Blind Lemon Jefferson, Cindy Walker, and Lefty Frizzell

May 4, 2013

The first weekend of May, we went camping at Fort Parker State Park near Mexia.  The park is along Fort Parker Lake which is fed by the Navasota river.  It is a small but beautiful park, named after Fort Parker, which was built in 1834 by John Parker, while Texas was still part of Mexico.   In 1836, Comanche Indians raided the fort while the gate was open, killed several of the inhabitants and took several of the children with them, including Cynthia Ann Parker.  She adapted to the Comanche lifestyle, married Chief Nocona and was the mother of Quannah Parker, the last great Comanche Chief.

Old Fort Parker, in a reconstructed form, is located just outside the state park on another start park road less than half a mile from the state park entrance.  Here is looking into the fort from a gun window up in the corner blockhouse.

How interesting it is to find out that near the site of some of the oldest Texas history are several significant sites in Texas music history, along about a 30 mile stretch of  Texas highway 14.  Beginning at Kosse, birthplace of Bob Wills (and Marlin, hometown of Blind Willie Johnson is about 15 miles east of Kosse on Texas highway 7), then traveling north to Mexia, home town of country music hall of fame songwriter, Cindy Walker, then north to Wortham, hometown of King of the country blues, Blind Lemon Jefferson, then joining US 287 up to Corsicanna, home town of country music hall of fame singer Lefty Frizzell, this is one of the most densely packed stretches of Texas music heritage anywhere.

Just north of Wortham is a marker with an arrow pointing to the west side of the highway indicating that Blind Lemon Jefferson is buried there.  Sure enough, if you drive in, at the end of the grave yard is his grave site.  His headstone is inscribed with a line from his famous song:

"Lord, it's one kind favor I ask of You

See that my grave is kept clean"

The site is very clean and well maintained since the marker was place there in 1997, so it seems his request is being honored.

 Probably no one influenced Texas blues more than Blind Lemon Jefferson.  As Deep Ellum developed a reputation as a hub of the blues and jazz scene in Dallas, Blind Lemon Jefferson was the leading blues figure there.  From about 1912, he and Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter) were frequent musical partners.  T-Bone Walker began his musical career as a Blind Lemon Jefferson protege. Walker, from Oak Cliff, claimed that he used to guide Jefferson around the streets of Dallas in his early days in the 1920s.  As a youth, Lightning Hopkins saw Jefferson perform and was influenced to develop his blues playing style.




Down the road in Mexia, Cindy Walker is buried in the city cemetery.  Her grave site has an attractive granite guitar, making it easy to spot.

Cindy Walker's songwriting launched in 1940, when at 22, on a trip to Hollywood, she walked into the Bing Crosby building on a cold call to demo a song she had written for Crosby, "Lone Star Trail," and, improbably, he actually listened to it the next day at Paramount Studios where he was shooting a movie, he liked it, recorded it, and it became her first of many hits.  She is best known for a string of hit songs she wrote for Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, like "Miss Molly," "Cherokee Maiden," "Bubbles in my Beer," and many other that I had heard just the previous week in Turkey at Bob Wills Day.  Many other artists had hits with her songs, including Ernest Tubb with "Warm Red Wine," Roy Orbison with "Dream Baby" and Ray Charles with "You Don't Know Me."

Going back north up the highway to Corsicana, there is a place called Pioneer Village, consisting of buildings restored and preserved in their original conditions from the 1850s through 1880s.  Also in Pioneer Village is the Lefty Frizzell musuem, full of memorabilia from the life and music of Lefty Frizzell, and some memorabilia of other musicians of his time, which musically speaking was 1950 till his death in 1975.

