Fort Worth Blues

Fort Worth's legendary son, Townes Van Zandt, left this world on New Year's Day, 1997. Townes died on the same day as his hero, Hank Williams. Strangely enough, the poet Miller Williams, Lucinda's father, who was known as the "Hank Williams of Poetry," died on New Year's Day last year. This week I have been listening to Townes Van Zandt's The Highway Kind album (Sugar Hill, 1997) which includes ghostly, introspective versions of Hank Williams' "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle" and "Lost Highway."

In recent years, New Year's Day has become a memorial day of sorts for me. But I do not look at it as a day of sorrow, but rather as a day of reflection on the ephemeral nature of life. It is a feeling akin to the one I have in places like Florence, Bruges, or Prague. When I am in those cities, I think, "A master carved this statue with his hands, and now he is gone, lost to our ken, but the beauty he created remains to inspire us until we too will consort with the dust, and others will marvel at the beauty."

Steve Earle's song, "Fort Worth Blues," was written for Townes shortly after his death. Here is a link to the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4WOys7sWvU

Deep Ellum Blues

Deep Ellum is a neighborhood in Dallas that once was home to Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, and Lead Belly. The first known recording of "Deep Ellum Blues" was on an Okeh side in the 1930s. I heard this particular Grateful Dead cover of the tune (Winterland 12/23/70) on Lone Star Dead radio on KNON this evening.  It is, in my opinion, a very mellow, unusual version. Here is a link to the song:

https://archive.org/details/gd1970-12-23.132343.sbd.miller.flac16 

Texas Secession Rejected

State Republican party executives voted not to poll their constituencies on secession in the March primaries. The party is apparently of the opinion that presidential candidates from a state that wants to secede from the union are probably not electable.



Here are the details of the story:

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/05/texas-gop-votes-down-controversial-secession-propo/

Here is a song about Texas secession that was released many years ago. I wrote the lyrics and provided the vocals, but Honza and the boys wrote the music. "Le Cou de Rouge," incidentally, is a bad transliteration of "redneck" in French.

http://decinsky.denik.cz/galerie/dc_pisnicka.html?mm=906004

Sam Baker: Texas Songwriter

Songwriter Sam Baker's life changed while traveling through Peru by rail in 1986. The guerrilla group Shining Path placed a bomb in the luggage rack above his head, and when the bomb exploded, it killed seven people including the German family with whom Sam was sitting. Sam suffered multiple injuries including brain damage, major injuries to his left hand, and a cut artery. Since the explosion, he has undergone seventeen surgeries. Because his fretting hand was gnarled, he now plays guitar left-handed. He also suffers from tinnitus. Yet after all of this, after looking death pretty much dead in the eye, he is a smiling beacon of song. He stands there on stage beaming like a bodhisattva. 

As far as his work goes, Sam Baker's songwriting is informed by life, literature, and the songs of his influences. In "A Song to Himself (Juarez)," the "song to himself" is Townes Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die." The song "Feast" contains the phrase "what rough beast," a line from William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming." When I first heard the recurring line, I thought it a brilliant allusion, for it immediately sent my mind to the final words of the poem. "And what rough beast, its hour coming round at last,/Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born." My song "Byzantium," recorded in Europe with the band Nijak, riffs on the same poem, so it is clearly a poem that touches me deeply. What I like about Sam Baker's treatment of Yeats' line is how he seems to be urging the reader to finish the stanza. 

A link to "Feast" as well as commentary can be found here: http://americansongwriter.com/2013/07/song-premiere-sam-baker-feast/  

Sam Baker's song "Odessa" is about a rich boy whose life was easy "cause the dark crude flowed." After he killed a girl when he rolled his Corvette, Daddy's money saved him from going to prison. It would have been simple to dismiss the character as callous, superficial, and beyond redemption, yet Baker finishes the song by showing the price the rich young man paid. The song tells about how in the character's later years "He talks to her each day/Her face was blood and diamonds/He remembers her that way." 

Sam Baker is a songwriter's songwriter. When I first heard him, he reminded me a lot of John Prine. However, after listening to more of his catalog, I could hear many more influences. There are, for example, elements of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and nineteenth century folk ballad. My wife Martina feels that Sam Baker has a kinship with Vic Chesnutt, and, considering the hardships that both men have endured, it became apparent to me that there are parallels.

We had the opportunity to see Sam Baker with Carrie Elkin at the Live Oak in Fort Worth on Friday. The crowd was small, and it seemed that Sam's family from Itasca made up a fair percentage of the audience. While listening to him play, I thought of the line from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,/And waste its sweetness on the desert air." It was a blessing to sit in that proverbial desert listening to Sam and Carrie play. And if another chance arises, I will be there again.

