LA GRANGE — The Fayette County Country Music Club will host their monthly Opry on Monday, Aug. 21 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in La Grange. The show starts at 7 p.m. and the doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is $8.
Byron Wren and Bailey Mathison duo to perform. Mathison resides in Smithville. She was a teacher for six years in La Grange and Smithville and now loves being a stay-at-home mom.
Mathison learned to play the guitar when she was 26, but she has been singing for the majority of her life with her parents and at church. She enjoys being a part of the band The Wrens & Friends as well as a lady’s group that plays on ACTS retreats and various local church events.
Wren grew up in Lexington and now lives in Smithville. He is a member of the gospel group D’Vine Testament and also The Wrens & Friends country classics band.
Paul Schlesinger is a fiddle player and vocalist from Taylor, who specializes in traditional Texas swing, classic country, and country-gospel music. In July 2022 he was inducted into the Western Swing Music Society of the Southwest Hall of Fame in Lawton, Okla. In 2018, he was named one of the top five western swing male vocalists of the year by the Academy of Western Artists. His recording of “You Were Meant to Ruin My Dreams” was named the Western Swing Song of the Year by the Academy in 2017. Broken Violin is Schlesinger’s third nationally released al- bum, and his first to feature Tex as country gospel swing songs.
He got his start in 1993 when he received his first fiddle lessons at age 23 from Perk Williams, the fiddler and vocalist for Jim my Heap and the Melody Masters, a band from Taylor, who in 1954 had the first Billboard Top 5 hit recording of “Release Me.”
Schlesinger’s band, the Knights of Texas Swing, have been playing all over the state since 2006.
He has been featured in Country Music People, an internationally distributed magazine from the UK.
Cody Winkler is 25 years old and born and lives in Marion.
He is a truck driver out in the oil fields, farmer/rancher, works cat tle, makes hay, and sings, all of which he enjoys. He is a professional truck driver and was featured in the Truckers Overdrive Magazine. He recently made an appearance on American Idol, Season 21 even getting to sing with Luke Bryan.
He will be trying again for American Idol on Aug. 18. He just did a single with Georgette Jones, which is on YouTube.
Winkler's first cover single was 14-Carat Mind by Gene Watson.
You can find him on Instagram, Cody_Winkler97, FB Cody Winkler, Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, IHeart, Amazon just to name a few.
He just had his Web Page setup, www.codywinklermusic. com.