 Just down the street from the Lefty Frizzell museum is a park with a Lefty Frizzell memorial.  Merle Haggard attended and spoke at the grand opening of the museum and memorial.  Haggard felt a debt of gratitude to Frizzell for having given him his start in his musical career.  Frizzell invited Haggard up to share the stage with him when Haggard was just 15 years old.  A circle is nicely completed here connecting back to the Bob Wills Day the previous week.  When Merle Haggard was at the peak of his career, he did a Bob Wills tribute album, "A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World" in 1968, when Wills career and western swing in general had been in decline and nearly forgotten since the early 1950s.  This was the start of the western swing revival and led to Bob Wills grammy winning last album "For the Last Time" in 1973.

Bob Wills Day

 April 27, 2013

For years I've wanted to go to Bob Wills Day on the last Saturday in April in Turkey, Texas.  An annual weekend party celebrating the life and music of Bob Wills in his home town for the past 40 years, the event is probably the premier one in the world of western swing.  But I had never managed to attend, trouble being that Turkey is a 5 hour drive away and kids are in school, lots of driving for a short weekend.  Being retired, I had to grab the opportunity this time.  I drove to Turkey Thursday, April 25, and camped at Caprock Canyon State park, about 15 minutes northwest just outside of Quitaque, the plan being that the family would come and join me Friday afternoon.  Caprock Canyons is spectacular country, in many ways similar to Palo Duro Canyon an hour and a half northwest up the Red River, with scenery equaling, and in many cases arguably surpassing, that of Palo Duro Canyon.  I'm guessing that Bob Wills in his youth rode out to this country from his family ranch near Turkey, though I've never read anything that indicated so one way or other and I don't know of any of his tunes that were particularly inspired by this beauty.

Friday morning I went on a drive partly looking for where I could get a propane bottle filled, which I found in Silverton, west of Quitaque, and partly to look at the Red River Valley and the lower part of the Palo Duro Canyon southeast of the State Park.  The announcement had just come out that George Jones had died and I had the Willie's Roadhouse station on Sirius XM tuned in as it ran a tribute and remembrance show all day.  Ray Price, Brenda Lee, and many others called into the show to share stories and praise for the influence he had had on their lives and music.  George Jones was remembered at the Bob Wills Day events also, as was recently deceased Glen Duncan, long time Texas Playboy and brother of Tommy Duncan, Texas Playboy lead singer.

I went into Turkey a couple times on Friday to catch what was going on.  When I walked into the Bob Wills museum mid day, Jason Roberts, the fiddler for Asleep at the Wheel, was standing there talking to someone. I got to talk with him for a few minutes, then he joined Billy Mata's band for a performance there inside the museum. Billy Mata also played at the dance in the old Turkey high school gym Friday night.  There were some amazing dancers on the dance floor, some from as far away as Japan and England.

Saturday morning was the big Bob Wills Day parade and the highlight of the parade was the Texas Playboys and friends float.  In past event the float had been full of original Texas Playboys, but this time it was Leon Rausch carrying that distinction, joined by other western swing dignitaries including Billy Mata and Jason Roberts.

The big concert occurred Saturday afternoon at the Turkey football field, hosted by Bob Wills' biographer, Dr. Charles Townsend, and featuring the celebrated western swing musicians that had ridden in the parade.  The dance Saturday night was hosted by the Jody Nix band.  One of the highlights of Main Street in Turkey is an old Bob Wills tour bus parked by the road.

508 Park Avenue Revisited

March 23, 2013

Music on the outdoor stage at 508 Park Avenue

 Live music filled the air again at the Dallas site where some of the most significant blues and western swing recordings of the 1930s were made, the Brunswick Radio Corporation recording studios.  This occasion offered free concerts by area blues bands as community outreach of the Stewpot Ministries and First Presbyterian Church.   "We are excited to have a new generation of local blues and country artists stepping forward to pay tribute to the history of 508 Park, where artists such as Robert Johnson and Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys recorded,” said the Rev. Bruce Buchanan, executive director of the Stewpot. "This is the first in a series of concerts that 508 Park will host."  Unlike the June 2012 event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the historic 1937 recording sessions where the artists played the music of Johnson and Wills in devoted replication of their original styles, this time around, the bands played more contemporary, amplified arrangements that owed more to the blues/rock styles of the 60s and 70s than to the 30s.  While I prefer the music that was offered last year over this year's event, I'm glad to see the progress being made in revitalizing and repurposing this historic art deco building.

