Denton, Texas

Everything Denton is known for

22 songs mention this city 120 artists from here

Denton, Texas, located on the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, is recognized for its vibrant music scene. With 120 artists calling it home, Denton has fostered a diverse range of talent, including the jazz collective Snarky Puppy and indie artist Sarah Jaffe. The city's musical presence is also noted in songs like "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" by The Mountain Goats.

Denton's rich musical identity is supported by its college town atmosphere, largely influenced by the University of North Texas College of Music, which boasts the nation's first jazz studies program. This environment has contributed to Denton being a hub where various genres, from metal to electronic, thrive.

Music in Denton

Songs About Denton

Internet Going Nutz
Paul Wall
95%
"These sexy {hoes} at UNT, I'm sendin e-notes talkin fly"
Probably Corsicana Intro
Max Stalling
94%
"You know we don't always get to play nice places like Dan's Silver Leaf in Denton, Texas"
Ohio (Come Back to Texas)
Bowling for Soup
85%
"You know Denton County will be right here waiting for you"
The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton
The Mountain Goats
83%
"The best ever death metal band out of Denton"
Denton, TX
Damien Jurado
81%
"Denton, TX"
Denton
Threaded
80%
"Song about Denton"
Our Escape
Fishboy
55%
"If you were a city would you be Denton, TX"
The Denton Polka
Brave Combo
55%
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
HappyHappy
55%
"And Denton just off campus"
Denton, Texas
Brave Combo
55%
"I wanna buy that motel on 380, the Holiday Lodge, across the street from Mazatlan"
Denton, TX.
Damien Jurado
52%
"(title) "Denton, TX." — title is the place signal"
Red Light
Deep Blue Something
50%
Hometown Badboy
Casey Daniels Band
49%
"At the rockin rodeo down in Denton"
Valium Waltz
Old 97's
40%
"In Denton town doing the Valium waltz"
Locust St. (feat. Kat Hasty)
Kody West
21%
"Locust St."
940
Race Ricketts
16%
"TITLE: 940"
the interstate 35 waltz
garret t. capps & justin boyd
10%
Beautiful Lies (Live at The Panhandle House)
Tanner Usrey
7%
"Live at The Panhandle House"
Hey Dallas
Hudson Westbrook
7%
"she’s in the 76202"
Small Town Kid
Eli Young Band
4%
"I'm a small town kid"

Showing top 20 of 22 songs

Artists From Denton

M
Memphis May Fire
metal
S
Sarah Jaffe
indie
D
Deep Blue Something
rock
L
Laszlo
electronic
S
Snarky Puppy
jazz
S
Sly Stone
rock
N
Neon Indian
electronic
E
El Gato
latin
J
Julia Smith
other
I
I Promised The World
indie
C
Creeping Death
metal
M
Midlake
indie
R
Riverboat Gamblers
rock
J
Jessie Frye
electronic
R
Ray Peterson
rock
T
The Holophonics
other
B
Bog
metal
T
The Marked Men
other
B
Bad Sports
other
B
Bosque Brown
americana

Showing top 20 of 120 artists

Rivers & Roads in Song near Denton

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Denton.

Interstate 35 43 songs Trinity River 11 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Red River 87 songs Interstate 45 8 songs Interstate 20 13 songs

History of Denton

Funk's Architect Was Born on Prairie Street RoadyGoat

Long before he reinvented American music, Sylvester Stewart was a Denton baby. Born here on March 15, 1943, the boy the world would know as Sly Stone spent his earliest years in a deeply religious family tied to the Church of God in Christ, who encouraged their kids to play and sing. Around 1950 the family pulled up and moved to Vallejo, California, near San Francisco, where his father ran a janitorial business. Sly later wrote that Denton went into the past and the future went into Vallejo. But the foundation was laid in Texas: a prodigy who was working the keyboard by age seven and adding guitar, bass, and drums by eleven. As the frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, he fused soul, rock, gospel, and psychedelia into the blueprint for funk, with an integrated, mixed-gender band that itself made a statement in the late 1960s. He died in 2025 at age 82, a giant whose first cries were heard in Denton. (Source: Denton Record-Chronicle; Wikipedia.)

