SHORT BIO A Town Called Home is led by songwriters Marilyn and Howdy Darrell. Their country music draws on their Texas roots, hillbilly classics, honky tonk, and folk.   

MEDIUM BIO A Town Called Home is led by songwriters Marilyn and Howdy Darrell. Their country music draws on their Texas roots, hillbilly classics, honky tonk, and folk.   

Formed in Austin and now based in Portland, Oregon, A Town Called Home has toured nationally, performed at the Brooklyn Americana Festival and Seattle's Northwest Folklife Festival, and opened for artists, including Wayne Hancock and Hank Williams IV. Recorded in Austin, Texas, with a full band, their 2022 debut album, Ravel and Twine, features Marilyn and Howdy's original songs and close harmonies.

Marilyn plays guitar and diatonic accordion, which she studied with Grammy-winning accordionist Joel Guzman. Howdy is a longtime upright bassist who also plays guitar and mandolin and spent years touring and recording with Texas honky tonk bands and songwriters. Both write, trade lead vocals, and sing harmony. Their songs are about love, loss, family, bad decisions, and somehow still carrying on. 

LONG BIO A Town Called Home is led by songwriters Marilyn and Howdy Darrell. Their country music draws on their Texas roots, hillbilly classics, honky tonk, and folk.   

Formed in Austin and now based in Portland, Oregon, A Town Called Home has toured nationally, performed at the Brooklyn Americana Festival and Seattle's Northwest Folklife Festival, and opened for a variety of artists, including Hank Williams IV. Recorded in Austin, Texas, with a full band, their 2022 debut album, Ravel and Twine, features Marilyn and Howdy's original songs and close harmonies.

Marilyn was born in Louisiana and raised on the prairies of Nebraska and in the logging country of Northern California. Both of her parents were long-haul truck drivers, and she spent much of her childhood traveling with them across the country. She learned to play guitar, banjo, and piano at family pickin' parties before taking up the diatonic accordion years later when she studied with Grammy-winning Texas accordionist Joel Guzman. Outside of A Town Called Home, Marilyn leads the country band Mare and the Colts and performs with Chicano rocker, Joshua Josué. She also performs as a guest instrumentalist, including appearances in the annual Buddy Holly & Ritchie Valens tribute Come On Let's Go and Ben Rice's Ritmo Revue at the 2026 Portland Waterfront Blues Festival. 

Howdy grew up on a grass farm near Houston before his family moved to the Corpus Christi area, where he began playing in rockabilly bands as a teenager. After moving to Austin, he spent years working as an upright bassist, touring and recording with songwriters including Leo Rondeau, Brennen Leigh, Noel McKay, and Wayne Hancock. He also plays guitar and mandolin, including a mandolin he built himself. From time to time he holds down the low end for Pacific Northwest artists including Wes Youssi and the County Champs and Robert Henry and the Repeaters.

Together, the duo write, trade lead vocals, and sing harmony. Their songs are about love, loss, family, bad decisions, and somehow still carrying on.