 The event got me thinking again about the "On That Day" 75th anniversary presentation last year (see Texas Songbook post from July 6, 2012).  As I wrote in the earlier post, "On That Day" focused appropriately on Robert Johnson's last recordings, which were part of the June 1937 sessions at 508 Park Avenue, and added highlights that paid tribute to Bob Wills and the other western swing bands of those sessions.  I noted the Light Crust Doughboys were featuring their newest member, Deon Pride, son of Country Music Hall of Fame member Charley Pride.  It may be a healthy sign of the times that it was only on reflection months later that the oldest western swing band, having taken on a black musician, a very talented one, as its newest member, playing at this commemorative event had any special significance.  Seventy five years prior, two of the greatest musical figures of the time recording at the same set of recording sessions didn't use the occasion to record some tracks together, they most likely never spoke to each other.  They were from two separate racial worlds and bridging the two would have been out of the question.

Deon Pride

 Charley Pride was a pioneer himself, breaking into a pretty much all white country music genre in the 1960s and going on to having a spectacular country music career.  Ray Charles had to overcome a lot of resistance in both worlds to cross over from R&B to country successfully in the 60s, but today it doesn't turn many heads when Darius Rucker crosses over from rock to country and picks up a CMA award.  When you consider the diverse roots that Bob Wills and others used to create the western swing sound in the first place, it is long pas time for western swing bands today to reflect that diversity.



Charles Townsend,  Bob Will's biographer, frequently mentions how strongly Wills felt his music was influenced by the black blues singers he worked along side in the cotton fields.  He was such a fan of blues songstress Bessie Smith in the 1920s that he rode his horse from his Turkey, Texas home 40 miles to Childress to see her perform.  (Bessie Smith was also Janis Joplin's greatest inspiration if you can imagine her and Bob Wills having that in common!)  So we can imagine what it might have been like if Robert Johnson had sat in with the Texas Playboys on some of their bluesier numbers, or if Bob Wills had played fiddle with Robert Johnson on "Sweet Home Chicago."  Kokomo Arnold, from whom Johnson got that song, also wrote "Milk Cow Blues," a hit for Bob Wills.  Wills and Johnson had certainly enough common musical ground for a collaborative session, but the potential magic would have been unthinkable in the 30s even though it would be a dream scenario today.

But back in the 30s, the classic version of the Light Crust Doughboys, after Bob Wills and Milton Brown departed, came a bit closer to the kind of multicultural, multiracial collaboration that the western swing style would have naturally suggested.  The new creative leaders, Marvin Montgomery and Knocky Parker, were partial to the musical inspirations they found in the bars and music halls in Deep Ellum, a thriving center of blues, jazz and black culture in general rivaling Harlem.  They would carry these influences back into their western swing offerings, but of course, in their case also, the racial divide prevented direct collaboration.  Today we can enjoy the contemporary western swing sound, inclusive of many cultural and racial influences, with a band composition a little more reflective of its roots in the current Light Crust Doughboys composition.

The Godfather of American Roots Music

March 14, 2013

There they stood in the Threadgill’s Restaurant parking lot: Chris Strachwitz, founder of the Arhoolie record label, filmmakers Maureen Gosling and Chris Simon, and grammy winning music writer Adam Machado.  As I got out of my car and started toward them, they turned and smiled and Chris Strachwitz said “Ah, a down home friend.”  How cool, I thought, that these roots music movers and shakers greeted me before I could say anything to them.  A fortunate wardrobe decision had made me a welcoming committee of one; I wore my Down Home Music (the record store which is also Arhoolie headquarters) t-shirt.  They were in Austin for the South by Southwest Film Festival premier of “This Ain’t No Mouse Music,” a film by Gosling and Simon celebrating the work Strachwitz and his record company Arhoolie.  Over half a century, Strachwitz  and Arhoolie brought an incredible variety of regional roots music – blues, country, conjunto, cajun, zydeco, polka, and more  –   from many areas, but especially Texas and Louisiana, to national exposure.  We talked for a few minutes about the film and the gratification of seeing it finally reaching the public after years of work by Gosling and Simon.  In a very small way, I could share in their gratification through becoming a supporter of the Kickstarter project for the film last year.  I got out my Arhoolie “Hear Me Howling!”  book with CDs - the work that earned Adam Machado his grammy - and got him and Chris Strachwitz to sign it. 