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The Man Buried Three Times on His Own Courthouse Lawn RoadyGoat

On the southeast corner of the Denton County Courthouse lawn sits a small grave that took sixty years and three burials to fill. When John B. Denton was killed at Village Creek in 1841, the retreating militia buried him in a hurry under a tree beside the creek. Years later boys hunting along Oliver Creek turned up a set of bones, and rancher John Chisum took charge of them. Survivors of the old raid said they recognized the remains by the blanket they were wrapped in, an arm that had been broken in life, and a few gold teeth. Chisum reburied the bones in the corner of his own yard, where they stayed for decades. In 1900 the Old Settlers Association decided the county's namesake ought to rest in the town that bore his name. So on November 21, 1901, more than 600 mourners in their Sunday best gathered on the courthouse square to lower him into the ground a third and final time, beside the building that runs his county. (Source: Denton County; Portal to Texas History.)

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Where College Jazz Was Invented RoadyGoat

Denton can claim something no other town can: the place where jazz first became a college major. In 1947, the school now called the University of North Texas launched the world's first degree program in jazz studies, an idea seeded by a graduate student named Gene Hall, whose 1940s thesis on a dance-band degree became the blueprint. To give students playing credit, the program built rehearsal ensembles named for the hour they met, and the flagship became the One O'Clock Lab Band. The One O'Clock turned into a launchpad, racking up Grammy nominations from a deep catalog of recordings and feeding waves of professional players into big bands and studios worldwide. The College of Music brings well over a thousand music majors to Denton, which is a big reason this small Texas town punches so far above its weight musically. Among the students who passed through the jazz program was a young pianist named Norah Jones, who studied here in the late 1990s before leaving for New York. (Source: Handbook of Texas; University of North Texas.)

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University of North Texas College of Music

1947

The University of North Texas College of Music in Denton is one of the nation's premier institutions for musical training and education. Prominent alumni include Harry Babasin , Gene Roland , Jimmy Giuffre , Bob Belden, Lou Marini, Conrad Herwig, Jim Snidero, and Norah Jones. In 1947 North Texas State Teachers College (as the current University of North Texas was then named) became the first university in the world to offer a degree in jazz , and over the years the university has solidified its reputation as one of the preeminent institutions for the study of that genre. From the beginning, music was a part of the UNT curriculum. A "Conservatory Music Course" was offered as part of the university's initial "Nine Full Courses" in 1890. The complete course in music, lasting forty-four weeks, required private lessons that had to be paid for, in addition to regular school tuition. These classes ran at a rate of $200 for the complete course, while regular tuition for a forty-week school year was only $48. President Joshua C. Chilton himself taught the first classes in the history of music and the theory of sound. John M. Moore, a Dallas Methodist bishop and teacher of mathematics and engineering courses, taught the classes in voice culture and harmony. Mrs. E. J. McKissack was also a teacher of music and may have served as the director of the music conservatory. Between 1917 and 1919 the school purchased land for the construction of expanded campus facilities. Included in the purchase was the former residence of past president Joel S. Kendall. This two-story frame house, known as Kendall Hall, became the Music Hall and served the department in various capacities until 1940. Music-oriented activities played an important role in the extracurricular life of early North Texas students. As early as 1897, an Orchestra Club and a Mandolin and Guitar Club were organized. By 1920 extracurricular activities, including choral clubs, had become so distracting to many students that a point system was instituted in order to limit participation in them. In 1925, when motion pictures first came to the campus, a student pit orchestra was formed in order to provide music for the films. Faculty member Floyd Graham, who organized the orchestra, saw it as a means of providing income to the students who participated. Extracurricular musical clubs of the day also included the College Choral Club, Girls' Glee Club, Men's Glee Club, College Band, and College Orchestra. The year 1938 was one of the most important in the development of the North Texas music program. Under the auspices of President W. J. McConnell, the music department was greatly expanded. Dr. Wilfred C. Bain was appointed to head the department, and under his leadership, several new initiatives were taken, including an enhanced degree program. The school began offering five degrees in music: bachelor of science in music education, bachelor of music in music education, bachelor of arts in applied music, bachelor of arts with a theory major, and a band master's certificate. At this time, an a cappella choir, which appeared on WFAA radio, was formed, and the college had a marching band, a symphony orchestra, a college band, and a stage band called "Fessor Floyd Graham and His Aces of Collegeland." McConnell and Bain's plans for an improved music school immediately paid off. On December 17, 1939, the National Association of Schools of Music admitted North Texas as an associate member, the first such accreditation for the college in a discipline other than teacher training. In 1940 the association granted North Texas institutional membership, with Bain serving as the association's national vice president. In 1940 the music program's success was rewarded with funds for expanded facilities. The board of regents voted in May to provide $70,000 for the construction of a combination male dormitory and music hall. Revenue from the fees charged the dorm residents was used to repay bonds sold to generat

