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Eric Church & Stephen Wilson Jr. Team Up For Show-Stopping Collab Of Guy Clark & Willie Nelson Hits During Fort Worth Concert
The collab I’ve been waiting for since last year.
Last July, Stephen Wilson Jr. opened up for Eric Church during his 3 night run at Red Rocks. And every night, I kept waiting for SWJ to appear during Church’s set.
The combination of the two makes too much sense: They’re both trailblazers who are unapologetically themselves, with their own sound that pushes the boundaries and sets the standard when it comes to both songwriting and musicianship.
Of course Church has a two decade head start on Stephen Wilson Jr., who was previously a food scientist for Mars before making the jump to music. But if there were ever two kindred spirits on their own respective musical journeys, it’s EFC and SWJ.
Unfortunately the collab at Red Rocks never came. But luckily, they delivered tonight in Texas – and Whiskey Riff was there to witness it.
Stephen Wilson Jr. is one of an all-star cast of openers that Church selected for his Free The Machine tour. And during their stop at Dickie’s Arena in Fort Worth, Church welcomed the relative newcomer to the stage for a collaboration that not only paid tribute to some country music legends, but proved that country music is in good hands with artists like Stephen Wilson Jr. primed to pick up the mantle.
Midway through his own set, Church welcomed his opener back onstage, much to the delight of the capacity crowd in Fort Worth. And first up, they delivered a show-stopping performance of the Guy Clark-penned hit “Desperados Waiting For A Train.”
The song has been recorded by a number of country legends over the years, from David Allan Coe to The Highwaymen, but Church and Wilson Jr. managed to not only pay tribute to the past but breathe new life into the country music classic:
(If you can’t see the video, you may need to disable your adblocker and refresh).
But that wasn’t all: They followed it up with a duet of one of the greatest country songs ever written (and I will fight anybody who disagrees), with their version of the Willie Nelson and Ray Charles collab “Seven Spanish Angels.”
Church’s tour has been full of magical moments, from trombone solos from band member Roy Agee and powerhouse performances from Joanna Cotten, to his openers like Ella Langley and Charles Wesley Godwin joining Church on stage for all-time collabs.
But the performance with Stephen Wilson Jr. was something special. These two are clearly kindred spirits, artists who blazed (or are blazing) their own trail and making country music better for it along the way. It’s not often that you get two artists like this at the same concert, much less on the same stage together, and everybody who was in Fort Worth to witness it knew exactly how special it was.
I was waiting for it to happen at Red Rocks, but I’m just thankful I was in Texas to finally see it happen.
Now, if they want to run it back in Austin tonight, I definitely wouldn’t be mad about it…the more we can see of these two together, the better country music will be for it.
(I’m also still trying to get Church to run back his Whiskey Riff-inspired “New Old Me,” which he debuted at Red Rocks. Maybe one of these days).
“New Old Me”@ericchurch https://t.co/2N2KCwaITt pic.twitter.com/id7YPeWIgF
— Whiskey Riff (@WhiskeyRiff) July 17, 2025
The post Eric Church & Stephen Wilson Jr. Team Up For Show-Stopping Collab Of Guy Clark & Willie Nelson Hits During Fort Worth Concert first appeared on Whiskey Riff.