We talked a while about how the restaurant where we were meeting was started by Kenneth Threadgill in 1933 as a gas station/beer joint with the first alcohol license in Travis county after prohibition, thus allowing Threadgill to retire from bootlegging and indulge his love of singing Jimmy Rodgers blue yodels for the entertainment of his patrons.  And we began to talk about Eddie Wilson, who on New Year day 1980 opened the restaurant a day after closing the Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin’s premier music venue in the 1970s for rock, blues and progressive country.  Just about then, Eddie Wilson appeared and invited us into the restaurant. 

Threadgills

                                       

Chris Strachwitz had been traveling the countryside in 1960 finding musicians and recording them where he found them when he made a stop in Navasota, Texas.  He had recently found out that a plantation owner in an old blues song “Tom Moore’s farm” was an actual person who was living in Navasota.  The song is from downtrodden sharecroppers viewpoint and not flattering to Tom Moore; nevertheless, Strachwitz tracked him down and talked to him.  He asked Moore if he knew sharecroppers in the area who were musical.  Moore said he didn’t, but suggested Strachwitz go find “Pegleg” down at the train depot and “Pegleg” could lead him to such a person.  Sure enough, “Pegleg” indeed led Strachwitz to Mance Lipscomb.  After recording Lipscomb, Mac McCormick, who was traveling with Strachwitz suggested that the Mance Lipscomb recordings should be the first album released on their new record label, and he suggested they call the label “Arhoolie,” which is a word that means “field holler.”   That he followed this advice was fortuitous for both Strachwitz and Lipscomb. 

Mance Lipscomb

                                           

Mance Lipscomb was in his 60s when Strachwitz and had never been recorded, though he had performed at local gatherings going back to when Blind Lemon Jefferson was the reigning King of the Country Blues in the 1920s.  He had lived the hard life of a sharecropper.  After the first album, “Texas Songster,” there were several more albums and many festival bookings as the blues revival of the 1960s caught on.  In the last years of his life (he lived till 1976), he performed before thousands instead of dozens and traveled across the US and Europe instead of to the next town.

Chris Strachwitz has similarly impacted the lives and careers of many other musicians over the decades, including Lightning Hopkins, Big Mama Thornton, Clifton Chenier, and Flaco Jimenez to name a few.  Rather than recording carefully arranged, rehearsed, and produced studio sessions, he has specialized in going to where the musicians are performing and then “catch it as it is.”  He is also a compulsive collector of rare 78s and put back into circulation via Arhoolie many valuable recordings from defunct labels.  The Threadgill’s announcement for the dinner with Chris Strachwitz event on this evening called him “the Godfather of American Roots Music,” a fitting and well earned title.

Eddie Wilson has made his own contributions to bringing musicians and various types of music to the fore, especially in the Austin music scene since the 1970s.  At the Armadillo, he fostered the odd blended crowd of music loving hippies and rednecks enjoying acts that would often include rock, blues, and classic country acts on the same bill.  Threadgill’s has allowed him to continue to provide a venue for live music, both at the original Threadgill’s location and a south location where the Armadillo used to stand, while in addition, the restaurant has given him an outlet for his other passion, southern cooking.  Kenneth Threadgill was an inspiration and mentor to Wilson in his youth, and Wilson has endeavored to keep Threadgill’s legacy alive through the restaurant.