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Edna Westrbook Trigg in Denton County

1915

Edna Westbrook Trigg (1868-1946) was the first county home demonstration agent appointed in Texas in 1915, serving in Denton County from February 1916 through December 1937. She was named Denton County home demonstration emeritus from January 1, 1938, until her retirement on July 31, 1945. Previously in Milam County, she served as rural high school principal and "collaborator" for the United States Department of Agriculture as supervisor of Girls Tomato Clubs. Trigg traveled throughout Denton County teaching and advising farm women on vegetable gardening, canning, sewing, cooking, household management and other aspects of daily life. She had to overcome prejudices against government's interference in farming and a woman's interference in a man's work and home life. During World War I, she helped make the county agriculturally self-sufficient by working with farmers to grow more vegetables, attended patriotic meetings three nights a week urging people to purchase Liberty Bonds and held Saturday canning schools to show rural residents how to properly preserve and protect the food they grew. She convinced county commissioners to loan her $350 to purchase twenty community steam canners for use in the precincts. The Hawkeye Demonstration Club, organized in 1919 in the now extinct community of Hawkeye, owned the first community canner. Trigg served on the staff of the College of Industrial Arts (Texas Woman's University) overseeing courses in the methods of home demonstration and was honored in 1971 by the Texas Extension Education Association, Inc. 4-H with a scholarship in her name. On October 18, 1991, Edna Westbrook Trigg was entered into the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame. (2015)

Historical Marker →

Beulah A. Harris

1914

Beulah A. Harriss (1889-1977) moved to Denton in 1914 from Nebraska to become the first women’s physical education teacher at North Texas State Normal College, now University of North Texas (UNT). With a degree from the University of Nebraska in physical education, Harriss coached the university’s first women’s athletic teams and instructed every sport except football. She organized the physical education department in 1918, which grew under her direction, and the green jackets club, whose purpose was to support all activities of the college. Harriss was a founder in 1923 of the Texas State Physical Education Association (now Texas Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance), serving as president in 1933. She was also a founder of the Texas Woman’s Athletic Association in 1924. Established in 1928 at UNT, Harriss was one of twelve charter members of the RHO Chapter of Delta Psi Kappa, a national fraternity for the promotion of interests in the field of physical education. She was named honorary national president in 1960. The first recognized Girl Scout in Texas, Harriss started the first troop at the College in Denton in 1917. She helped build the scout lodge at hills and hollows in South Denton in 1923. Harriss and 12 other professors from the college were charter members of the Denton County Teachers Federal Credit Union in 1936, now DATCU. After 46 years at UNT as a teacher and women’s athletics activist, Harriss retired in 1960. She was inducted into the North Texas Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987, 10 years after her death. Harriss devoted her life to the youth and citizens of Denton and is remembered each February 27th on Beulah Harriss day. The Girl Scout little house stood near this site.

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Quakertown

1880

In the early 1880s, Quakertown emerged as a thriving African American community in the heart of Denton. Quakertown flourished through 1920, its growth due in part to its location near the city square and the opportunities it provided African Americans. The community was bounded by Withers Street on the north, Oakland Avenue on the west, Bell Avenue on the east, and by Cottonwood and Pecan Creeks on the south. Although many residents worked for businesses on the nearby city square, at the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Woman’s University), and as servants for white households, Quakertown prospered as a self-supporting community. Several churches, a physician’s office, lodges, restaurants, and small businesses joined homes to line the streets of the community. The neighborhood school, the Fred Douglass School, burned in Sep. 1913 and was rebuilt along Wye Street in southeast Denton in 1916, foreshadowing events to come. By 1920, the proximity of Quakertown to the growing College of Industrial Arts and civic-minded interests of Denton’s white residents threatened the future of Quakertown. Many believed that it was in the best interest of the college and the Denton community to transform Quakertown into a city park. In Apr. 1921, with little input from its residents, the city voted 367 to 240 in favor of a bond to purchase Quakertown. More than 60 families lost their homes. The majority of the displaced residents relocated to southeast Denton on 21 acres of land, platted as Solomon Hill, sold to them by rancher Albert L. Miles. Others, including many Quakertown community leaders, chose to leave Denton altogether. By Feb. 1923, Quakertown had disappeared in the midst of the new park’s construction. 											(2010)

