Divorce, with Jon Herrington in blue print blue."

My article on Texas Jack Omohundro, his friendship and partnership with Buffalo Bill Cody, and the ways that those men's lives and legacies intertwined to inform the popular image of the American cowboy in literature, television, and film is in this month's issue of Wild West Magazine. It is available at bookshops, newsstands, and even at Walmart now. I'm proud to have my words on Texas Jack featured beside some of the best historians and authors writing about the American West, including Tom Clavin, John Boessenecker, Richard F. Selcer, Kevin Loren Carson, Carolyn Grattan Eichin, Chuck Zehnder, Aaron Robert Woodard, Jim Winnerman, Fred F. Poyner IV, John Koster, Linda Wommack, Will Gorenfeld, Terry Halden, and an interview of Bill Markley by Candy Moulton. These are writers I not only admire, but I read, and it truly is an honor to be mentioned in the same pages as they are.

These folks are protesting a COVID related construction industry shutdown by the government of Victoria, Australia. For those out of the loop, Daryl Braithwaite's cover of The Horses, written by Rickie Lee Jones and Walter Becker for her Flying Cowboys album, eventually became a kind of folk anthem for Australians. I'm not a big supporter of maskless demonstrations protesting COVID mandates, but thought it was interesting. I'm 100% certain neither Walter nor RLJ would have expected the song to become anthemic to people.

https://www.theringer.com/music/2021/7/21/22586128/steely-dan-popular-cult-favorite-millennials

This one just cracks me up.

And now for something completely different: It’s the Shameless Self-Promotion hour on the Walter Becker Network, and I (Matt) would like to take a moment and encourage you to buy my book: One of the reasons it's been a little quiet around here for the last little bit is that I've been busy getting ready for the May 1st release of my first book, a tome entitled Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star. Some of you might remember from some of my writings about Walter and my love for his music that I was first exposed to Steely Dan on many trips my family took "out West" in the springs and summers of my youth. So in a weird way, the sound that immediately takes me to the long drive from Moab, Utah up into the Manti-La Sal National Forest and to Warner Lake Campground is Aja on cassette. Medicine Wheel in Wyoming sounds like Black Friday. Well, in much the same way that Steely Dan was a ubiquitous part of my childhood that loomed ever larger as I became an adult, the West has never really left this southern boy alone. At some point, I started researching the history of the reality behind the Wild West myth, and came upon an interesting anecdote: in 1874 many Americans in the eastern part of the United States could go down to their local theatre, pay a quarter, and see live on stage three giants of the American West in reality and legend—Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro. Now, if you're like most people you're well aware of Wild Bill, the deadliest gunslinger of them all and arguably the most famous lawman in American history. You likely remember Buffalo Bill as well, the famous scout and buffalo hunter turned showman, and the driving force behind our mythologized version of the west in literature, art, and film. So if this Texas Jack guy was worth equal billing with those luminaries, why had I never heard of him? I set myself to answering that question. The short answer is that Texas Jack was the first cowboy in American history to achieve notoriety, standing at the foundation of all of our cowboy tropes. The long answer took me three or four years to put into words and takes about 368 pages to get right. To tie it back in and make it (loosely) relevant, without Texas Jack Omohundro Steely Dan would have never sung about “a natural man / wearing a white Stetson hat.” Anyway, I'm incredibly proud of the book and hope that those of you with a passing interest in pop culture, cowboys, westerns, American history, or supporting me as a writer give it a shot and pick it up. Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star is available in both hardcover and e-reader formats at most of the usual suspects where book buying is concerned. For those of you without a local independent bookstore, check: or: If you'd rather find a copy of Texas Jack locally, the first edition hardcover can be purchased, while supporting your favorite local bookstore, from: While awaiting the book's release, I decided to put a picture that my wife took of me proudly holding my first copy of my first book on Reddit. Due to the wild machinations of fate, the post somehow took off, with 54K+ upvotes and more than a thousand comments. That led a whole slew of people to my site (www.dimelibrary.com), and according to what I can gather from the web, to purchasing the book. For a little bit that day, my book was ranked in the Top 100 for several Amazon categories, and it isn't even out yet! Given some time and the just right circumstances... A quick glance through the comments shows a lot of support from the larger Steely Dan community, which really means a lot to me. Thanks guys! If you need a little more convincing before you give the book a shot, check out author Julia Bricklin's review, which reads in part: This groundbreaking work by Matthew Kerns brings to light a lesser-known but vitally important figure in any history of American pop culture...Kerns meticulously reconstructs the fascinating—if sadly shortened—life of Texas Jack Omohundro. What emerges is the story of the man who actually was the driving force behind Buffalo Bill's decision to go into show business, and perhaps was too authentic to shine as brightly as Cody through the ages. Until now.