As we walked into the restaurant, Wilson played the host to the VIP guests from Arhoolie, pointing out pictures and memorabilia on the walls that triggered stories of Threadgill and Janis Joplin, the most prominent figure to stop in and play at the old beer joint.  Chris Strachwitz and Eddie Wilson are two people that I have respected and admired for decades, and more than that, they have added immeasurably to the quality of my life through the music they brought into it.  I know I am not alone.  For many, many people, they have been like matchmakers bring people together with musicians and music they love.  They both seem to have a sense of mission and single-mindedness in doing just that.

                          

Eddie Wilson, Chris Strachwitz, Grandad

Swing Sundays at Sons of Hermann Hall

Last year, the Sons of Hermann Hall kicked off a monthly event called "Swing Sundays," with music provided by western swing band Shoot Low Sheriff.  The evening starts with swing dance lessons.  A BBQ dinner is available, with iced tea, soft drinks, and beer to drink.  Shoot Low Sherrif plays Bob Wills classics, original western swing style compositions by band leader Erik Swanson, and other jazz, swing, and blues standards.  Dancers enjoy the music from the dance floor while non-dancers enjoy then music seated at the long tables to the side eating BBQ or enjoying a beverage.

The old Texas Dance Halls have enjoyed a renaissance in the last decade, often filled with the popular "red dirt" or "americana" sounds of contemporary Texas country music.  "Swing Sundays" in this 102 year old dance hall feels and sounds like being in the golden age of these dance halls.  In recent decades, Sons of Hermann has hosted a who's who in Texas music, including western swingers Asleep at the Wheel, Leon Rausch, the Light Crust Doughboys, and Hank Thompson. I'm not sure who might have played there in the western swing hey day - I wonder.

One of my favorite times there was catching Robert Earl Keen Jr there when he recorded his second album "The Live Album."  He was new folk winner at Kerrville a few years before that and his legend was just beginning to grow.

Once in a Very Blue Moon

                                                        

                                                         Just once... in a very blue moon

                                                          Just once in a very blue moon
                                                         Just once... in a very blue moon
                                                           And I feel one comin' on soon

Last Labor Day weekend (catching up here) had a fortunate convergence we were able to take advantage of: a blue moon combined with lots of amazing outdoor live music.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Nancy Griffith and her Blue Moon Orchestra had been performing that weekend at an outdoor venue in central Texas to play "Once in a Very Blue Moon" under the blue moon.  We would have been there for sure.

As it was though, the live outdoor music and blue moon were exquisite.  The official full moon was either Friday or Saturday night, but we started the weekend off Thursday night at the Threadgill's beer garden.

 First up was Betty Soo, who's set accompanied the moon beginning to rise above the stage just a little to the left.  Her songs work equally well when she performs solo or, as in the case of this night, with her band, Willing Company.  We would have like her to keep going all evening except that John Fullbright would be coming up next and we were really looking forward to that too.

Betty Soo - 2008 Kerrville New Folk Winner.

John Fullbright's set coax the moon high above the stage.  He also played with superb accompaniment songs from his debut studio CD "From the Ground Up," as well as new material that gave us hope of a new CD in the near future.

Here is John Fulbright playing at Lucy's Fried Chicken at SXSW 2012.  From Woody Guthrie's home town, Okemah, Oklahoma, he was the high point of the 2012 WoodyFest and is returning for the 2013 WoodyFest.

For Friday night, we changed venues to the Kerrville Wine and Music Festival, aka, Little Folk.  The headline band was the Farewell Drifters from Nashville.  The view is from up the hill in the theater in order to catch the stage and the moon.  Their vocal harmonies are described as sixties pop, which they blend in with bluegrassy arrangements.










                   
 The Farewell Drifters

Here are the Farewll Drifters at Threadgills for SXSW 2012.

Saturday night, which looks like it might have been the actual full moon, the headliner was Guy Forsyth.  He puts on quite an entertaining show, playing a wide variety of styles and instruments, including quite a stirring rendition of "Summertime" on the musical saw.