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Atkins, Joseph Louis

1955

Joseph Louis Atkins, African-American civil rights activist, educator, and businessman, was born in Jefferson, Texas, on March 6, 1936. He was the son of Willie and Mable Atkins. His family moved to Dallas in 1950, and he graduated from Lincoln High School in 1954, the year the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Atkins had a keen interest in the decision because his parents, the owners of a plumbing business, belonged to the Dallas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and he had joined the NAACP Youth Council of Dallas in 1952 at the age of sixteen. Juanita Craft , one of the city's leading civil rights activists, also became a major influence on Atkins while he attended high school. Atkins enrolled at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, on an academic scholarship in the fall of 1954, but after one year decided to transfer to North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas) in Denton. He had visited the college on a field trip with Juanita Craft and knew that it had a strong reputation in the field of teacher education, which he hoped to enter. Moreover, Denton was near his home in Dallas. Atkins, accompanied by his mother and Craft, sought to enroll at North Texas in June 1955, but school officials rejected his application on the grounds of race. Rather than give in, Atkins and his father went to U. Simpson Tate , the NAACP regional attorney in Dallas, and on Tate's advice brought a legal action against North Texas. (Atkins was not yet twenty-one, so his father had to file the case.) In December 1955 United States District Court Judge Joe Sheehy ruled in favor of Atkins, primarily on the basis of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and issued a permanent injunction against North Texas's denying admission to Atkins or other African Americans on the basis of race. Victory for Atkins brought an end to segregation at North Texas, but rather than wait for the decision, he had enrolled at Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) where he earned bachelor's degrees in English and Journalism. He served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962 and then became a high school teacher in Dallas. In 1963 he began graduate work in the College of Education at North Texas, where he earned a master's degree in 1966. Atkins continued to teach high school in Dallas until 1974, when he became a field representative for the Texas State Teachers Association . He worked in that capacity until 1997 and promoted the interests of the state's teachers. In 1975 and 1977 he served as campaign manager for Juanita Craft in her successful campaigns for a seat on the Dallas city council. In 1997 Atkins became a realtor with Blair White Real Estate, a position that he held until March 2015, when he joined Joe Atkins Realty, a firm headed by his son. During his career, Atkins served an impressive list of civic groups, including the board of the Dallas African American Museum , the Dallas Police Chief Advisory Committee, and chairman of the Good Street Baptist Church Federal Credit Union. His numerous honors included the "Outstanding Texas Award" by the Texas Legislative Black Caucus (2001), a doctor of humane letters degree from the University of North Texas (2004), and the Texas NAACP 2005 Heroes Award for his service in the cause of civil rights, liberty, and justice. Joseph Atkins was married twice. His first marriage, to Sylvia D. Boyd in 1967, ended after a year. He married Marjorie C. Manney in 1971, and they had one son. Atkins died of heart failure on July 7, 2015, and was buried in Dallas.

