Acknowledgments

This book, like every night it describes, was built by more people than the one whose name is on the cover.

To the owners and staff who keep these rooms open when it would be easier to let them close: thank you for letting a PR person ask nosy questions about your door count.

To the bookers, who answer more messages than anyone will ever know, and to the musicians, who make a room worth booking in the first place.

To the bartenders, who see more of the room than the rest of us put together, and who hold half the stories in this book without ever being asked to write them down.

To the dance teachers, who coax strangers onto the floor and make a honky tonk a place where everyone belongs.

To the readers of the first five volumes, who wrote, asked, and argued: this book exists because you kept asking how to tell if any of it was working.

To everyone who counts honestly, even when the number is small, and to everyone who treats a guest as a person before a data point.

And to the honky tonks and dancehalls of Texas, every last one still standing. Now go count the room. And God love the honky tonks.