This moody bastard remembers… He remembers that in the depths of the pandemic/lockdown/toilet paper shortage of 2020, we did nothing to mark the 25th anniversary of Walter’s lone solo show at Slim’s in San Francisco on April 7, 1995. Unfortunately, Slim’s closed its doors on March 18 of 2020, another victim of the aforementioned plague and the plethora of problems it produced. We cowered and quaked in our respective hidey-holes, and while it's not quite in the long ago and far away, it does appear that with the help of some hand sanitizer, billions of masks, and the height of medical efficacy by the Brothers Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna, etcetera etcetera, we’re able to at least glimpse the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. We might have missed the 25th anniversary of THE event, but we can get together (virtually) and belatedly celebrate the 26th. We’ve already given you Three Sisters Shakin’ and Cinder Annie, two tracks from that night that weren’t on 11 Tracks of Whack in its final form. So we thought we’d give you a more familiar track, specifically requested on the walterbeckermedia.com forum, in This Moody Bastard. If you’re thinking to yourself, “man, I wish it had been Down in the Bottom, or Girl Next Door to the Methadone Clinic, or Tennessee Jazz Odyssey, or, or…” well all I can say is get on the forum and join in the conversation. Someone who did is getting to hear the track they most wanted. That could be you. This Moody Bastard has been oft interpreted, with answers posed for questions like “Who is the moody bastard? Who is the little friend? When were the salad days? Where were the ivy walls?” I’ve believed at least three completely different internal explanations for this song, which might be why I’ve always found it so damn compelling. Most of the times I’ve listened to it, I was the moody bastard who once in a blue moon really needs a friend. But sometimes, I was reaching out to one of the many moody bastards in my own life, reminding them that I was some kinda friend now and again, and that I was still there if they needed me once in a great while. Honestly, there’s a lot of mileage in this one, and I’m glad we all get to hear Walter sing it live. I’m struck again by how close this version is vocally to the recording on 11ToW...for whatever technical limitations Walter may have had as a vocalist, his phrasing, timing, and tone are consistent and consistently great. So give this a listen. Somewhere a couple of minutes in, I hope you’ll be smiling. In fact…

Greetings all. One of the reasons it's been a little quiet around here for the last little bit is that I've been busy getting ready for the May 1st release of my first book, a tome entitled Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star. Some of you might remember from some of my writings about Walter and my love for his music that I was first exposed to Steely Dan on many trips my family took "out West" in the springs and summers of my youth. So in a weird way, the sound that immediately takes me to the long drive from Moab, Utah up into the Manti-La Sal National Forest and to Warner Lake Campground is Aja on cassette. Medicine Wheel in Wyoming sounds like Black Friday. Well, in much the same way that Steely Dan was a ubiquitous part of my childhood that loomed ever larger as I became an adult, the West has never really left this southern boy alone. At some point, I started researching the history of the reality behind the Wild West myth, and came upon an interesting anecdote: in 1874 many Americans in the eastern part of the United States could go down to their local theatre, pay a quarter, and see live on stage three giants of the American West in reality and legend—Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro. Now, if you're like most people you're well aware of Wild Bill, the deadliest gunslinger of them all and arguably the most famous lawman in American history. You likely remember Buffalo Bill as well, the famous scout and buffalo hunter turned showman, and the driving force behind our mythologized version of the west in literature, art, and film. So if this Texas Jack guy was worth equal billing with those luminaries, why had I never heard of him? I set myself to answering that question. The short answer is that Texas Jack was the first cowboy in American history to achieve notoriety, standing at the foundation of all of our cowboy tropes. The long answer took me three or four years to put into words and takes about 368 pages to get right. I'm incredibly proud of the book, and hope that those of you with a passing interest in pop culture, westerns, American history, or supporting me as a writer give it a shot and pick it up. If you're interested in learning a little bit more about the book, like what its about, where you can preorder it, and why it matters, check out either my website www.dimelibrary.com or my Texas Jack Facebook page at www.facebook.com/jbomohundro Thanks for your time, and we'll have more WB content anon. Matt