         
 Guy Forsyth

Sunday night was the end of the blue moon labor day weekend, and it was getting hard to catch the moon and the stage in the same picture.  The headliner band was Steeldrivers, another Nashville band fusing bluegrass with contemporary sounds.

                                                       Steeldrivers

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.  

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.

Coming Hayride Will Be the Ride of a Lifetime

We are on the cusp of a media innovation that will propel the next creative explosion in Texas music. It may be here now, just under the radar of the general public. Technologies that have become popular in the past decade - music downloads, social networking, streaming video, mobile devices - are waiting to be harnessed in an imaginative way to create a new kind of hayride to delight Texas music listeners.

Hayride? Let's explain...

In the early 1920s commercial radio stations started popping up in the larger cities around the country. Some brave early adoptors bought receivers to find out what was going on out there on the airwaves - their great grandchildren became those first people on your block to by a Blue Ray player or iPhone. It took a while though for the radio station operators to figure out what to broadcast and how to make it work as a business. Amon Carter started WBAP ("We Bring a Program") in Fort Worth in 1922and on January 4, 1923, rolled out a "Hayride" format consisting of "a fiddler, a square dance caller, and ... a familiar mélange of wisecracks, music both lugubrious and jolly, and country costumes" as described by the Handbook of Texas Online. The original star of the show was the fiddler Captain M J Bonner (Captain as in Confederate army Captain, so he was no spring chicken). The format was a hit, and spread to Chicago as the "National Barn Dance," and then to Nashville, where it became the "Grand Ole Opry," which of course is still thriving today. These venues helped shape what became known as country music later on. At the time, record companies called it "hillbilly" or "old time" music.




Here is a Biscuit sketch of M J Bonner from our Texas Songbook artist Randy Biscuit. We will use Biscuit sketches here in the blog from time to time to give the blog some class, but don't be alarmed on account of the name - we'll leave out the really randy Biscuit sketches.

One of Bonner's associates, Eck Robertson, also played fiddle on WBAP in the 20s. He's the unnamed fiddler from Amarillo mentioned in the last post for having made the first ever country record, "Sally Gooden" in 1922. He is given credit for being the first musician to plug his own record on the radio too. By the early 30s, radio had gotten how to work the business part - get money from sponsors for marketing stuff to the people who tune in. A string band named the Aladdin Laddies (for their sponsor who sold lights) became a hit on Fort Worth radio, then they changed sponsor and name to Light Crust Doughboys (for the flour they were selling) and birthed Milton Brown's Brownies and Bob Wills' Texas Playboys and the whole Western Swing movement, with radio programming playing the midwife.

Fast forward to the mid 70s. Willie Nelson had bridged the gulf between hippies and redneck by creating a musical genre known as "progressive country" or "cosmic cowboy" or several even sillier names, and had achieved a wildly enthusiastic regional following. Then a TV program called "Austin City Limits" was launched using Gary P Nunn's "London Homesick Blues" as its theme song and presenting a nicely balanced mix of Texas and national artists, and vastly extended the reach and influence of this brand of Texas music, artistically and geographically. Thirty five years later, ACL is going strong, the longest running music program in TV history. ACL continued as the music morphed from "progressive country" into the next trendy forms and helped Austin in its endeavor to proclaim itself the live music capital of the world. By the 70s, TV had already demonstrated its cultural power by producing the first generation of stay at home couch potatos, and had shown an ability to impact where music was going - as in the Ed Sullivan show acting as the armada carrying the Beatles and the first wave of the British invasion to our shores. But ACL has proved the deeper and more sustaining power of TV programming in the musical world and especially Texas music.

Now days, radio and TV seem passé, so what about the new kind of hayride? Well, just like radio in the hayride days and TV before ACL, there are these new technologies out there that constitute a new media platform. Most of them have been around for a decade or so, but no one has yet formulated the programming that will launch the next wave in Texas music. Is there any reason to doubt that history will repeat itself? Is there any reason to doubt that it will germinate in Texas as it always has, with creative Texas musical content? Well, okay then, we think we have a compelling case, so...

