Armadillo Heroes and Texacali Blues

This past weekend we stopped in at Threadgills North and as it happened, Eddie Wilson was there. We got to talking about blogs - he has a nice one on the Threadgills site:

Supperman Stories

You'll notice the last post was a memorial to his friend Bill Narum from last November - Eddie hasn't gotten back into a blogging frame of mind since then. The other person he talked about in that post is Hank Alrich. Eddie said to watch the Austin American Statesman the next day for a story about the real hero fo the Armadillo World Headquarters. As it turned out, we had already read the article on Austin 360:

Home with the Armadillo

What a great story about the behind the scenes manager that turned the chaotic phenomenon that was the Armadillo World Headquarters into a financially sustainable concern until the landlord saw more lucrative opportunities in Austin's development boom. Eddie Wilson during this time was already working on his plan to resurrect the Historic Threadgills gas station/beer joint as a destination for fine southern cooking and, frequently, excellent live music.

Eddie said that he's going into seclusion the next three months so he can finish his Armadillo World Headquarters "MemNoir." Losing friends from those time may provide additional incentive. As an historical era passes the forty year mark, the first hand remembrances aren't everywhere you look around any more. We look forward to Eddie Wilson's MemNoir as a contribution to those who were there and those who wish they could have been.

There is this amazing book called Lone Star Swing by Scottish writer Duncan McLean in the 1990s that documents the Scotsman's road trip through Texas in search of the original heroes of western swing. It is a very entertaining read, on account of McLean's skill at juxtaposing his passion for the music with his ironic observations about the culture he encountered versus what might have produced the astounding innovative jazz/country/blues/cajun/tejano/and-more fusion some six decades earlier. Bob Wills had been dead for twenty years. He met some better known and some lesser known heroes from the beginning of the western swing era. His encounters with them are purely fascinating. Several were crazy octogenarians that probably hadn't changed much in sixty years, except physically. But now, fifteen years later, many of them have passed on. We feel fortunate to have met them courtesy of McLean and his Lone Star Swing. Would we never have known these heroes of Texas Music without someone from another continent to appreciate what we had ignored or forgotten? Texas Songbook does not want that to happen, so here we are.

Now back to Threadgills, we had the opportunity to enjoy a Bluegrass Brunch this past weekend, after having on several occasions enjoyed the Gospel Brunch at Threadgills South. Now it could be the exceptional quality of the musicians on this Sunday, but we discovered that bluegrass provides a very pleasurable setting for a Sunday brunch. The players were Billy Bright and Wayne "Chojo" Jacques and they have a very nice CD Texacali Blues, which we recommend you pick up if you can track it down. They have a slightly jazz tinged style, which many do these days, thanks to influences introduced by Bela Fleck and David Grisman. There isn't a very strong tradition of bluegrass in Texas music, if you discount Robert Earl Keene's "Bluegrass Widow," which you can go ahead and do. But, since we mentioned western swing, we might point out that in the thirties, that label hadn't been invented - Bob Wills and Milton Brown called the music they invented "hot string band" music. The jazzy "newgrass" music these days could be called "hot string band" and would be sort of a cousin of the early western swing. In any case, thanks to Eddie, Billy, and Wayne and the rest of the Threadgill folk for a great weekend.

Well, we've taken about three weeks off from the Texas Songbook blog as you may have noticed. That may not have inconvenienced you, at least we hope, but it has put us behind schedule considerably, so we thought we'd give you a preview of what you've missed the last three weeks:

January 12 - Joy in Hillbilly Heaven - Cowboy Music Lives - being Tex Ritter's birthday, yes, just a week after the anniversary of his death, but it is very fitting to give him some more attention and talk a bit about cowboy music and Michael Martin Murphy, who inherited his mantle and has ensured that cowboy music will remain vital for the next few decades.

January 12 - Last of the Breed - also being Ray Price's birthday, and since we have already talked about two of his protegees, Roger Miller and Willie Nelson, we should pay attention to this 84 year old honky tonk patriarch.

January 19 - Texas Pearl - Janis Joplin's birthday, so we will pay a little tribute and speculate on what might have been with her and two others from the top ten list of "tragically taken from us in their prime" musicians, Milton Brown and Buddy Holly.

January 22 - Music from the Heart - Rod Kennedy's birthday, and we'll have to pick and choose what to talk about in this post and what to leave out for another time. If we can catch up to here by next week, we may just give a review of his big eightieth birthday celebration at the Paramount in Austin February 2.