Joe Nick Patoski Additions

Use Biographical Notes as label if describing an individual and Historical Notes if describing a group or an institution. Joe Nick Patoski is an award-winning journalist and author who is widely considered a leading expert on Texas, particularly with his reporting and writing on music, the environment, and myriad aspects of Texas culture. He has authored biographies of Willie Nelson and Selena, and he has co-authored a biography of Stevie Ray Vaughan. He has collaborated with photographer Laurence Parent on books about the Texas Mountains, the Texas Coast, and Big Bend National Park, all published by University of Texas Press. He has also published Generations on the Land: A Conservation Legacy (Texas A and M Press) and Texas High School Football: More Than the Game (Texas Historical Commission).

His book, The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America, an 800 page history of the football team and the city of Dallas, was published by Little, Brown and Company in 2012.

In 2015, Patoski directed the music documentary film Sir Doug and The Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove, about the San Antonio and Austin musician Doug Sahm, which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival.

He authored an outsider’s history of Austin, Austin to ATX: The Hippies, Pickers, Slackers, and Geeks Who Transformed the Capital of Texas, published by Texas A and M University Press in 2019.

In 2020, he self-published The Ballas of Robert Ealey and His Five Careless Lovers: An Oral History, telling the tale of a legendary Fort Worth, Texas blues band,

A long-time writer for Texas Monthly, and a Writer At Large at Texas Highways magazine, Patoski's byline has also appeared in many other magazines and newspapers. He hosted the Texas Music Hour of Power, a weekly radio program showcasing the breadth of Texas Music, for Marfa Public Radio and Wimberley Valley Radio. He lives near Wimberley in the Texas Hill Country where he swims and paddles in the Blanco River.