Here is a picture Martina took at the show:

Here is a link to Sam Baker's website:

http://sambakermusic.com

Trigger Look-Alike Contest

Last night we saw Willie Nelson play at a den of vice just across the Oklahoma line. The show, of course, started with "Whiskey River" and ended with a benediction, Hank Williams' "I Saw the Light." In between, Willie played Django Reinhardt's "Nuances," Hank's "Jambalaya," "Hey Good Lookin', and "Move It On Over," Billy Joe Shaver's "Georgia on a Fast Train," Willie and Waylon's "Good Hearted Woman," Willie's "Crazy" and "Night Life," "Georgia," "Always On My Mind," and several others.

Near the end of the show, Willie played "Living in the Promised Land," which in this day and age is an incredibly brave political statement. Willie Nelson has never been one to pander to popular opinion, and last night he again showed his courage and conviction regarding an issue about which much of his fan base is likely in absolute disagreement.

After the show, while sitting on my couch, I came to discover that one of my house shoes bears a striking resemblance to Trigger. In fact, I think it could win a "Trigger Look-Alike Contest." I will clearly be asking Santa for new house shoes this year.

Was America's First Thanksgiving in El Paso?

According to some El Paso residents, the first Thanksgiving on the North American continent was celebrated by Spanish explorer Juan de Onate on April 30, 1598 near the Rio Grande. April 30, of course, is Willie Nelson's birthday, so there is basis to believe that April 30 is truly a day of divine providence. Jokes aside, the first El Paso Thanksgiving occurred after a grueling fifty-day march where water-mad people ate roots to survive and horses drank until their stomachs burst upon arriving at the Rio Grande. After all of that, the feast began.

Here is a link to the full story about what could very well have been the first Thanksgiving in North America:

http://texasalmanac.com/topics/history/timeline/first-thanksgiving

Talking with Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is rambling across Texas again. He stopped in Fort Worth for a show in the listening room at the Live Oak on Sunday and will be playing at the Old Quarter in Galveston and Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio later this month.

Ramblin' Jack is the embodiment of American folk music, and there is something mystical about being in the presence of a man who ran away from home at 14 to become a cowboy, traveled across the country at Woody Guthrie's side, and mentored Bob Dylan.

After the show in Fort Worth, Ramblin' Jack hung around talking to the folks in the crowd for a while. He treated each and every one of us with kindness, patience, and respect. In the end, Martina, my father, and I were the last ones there. Ramblin' Jack told lots of stories. I asked him if Lead Belly actually taught him the song "Stewball," which he had played that night. Jack told me that the only conversation he had ever had with Lead Belly was when he was seventeen. Jack had bumped into Lead Belly while Lead Belly was putting away his guitar. Lead Belly said, "Oops." Jack said, "I'm sorry." And that was the end of the conversation. However, Jack did say that Woody Guthrie had told him plenty of stories about Lead Belly.

Ramblin' Jack also talked about meeting Merle Travis, and I commented that Doc Watson had named his son after him. Jack then said that he actually played with Doc Watson some right after Merle Watson died.

During his set, Jack told a story about sitting in Dylan's car listening to the radio at Newport, and when "House of the Rising Sun" came on, they both declared that it was their version, but it turned out to be Eric Burdon's. So my dad asked Ramblin' Jack about Bob Dylan. Jack said that Dylan was a hard man to know. He said that they had had about three conversations in the last twenty years, each of which had lasted about a minute and a half.

I asked Jack about where Guy Clark's song called "Ramblin Jack and Mahan" came from. He said that Larry Mahan, Ramblin' Jack, Susannah Clark, and two Wyoming cowgirls were drinking. The two cowgirls, Jack said, had never heard of Mahan. Guy Clark had already gone upstairs to bed (presumably at the Driscoll Hotel, where the song is set). Later on, Ramblin' Jack escorted Susannah upstairs. Jack said that the song is about what Guy imagined was going on downstairs after he went up to bed. Ramblin' Jack ended the anecdote by saying that Guy has a lot of imagination.

In December, Ramblin' Jack will be playing a couple of dates with John Prine. I asked him about that, and Jack said that he was very much looking forward to the opportunity. He said that he gave John Prine his cowboy hat once, but John left it in his car in the heat and the hatband shrunk.

Around midnight, Jack tipped his hat and bid us goodnight. Now I understand very clearly why, upon presenting Jack with a Medal of Arts in 1998, Bill Clinton called this incredible man "a national treasure," for Ramblin' Jack Elliott truly is just that.


Here is a picture of Ramblin' Jack that Martina took with her phone:

Here is a link to Ramblin' Jack playing with Johnny Cash:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyZ5V2YjwI

Deep River of Song: Black Texicans

Judging by the average Western movie, it would be easy to believe that only whites could be Texas cowboys. However, the truth is that about one cowboy in four was black. In fact, many of the early black cowboys that were brought to the United States as slaves arrived with cattle herding experience from their native West Africa.

