Sam Kindrick, founder of Action Magazine
San Antonian Sam Kindrick founded Action Magazine in 1975 at the height of the "outlaw country" movement. According to Kindrick, the once-monthly publication was never intended to be a music magazine but instead "covered the outsized personalities" all around him.
The inaugural edition's cover carried the headline, “Redneck Rock Hits San Antonio" above a three-column photo of one Willie Hugh Nelson.
In describing the so-called redneck rockers, the magazine had this to say: “They have one common characteristic: in some aspects, they’re all rebels. Nice rebels. Friendly cats in cowboy hats, willing to share their last swallow of beer with a ‘cross-country’ brother.”
Other articles from that issue include a full-page spread on the San Antonio Pod of the Chili Appreciation Society International, a short piece on Ron Rose (writer of “The Ballad of the La Grange Chicken Ranch,” later recorded at the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters with his band Man Mountain and the Green Slime Boys), and a profile on Carol Connors, operator of the Foxy Lady Saloon.
Now 86 years old, Kindrick is still going strong (despite multiple illnesses that would've rendered lesser men dead years ago), and Action Magazine has been digitally archived by the good people of Texas State University, much to the delight of journalists and researchers everywhere.
Action Magazine Archives, 1975-2018
Action Magazine Archives, January 2019