Twenty years ago, executive editor Skip Hollandsworth spotted a photo on the wall of the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville: a Depression-era portrait of a group of young women in cowgirl costumes. Skip decided he had to know more about who these women were, and in this week’s episode of State of Mind, he recounts the story he pieced together about the unlikely radio superstars who disappeared suddenly at the height of their fame.

The Goree All Girl String Band, as Skip learned, was one of the first all-female country bands in history, whose members also happened to be inmates at the state’s only women’s prison. And if he hadn’t come along when he did, their story might have been lost to history. This story was first published in the May 2003 issue of Texas Monthly.

On next week’s episode of State of Mind, El Dusty—the “unofficial mayor of the Corpus Christi music scene“—will tell the story of the music that shaped him, and kept him rooted in his hometown.

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