Right off Donmoor Avenue in Baton Rouge sits a club decked out wall to wall with posters featuring every artist who has performed there. If you live in Baton Rouge, the surrounding area, or even out of town and are looking for a place to hear live country music, the Texas Club is the place to be. 

The Texas Club opened on April 22, 1981. Throughout its 43 years of being open, the building with a 1000-person capacity has brought in country music stars like George Strait and Hank Williams Jr. Most major touring artists used to disregard Baton Rouge as a music tour spot. Many pass through it on their way to New Orleans. Owner Mark Rogers decided to change that. 

Opening the establishment was a joint effort between Rogers, his brother, Mike Rogers, and their father, Ray Rogers. Rogers noted he hasn't missed a day there since they opened. In 2024, rising country stars like Flatland Cavalry and Muscadine Bloodline performed on the Texas Club stage.

Before the Texas Club was selling out shows, it was just an idea between two single brothers who didn’t have the internet to meet new people. Rogers said that everything started because of the influence of their father, who went from working at Ethyl Corporation to starting his own business building houses. His entrepreneurship paved the way for the creation of the Texas Club. 

“In order to meet people, we went out at night,” Rogers said. “It was very exciting because you never knew what was going to happen by the end of the night.” 

Despite that excitement, Rogers said the night scene in Baton Rouge did not enthrall him or his brother. After bringing their complaints to their father, he said, “Let’s go build a nightclub business.” 

A few years and one unsuccessful disco club later, the Texas Club, then named the Texas Dancehall, opened. Rogers’ dad had built it from the ground up, and during their first years of being open, they did not play anything but country music. Period. 

Mike Rogers left the Texas Club operations in the late 1980s to open up Funny Bone Comedy Club, which had the club Triple A attached to it. He ran the Funny Bone for around 30 years before coming back to the Texas Club. 

“That was probably one of the most popular clubs in the history of Baton Rouge,” Mark Rogers said about Triple A. 

Mike Rogers said he might not be able to sing or tell a joke, but he sure can hire someone who can. His first show at his newly opened comedy club was Jeff Foxworthy, and this business continued for 30 more years. 

“A lot of people get in and out of the business. We never did. We stayed in it,” Mike Rogers said. 

According to Mike Rogers, the Texas Club and the people who come through it keep him young. Throughout the years, he said he has watched the club and venue scene in Baton Rouge transform. He and his brother overcame this challenge as they are both in their 70s, and the club is still selling out shows. 

Rogers said he has recently been working on developing newer groups and artists like the Red Clay Strays and Randall King. One problem that has come up through this process is that bands who had performed there just a year before are hard to get back because they are out doing “bigger things,” he said.

Rogers said that if you were to watch the Country Music Awards recently, eight to ten of the featured artists up for awards had played or started at the Texas Club.  “All of those guys are our future,” Rogers said. “There is a lot of new blood in country music. Country music is very safe right now.”

While audiences enjoy the fiddle and the guitar in the dimly lit dance hall, Rogers is not only making country music stars grow but is hosting the perfect place to meet your significant other. 

At one of his son’s baseball games, a couple approached him to tell him that they met at the Texas Club. That interaction led to a chain reaction of other couples telling him their stories about how they met there or at another affiliated club, like his brother’s Funny Bone Comedy Club. 

Kaitlyn Hoang, a senior at LSU and frequent visitor to the Texas Club, first went in May 2023 to celebrate her friend’s 21st birthday. Despite being born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Hoang said it was during that time that she first started getting into country music. Hoang met a group of girls that night and they have been close friends ever since. 

It was in February 2024 when Flatland Cavalry made their stop in Baton Rouge for their “Wanderin’ Star” tour. Lauryn Rosenthal, a junior at LSU and Texas native, knew very little about the band, but her friend set her up with a ticket so she couldn't say no. Rosenthal said she had recently gotten back into country music, and shared she'd do it all over again if she could. 

The Texas Club has a busy schedule in the upcoming months with performers like Trey Gallman & Last Call on June 1 and The Chase Tyler Band on June 8. For more information on concert dates and tickets, check out their website here.

If you want to learn more about the Baton Rouge music scene, click here to read about the Soulful Sunday series put on by J. Hover and Beauvoir Park.