On That Day at 508 Park Avenue

 June 6-25, 1937: American Record Corporation recording sessions captured some of the most significant country, blues, and western swing of the depression era.  Al Dexter recorded "Honky Tonk Blues," paving the way for Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams and the whole string of honky tonk heroes to follow.  Robert Johnson made what turned out to be his last blues recordings there, meeting his mysterious and untimely end the following year back in his home state Mississippi.  The Chuck Wagon Gang, still active 75 years later, came to do some of their earliest gospel recordings.  

The most representative style of music recorded at these sessions though was played by a collection of ensembles described as "hot string bands" or "hillbilly dance bands" or some similar phrase.  These musicians had no idea they were inventing the style of music that today we call western swing, a label first applied in the 1940s by the west coast western swing band leader, Spade Cooley, that eventually stuck.  The Light Crust Doughboys, the band started by Bob Wills and Milton Brown around 5 years earlier credited with spawning the style, and incidentally, also still active 75 years later, recorded with one of their most dynamic and talented lineups.  "Papa" Sam Cunningham, owner of western swing ground zero Crystal Springs Pavilion, brought one of his house bands, the Crystal Springs Ramblers (the other being the Musical Brownies).  W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel recorded his Hillbilly Boys.  Having been fired from Burrus Mills for financial improprieties, O'Daniel was no longer managing the Light Crust Doughboys, but was preparing a successful campaign for Governor of Texas the next year.  Other prominent early western swing bands from north Texas were the Hi-Flyers and Roy Newman and his Boys.  Austin was four decades from being known as the live music capital, but was represented at the session by the Nite Owls.

It may be the perspective that we bring from the 21st century that would give the impression that Bob Wills and Robert Johnson were the "headliners" of these sessions, since both legends grew mostly long after these sessions.  Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys been playing for three years, first based in Waco, but hailing from Tulsa as of these sessions.  Wills' cohort in the Wills Fiddle Band, Aladdin Laddies, and Light Crust Doughboys, Milton Brown had died the year before as a result of a car accident, and Brown's band the Musical Brownies, fronted by his brother Derwood, recorded their last session for Decca in February 1937. So these sessions occurred as Bob Wills was emerging to lead western swing through a remarkable dominance of the music scene in Texas and throughout the southwest for decades to come.

June 19, 2012: The 75th anniversary of those recording sessions was commemorated with the production of On That Day "a theatrical spoken word and musical evocation of the world of Dallas on June 19 & 20, 1937 when Robert Johnson, the Crystal Springs Ramblers, and Light Crust Doughboys recorded in a makeshift studio at 508 Park Avenue, Dallas," by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde.  The focus on June 19-20 gave it a Robert Johnson center with western swing highlights and made it kind of a Juneteenth celebration event.  The event actually took place across the street at the Stewpot with a Bar-b-que dinner, and then around the corner at the Chapel of First Presbyterian Church since the actual 508 Park Avenue building had been closed for decades, though Eric Clapton did recordings for his tribute album to Robert Johnson there in 2004, "Me and Mr. Johnson."  Several accomplished  Robert Johnson influenced blues artists performed, including the historian Elijah Wald, musicians Aaron Burton, Christian Dozzler, Joel Foy, and Rev K M Williams.  The western swing performances were memorialized by Shoot Low Sheriff and the Light Crust Doughboys - yes, the same band, though with different personnel of course, that recorded at the 1937 sessions.  The chapel has a capacity of around a hundred.  Another room in the campus was set up with a live video feed for around a hundred more attendees.  Admission was free!  It was filmed, so we can hope and expect that Govenar's Documentary Arts will produce the film and it will be available through some venue.  The poster shown here is by Michael Shoaf.

 Before the show I walked around and checked out 508 Park Avenue.  Aside from the anniversary commemoration and the film project, the event was also a promotion of a new outreach program of The Stewpot and the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas that seeks to bring together people of all cultures and faiths through dialogue, education, music, and art.  Opening in 2013, it consists of:

The Museum of Street Culture features permanent and rotating exhibitions that link the growth of blues, jazz, country and other styles of vernacular music with the living history of tramp, hobo, and homeless art.

The Open Art Program provides opportunities for  homeless and at-risk individuals to improve the quality and enjoyment of their lives by developing and expanding  their creativity.

The Community Garden provides individuals with access to a space for plants and herbs.

Check out the 508 Park Avenue program at http://www.508park.org/index.asp.  A couple clips from Eric Clapton's "Me and Mr. Johnson" sessions are on the history tab.  

Here are some pictures from the performance.  Didn't get everyone, unfortunately.  

 This is Reverend K. M. Williams.  He is both an ordained minister of the Holiness Church and an accomplished blues musician who with his band the Blues Train, has opened for Robert Lockwood, Little Milton, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and others.  His performances were inspired and did Robert Johnson justice.

This is Aaron Burton, with members of the ensemble who were part of the performance.  His studied representation of Robert Johnson's style is authentic and engaging.

 Shoot Low Sheriff is a 21st century Western Swing band led by Erik Swanson (left) that performs both classic western swing and original compositions.  They performed some of the songs popularized by Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys from the 1937 sessions.


