Pat Green was the king of Texas country music before the mainstream knew Texas country existed. He packed dance halls across the state, sold hundreds of thousands of independent albums out of his truck, and built a regional empire that proved Nashville wasn't the only path to a country music career. Then he went to Nashville—and discovered that the machine he'd spent years proving unnecessary was even worse than he'd imagined. Green's story is the Texas music movement in miniature: the thrill of independence, the temptation of the mainstream, and the hard road back to authenticity. • How Green built a six-figure touring business selling CDs from his truck at dance halls • The Texas music scene he helped create and the independence it represented • Why the Nashville detour nearly cost him the audience he'd built from scratch • The return to Texas a ...