Texas Songbook predicts that a cyber hayride will be unveiled and it will be the big happening in this last decade of the Texas music century. It will propel a new creative musical outpouring of Texas music. Given the high tech credentials, media savy, and abundance of musical creative content in the Austin area, the cyber hayride is probably already underway and will emerge from there. We shall see...

Happy New Year and Welcome to Texas Songbook!

So here we are at the start of a brand new decade. Here is what is special about this one: it is the last decade in a century of recorded Texas music, a century that started with a fiddler from Amarillo making the first country record, an ex-cowboy from Jefferson turned New York light opera singer making the first big country hit, and a blind blues man from the streets of Deep Ellum becoming the best selling blues artist of the time. These recording milestones barely even hint at the amazing decade that was starting in Texas music 90 years ago, but let's talk about 20s music, or as the Texas Songbook and Musical Companion called it "songs to play before a great depression," another time. The important thing is that each of the past nine decades in Texas music has unveiled surprises, wonders, great stories, and most of all history making music. We need expect any less of the present one.

The Texas Songbook and Musical Companion celebrates the treasures of Texas music past and present in equal measure. "These are the good old days" of Texas music, Eddie Wilson blogs as he chronicles his own golden age of the Armadillo World Headquarters in the 1970s, and we agree, so they are. Never have the opportunities and potential been greater to produce and enjoy great music in greater variety than now. But without the rich legacy of the past nine decades, this would not be so.

But enough pontificating...

In Fort Worth, this decade was rung in on the "Eve before New Year's Eve" at Bass Hall by Robert Earl King, Jr. Keen delivered the expected crowd pleasing ballads and earned approving reviews in the Fort Worth Star Telegram and from Channel 8's art critic Gary Cogill, who said how great it was to hear some real, good, Texas music. Keen's music is a collection of stories from various Texas slices of life, stories that are better with each re-singing, and the audience knows them well enough to join in more often than not.

Also in Fort Worth, on January 2, 1936, Roger Miller was born. He was a member of the legendary Cherokee Cowboys backing up Ray Price. (They were Hank Williams band, the Drifting Cowboys, till his death, when Ray Price took them under his wing.) He wrote Price's hit "Invitation to the Blues" and became one of Nashville's most prized songwriters hitting his peak in the 1960s with his own hits such as "Kansas City Star" and "King of the Road." His most endearing songs were novelty items which ranged from quirky to wacky.

Also on January 2 in 1974, Tex Ritter died in Nashville. Ritter was a protege of the great music historian John Lomax and star of over sixty "B" westerns of the 30s and 40s. The unique thing about Ritter as a movie singing cowboy is that he always viewed his films as a vehicle to expose the authentic cowboy music rather than the manufactured Hollywood variety. Ritter provided Bob Wills his first movie opportunity in Take Me Back to Oklahoma in 1940. He became best known for his hits "Rye Whiskey," "Boll Weevel," and "High Noon."

Keen, Miller, and Ritter used widely diverse styles to make superb Texas music, but they do have a common link - to Willie Nelson. Miller and Nelson were part of Ray Price's Cherokee Cowboys together, and they were also in Nashville together in the sixties as two of country music's elite songwriters. Ritter appeared in Nelson's Dripping Springs Reunion, the precursor to the Willie Nelson picnics, in 1972, along with country music legends Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff and many others. Keen attended Willie Nelson's second Fourth of July Picnic in 1974, where he was able to meet Nelson as a result of his car being one of 40 burned up a in a grass fire in the parking lot. Nelson unfortunately had to cut the meeting short because he was "jamming with Leon Russell," as hilariously told by Keen on his Live No.2 Dinner CD on the "Road Goes On Forever Intro."

We will return to these three in future posts for a Keen-Miller-Ritter road trip and play list.

Here is the Robert Earl Keen site: http://www.robertearlkeen.com/

Roger Miller's site is: http://www.rogermiller.com/

Tex Ritter's museum site is: http://www.carthagetexas.com/HallofFame/museum.htm