A really, really big festival

Everything’s bigger in Texas – including country music festivals. And just in case you’re skeptical, consider Exhibit A: The Big State Festival set for Oct. 13-14 at Texas World Speedway in Bryan-College Station, TX, a star-studded extravaganza that will spotlight the likes of Tim McGraw, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, Trace Adkins, Miranda Lambert (recently named Best New Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music), Los Lonely Boys, The Wreckers, Robert Earl Keen and many, many others.

But wait, there’s more: During the two-day festivities, attendees also will be treated to stock-car races presented by the Richard Petty Racing Experience, and a barbecue cook-off showdown that boasts one of the biggest cash prizes offered at any U.S. event of its kind.

“Our goal is to deliver an experience that is loaded with music talents,” says Charlie Walker of C3 Presents, producer of the Big State Festival (and, not incidentally, the Austin City Limits Music Festival). “But we also want to give fans lots to do, see, hear, drink and eat – at a great price.”

Texas native Miranda Lambert fully expects the Big State Festival to be a big-time blast: “I don’t know what’s going to be more fun – performing for that many country music fans in my home state, or watching all the other great acts that I love.

“Not to mention,” she adds, “I have a big weakness for kickin’ Texas barbeque.”

Sounds tasty, doesn’t it? Tickets can be ordered here.

Riding high in the Highlands?

In northeast Scotland, a Wild West buff named Alistair Baranowski -- a.k.a. Johnny B -- wants to "re-create the days of Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickock" by building his very own frontier town called Tranquility.

"With his priorities clearly established, Johnny B built Tranquility's saloon first and now a sheriff's office (complete with cell) is almost complete. There is also a cemetery, a corral and a water well. The Wild West enthusiast has permission from Aberdeenshire Council for a further six buildings and he is looking for wannabe cowboys to help him with the construction."

Johnny B aims to build "a school, bank, undertaker's, general store and telegraph office in his field at Drumblair. The 54-year-old, who was a history and geography teacher for 22 years before running a post office, is a founder member of Open Range, a national association of Wild West enthusiasts. Tranquility also has its own gunfighters' group, the Northern Rough Riders.

"He added: 'We need to take time out to rehearse for the occasional Wild West show. The more people who help, the quicker the town will grow.'"

"The Wild West happened here"

Residents are trying to preserve Silver City -- Idaho's best-known ghost town -- even while they struggle to keep it from becoming "just another tourist trap huckstering frontier kitsch to ATV-riding hordes streaming into Idaho’s once gold-rich hills from the growing Boise suburbs."

Sam Elliott: Riding high

Sam Elliott is back in the saddle again -- for a blockbuster fantasy due in theaters next December.

Viewer alert: 'Comanche Station'

The final collaboration of actor Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher is a rousingly two-fisted Western drama with an affectingly melancholy aftertaste. Jefferson Cody (Scott), obsessed with finding the wife who was kidnapped by Comanches more than a decade earlier, barters with Indians for the release of another white woman (Nancy Gates), the wife of a man who has posted a huge reward for her dead-or-alive return. Hearty outlaw Ben Lane (Claude Akins) tries to muscle in on the transition, but Cody won't be dissuaded from competing his chivalrous task. He remains true to himself, even though his noble gesture brings him no nearer a closure. Indeed, the ending suggests he will never stop searching. Which, of course, makes him the quintessential Budd Boetticher hero.

Comanche Station can be viewed at 5:05 and 11:30 p.m. EDT Sunday, June 3, on Encore Westerns.

'3:10' due 10/5

Director James Mangold (Walk the Line) tells USA Today that his upcoming remake of 3:10 to Yuma -- set open Oct. 5 at theaters and drive-ins everywhere -- will concentrate on characters, not cliches or conventions. And that, he claims, will set his effort apart from other recent attempts to revive the Western. "Too often," Mangold says, "they try to make every Western in one movie. It's all about the vistas. They don't lock into one person." Mangold's film actually will lock into two people: Christian Bale (above, left) as a reluctantly heroic rancher, and Russell Crowe (right) as a wily outlaw. They don't aim to please each other.

Here's looking at you, Duke!

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle and Jake Coyle of The Associated Press offer respectful assessments of The Duke on the weekend of the John Wayne Centennial.