When life gets going, sometimes it goes fast. For Fort Worth-based singer/songwriter Claire Hinkle, that’s exactly what happened. In September last year she called an acquaintance in the music community (now manager Blue Barnett) to ask for help because she felt stuck. By December 2024, she was at Sunset Sound Recorders cutting four singles with Shooter Jennings. A few months later, she performed at Willie Nelson’s 2025 Luck Reunion (on the Fort Worth Stage), and this fall, she played Americanafest.

Borrowing from many and beholden to none, Johnny Mullenax plays a raucous musical smorgasbord he calls “funky country bluegrass.” Though it’s rare for an Americana/country band lead singer also to play lead electric guitar, for the Tulsa, Oklahoma native, splicing lightning-fast solos in between lyric lines appears to be second nature. Mullenax is singularly unconcerned with meeting the expectations of any one descriptor precisely.