Veteran Texas Music Journalist and Historian Michael Corcoran Has Died at 68

Longtime Texas music journalist Michael Corcoran was found dead on Monday, July 1, in his Buda, Texas, home just south of Austin. He was 68 years old. Though a cause of death has yet to be determined by autopsy, Corcoran’s son Jack announced on Facebook Monday evening that funeral service details will be available soon.

“I know my father touched a lot of lives,” he wrote, “and we are going to plan the biggest send off we can for him. A true badass has left the planet.”
Known to friends as colleagues as "Corky," Michael Corcoran was an award-winning newspaper writer and author who specialized in Texas music. He spent the early '90s as a pop music critic for The Dallas Morning News before moving on to the Austin American-Statesman, where he worked from 1995 to 2011. He earned a Cox Newspapers "Writer of the Year" honor in 1996. During his time in Austin, he won the 2003 AAFSE Award for Best Entertainment Feature with "The Devil and Billy Joe Shaver" and the title of Best Music Critic from The Austin Chronicle in 2017.

The revered writer also published work in Creem magazine, Rolling Stone and National Lampoon. Corcoran wrote the books All Over the Map: True Heros of Texas Music (a part of the “North Texas Lives of Musicians” book series from TCU Press) and Ghost Notes: Pioneering Spirits of Texas Music, cementing his reputation as a robust authority in the Lone Star State’s music history. His forthcoming book, Austin Music Is a Scene Not a Sound, is scheduled to be published in September 2024 by TCU Press.

After the 2019 merger of the Austin American-Statesmen umbrella company New Media Investment Group and mass-market newspaper publisher Gannett, Corcoran accepted an employee buyout offer made to editorial staffers. He then focused on his own passion projects, such as penning the liner notes for a definitive Sam Cooke boxed set called The Complete Keen Years: 1957–1960.

Corcoran occasionally contributed to the Dallas Observer, and his writing can be revisited via our online author archives.

Corcoran is survived by an impressive body of work and his ex-wife Victoria, in addition to his son Jack. His death marks the end of an era in Texas music and criticism. He will be remembered as a treasured cultural figure for his contributions to music-focused editorial media as a clever and sharp-witted first-person voice.