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Breeden, Leon

1959

Leon Breeden, musician, arranger, educator, and band director, was born on October 3, 1921, in Guthrie Oklahoma. He was the son of Alvin and Marie (Sanders) Breeden. When he was about three years old, his family moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, where his parents operated a service station. Breeden recalled that, as a young boy, he sold a Coke to a young couple at the station; he later found out that the pair was Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow . Breeden learned the clarinet at an early age and later took up the saxophone. After graduating from high school, he briefly attended Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth. During World War II , he served as music librarian in the Unites States Army's Sixty-ninth Infantry Division Band at Fort Bliss. He then attended Texas Christian University, where he studied composition and arranging, and earned a B.A. degree in 1945 and a master's in music education in 1948. He was a band director at Texas Christian University from 1944 to 1949. In the early 1950s Breeden lived in New York, where he worked as an arranging assistant to Don Gillis, producer of the NBC Symphony, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Breeden also wrote arrangements for Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, who offered him a permanent position as the orchestra's staff writer and arranger. Breeden, however, declined the offer and returned to Texas to be with his ailing father. Back in Texas, he became a band director at Grand Prairie High School from 1953 to 1959. In 1959 Breeden was recommended, by outgoing director M. E. "Gene" Hall , to head the Jazz Studies program at the school of music at North Texas State College (now University of North Texas). Breeden served as director of the program from 1959 until 1981. During his tenure, he dedicated his work to elevating the profile of the jazz program from an understated study in "dance-band" music (the term " jazz " had carried a disreputable connotation) to a highly-respected and recognized music curriculum that served as a model for other educators and institutions throughout the United States. As head of the program, Breeden personally directed the music department's popular Lab Band. Originally performing every afternoon at two o'clock, he changed the band's rehearsal schedule to one o'clock and subsequently changed its name to the now famous One O'Clock Lab Band. Under his leadership, the band garnered international distinction and numerous awards. In 1967 the One O'Clock Lab Band performed for Lyndon Johnson at the White House along with jazz legends Stan Getz and Duke Ellington. The band performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 1970. Breeden initiated the tradition of the band recording an album annually, and the ensemble received its first Grammy nomination in 1976. When the group accompanied Ella Fitzgerald at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1970s, the singer was so impressed that she requested the band to tour with her, but Breeden had to decline because of class schedules. The ensemble toured the United States, Mexico, Europe, and the Soviet Union and also performed for presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In the process, Breeden and the band raised the overall stature of the music department and the university. Breeden was named Outstanding Professor by the University of North Texas in 1976. The Texas legislature proclaimed May 3, 1981, to be "Leon Breeden Day." Other honors included induction into the International Association for Jazz Education Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame in 1995. He received an honorary doctorate from TCU in 2001 and from the University of North Texas in 2009. Breeden married Bonna Joyce McKee in 1945, and they had three children. After his wife's death in 1988, he married Bennye Wayne Reid on June 18, 1990. Leon Breeden died at St. Paul Hospital in Dallas on August 11, 2010. He was survived by a daughter; two sons and his second wife had preceded him in death. H

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Things to Do in Denton

quirky 1.4 mi away
Goatman's Bridge

A 1884 iron bridge outside Denton haunted by the ghost of a murdered goat farmer.
day trip
Day Trip to Denton 🏁🏎 (FULL EPISODE) S4 E4

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Sports in Denton

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 5A · Football · 2020

Ryan — 2020 UIL 5A Division 1 Football State Champions

Most recent: 59-14 over Cedar Park · 2020 5A Division 1 final

Denton, Texas, is a community that rallies around its high school sports, and Ryan High School's football program stands as a point of pride. Competing in Class 5A, the Raiders have demonstrated a consistent pursuit of excellence on the gridiron, reflecting the dedication found throughout the local athletic scene.

The Raiders' commitment to the game has culminated in significant achievements at the state level. The team's hard work and strategic play have brought the ultimate prize back to Denton, marking a memorable period in Ryan High School's athletic history.

State titles
2020
Most recent
2020, 59-14
Class
5A
The moment

In 2020, Ryan High School secured the 5A Division 1 state championship by defeating Cedar Park with a final score of 59-14.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)
🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 5A · Girls Basketball · 2025–2026

Ryan — UIL 5A Girls Basketball State Champions — 2 titles

Most recent: 2026 5A Division 1

Denton, Texas, is a community that rallies behind its high school athletes, and the girls' basketball program at Ryan High School has certainly given fans something to cheer about. Competing in Class 5A, the Lady Raiders have established a recent tradition of excellence on the court, bringing state championships home to Denton.

The team secured the UIL Class 5A Division 1 State Championship in 2025, followed by another impressive run to claim the Class 5A Division 1 State Championship in 2026. These back-to-back titles highlight a period of significant achievement for Ryan High School girls' basketball, reflecting dedication within the program and pride across the community.

State titles
2 (2025–2026)
Most recent
2026
Class
5A
The moment

The 2026 UIL Class 5A Division 1 State Championship marked a significant achievement for Ryan High School.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Denton

584 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Denton on the Map
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