Below are the Light Crust Doughboys of today led by Art Greenhaw (front and center), with members of Shoot Low Sheriff sitting in.  Art Greenhaw took the lead of Light Crust Doughboys form Marvin Montgomery, who was part of the 1937 Park Avenue recording session version of the Light Crust Doughboys, so there is a pretty close linkage connecting the 75 year versions of the band.  Today's version plays the classic western swing songs in addition to gospel material which has earned the band Grammy nominations in the last decade.  Just behind Greenhaw playing lead acoustic guitar is the newest Doughboy, Dion Pride, yes, Charley Pride's son.

Austin Weekend

Since nothing has been posted here since January, here is something from the family blog, Fortyleven Bostons, that deals mostly with Texas Music.  Oh yeah, it was since January 2010, sheesh!  Well, we'll have to start up blogging about Texas Music again for sure.

Nancy had been recovering from a fractured Sternum for four weeks when spring break came.  We had made arrangements with Claire that Madeleine's spring break visits would be the second weekend starting Thursday night.  Owen had plans as usual, so we decided it looked like an opportunity to get off for a weekend.  Nancy had also had an MRI on her knee that indicated knee replacement surgery would be happening in the near future, so it looked like this would be our opportunity to celebrate our anniversary a couple weeks early.  We now know the surgery is going to be April 4, so we made right call going while the going was good.

I had suggested we go to Austin because I got a notice from the Texas Historical Society that the Bullock Museum of Texas History was kicking off an exhibit of Texas Music History called the "Texas Music Roadtrip."  For the opening of the exhibit, they had enlisted the Texas Tornados for a free concert in the plaza.  The Texas Tornados have revived in the last few years around the legendary musicians Augie Meyer, Flaco Jimenez, and Doug Sahm's son, Shawn.  For the most part, they pay musical tribute to their founders, Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender.

 The down side was that the week also coincided with South by Southwest in Austin, and we were worried about crowds, traffic, and the high prices for hotels and everything else.  Fortunately, we found that we only had to get out to Round Rock to get a very reasonable rate at the Marriot Courtyard.  So we decided we would try to have a fun and musical weekend around the fringes of SXSW.  When we got settled in at Round Rock, we decided to check out the local live music venue, Junior's Icehouse and Grill.  They had a rock band outside in the beer garden and a folk singer inside, whom we sampled in succession.  No trouble with crowds here, but we had a good time.


 One of the things I intended to check out was the "Dangfest" at Threadgills.  We tried to get in there Friday morning for their event called "Roky Erikson's Ice Cream Social," but couldn't find a parking place, so we proceeded to plan B, which was Lucy's Fried Chicken Revival, chosen because John Fullbright was scheduled to perform there.  Lucy's has a great menu for lunch, and we saw a rockabilly-ish band called the Belfurries when we got there - quite enjoyable.  Lucy's just opened last year, but is adorned with memorabilia from Austin's rich musical past, kind of like Threadgills.  They called their event South by South Austin, so it kind of fit our fringe of SXSW motif. 

Then came John Fullbright's set, which was exquisite as expected.  Ian and I had seen him at the Kerrville Folk Festival as an opening act, and he hushed the crowd with his first couple songs.  I read in the newspaper that he is one of the SXSW performers that is really expected to break out in the coming year with his debut album to be released in May.  He played songs I heard him do last year and some new ones and some covers that I hadn't heard before.  Could be Kerrville this year will be the last chance to see him before it is a pretty expensive concert ticket.




 Friday afternoon we drove down to Gruene for another shot at fringe of SXSW fringe live music.  Gruene Hall had free live music Friday afternoon by a band called Grey Hogg, led by a guy named Pat Green, to the left of Nancy below.  He relate how he met the famous Pat Green and they came to an agreement about the use of their names and played a song or two together.

Saturday morning, we went to Threadgills again and were successful this time in finding a parking place because we got there 20 minutes before they opened at 11:00.  The "Dangfest" event for Saturday was the Folk Alliance concerts, with an excellent lineup of musicians.  When they opened, we got a great table for the indoor acts, which began with the DBs.  The DBs were celebrating 30 years as a band and their first time performing together in 17 years.  A lot of their die hard fans showed up to celebrate the event, and they clearly still had what the audience came looking for.  They were from the time shortly after I left Austin, but I could see why they had such an enthusiastic following.  Next up was our second chance to hear John Fullbright, which we were very satisfied to get.  He played several songs we didn't hear the day before.  Then we went out to the beer garden and listened to a band from Nashville called the Farewell Drifters, who played kind of a folk/rock/alt country blend - in other words, not very Nashville-like. 

Then we went to the Texas Music Road Trip opening at the museum.  It was a great collection of memoribelia, both old time and new and everything in between.  It was a little strange to see museum exhibits for people like Beyonce, who are actually still in their prime, but on the whole it had a good balance of the various eras of music going back over the last hundred years.  We toured all that, then went to the cafe on the second floor and sat on the balcony for most of the Texas Tornados concert - picture is our view from there.  

Saturday evening we went back to Junior's Icehouse in Round Rock, just to round out a music filled weekend.