It is important to note that the black cowboys also contributed to the trail song tradition serving as both composers and singers. Deep River of Song: Black Texicans (Rounder Records) is a sampling of songs by the black Texicans collected by John Lomax. Here is the link to Lead Belly singing "Western Cowboy." Note the elements of "The Old Chisholm Trail" on the chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqyp7jvmQeY 

  

Guy Clark: L.A. Freeway

I think many of us can relate to the chorus of this song by Guy Clark. "If I can just get off of this L.A. Freeway without getting killed or caught" are certainly lyrics that I can understand.

At the end of this performance, Clark comments on "what a civilized little honkytonk" he is playing in. I guess the Austin City Limits stage is a tad different from the now-defunct (though totally legendary) Jester Lounge down on Westheimer Road in Houston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwUpkEK6yk 

End Urban Sprawl

While I love my home state, I absolutely despise the urban sprawl. I can no longer recognize my hometown thanks to regulations that allow developers to stack people on top of each other here. And it's not like I'm some old codger who is resistant to change. The problem is the magnitude of the situation. According to a 2014 study, urban sprawl in Fort Worth and Arlington is now worse than in Los Angeles, which was the poster child for the phenomenon for decades. Within my lifetime I expect to see the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area swallow everything from Hillsboro to the Oklahoma line. I expect to see an endless McMansion-scape dotted with Starbucks, Target, and all of their spiritual kin. Although we are probably on the edge of too late, we have to take action. We have to do something to stop this.

Here is an article in today's Dallas Morning News about a ranch that will be turned into a strip center and a bunch of houses:

http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/friscos-brinkmann-ranch-set-for-homes-and-shopping-center.html/

Here is an article on what we can do to end urban sprawl:

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/30/us/drawing-a-hard-line-against-urban-sprawl.html?pagewanted=all

Bud Shrake: Texas Writer

Bud Shrake was a journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and bon vivant from Fort Worth. I recently read the story "The Buffalo Hunt" from his novel Blessed McGill in A Part of Space:Ten Texas Writers (TCU Press: 1969). The story is so convincing that I find it unfathomable to believe that Shrake was not a buffalo hunter in the Texas Panhandle in the nineteenth century. Shrake's attention to detail, careful choice of words, and ear for the music of language place him in the pantheon of Texas writers.

He is also in the pantheon of bon vivants. Bud Shrake ran with Hunter S. Thompson,  dated Jack Ruby's star exotic dancer at the Carousel Club, numbered some of Texas' biggest musical artists as his friends, and was Ann Richards' partner for almost two decades.

With the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination coming in the next few days, here is Bud Shrake discussing, among other things, his relationship with Jack Ruby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a3_QvJ5Yms

Uncle Willie Playing "Dead Flowers" with Keith Richards

Willie Nelson, the pride of Abbott, Texas, has played with pretty much everybody out there. This performance of "Dead Flowers" with Keith Richards, Hank III, and Ryan Adams is hard to beat.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tuphRVH82k   

Y'all Won't Believe This

Like many other Texans, one of my favorite words is "y'all." "Y'all" does a marvelous job of functioning as a second person plural pronoun for a language that lost its second person plural pronoun centuries ago. Strangely enough, the word "y'all" is also used in South African Indian English, although the Southern US and South African Indian cultures arrived at the word "y'all" independently.  

     Here is an article in The Economist discussing this handy word:

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/09/southern-american-english 

    This article in Slate addresses the history of English's second person pronoun:

 http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/10/31/y_all_yous_you_guys_we_seem_to_need_a_second_person_plural_pronoun_that.html 

 

Remembering Audie Murphy on Veteran's Day

Texan Audie Murphy was the most decorated American soldier of WWII. At one point, the 19 year old Murphy single-handedly held off an entire company of German soldiers in France. He was truly an army of one. After the war ended, Murphy went on to become a movie star. His first role was as Billy the Kid in "The Kid from Texas."

Here is an interview with Audie Murphy on Veteran's Day, 1963.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1F1kRTpWE

Jerry Jeff Walker: 1968 Psychedelic Folk Rocker

When most folks think about Jerry Jeff Walker's musical repertoire, songs like "Mr. Bojangles," "Back Against the Wall Redneck Mother," and "Little Bird" probably come to mind. However, most folks, me included until recently, probably did not know that Jerry Jeff Walker was in a psychedelic folk rock act called Circus Maximus back in the late 1960s. These gentlemen were so avant garde that they even did an arrangement of 14th century French composer Guillame de Machaut's "La douce dame jolie."

(Side note: Machaut happens to be my favorite medieval composer, though he is not widely known today. In fact, I asked a tour guide at Reims Cathedral in France about him a few years ago, and the tour guide gave me a blank look despite the fact that Machaut actually lived and died in Reims. If you happen to enjoy music composed more than a century before explorer Cabeza de Vaca bumbled his way through Texas, I would recommend Machaut's "Le Remede de Fortune.")

One of the songs Jerry Jeff penned in his Circus Maximus days is called "Trying to Live Right." The vocals have a distinct Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison flavor, and Bob Bruno's organ is not dissimilar from that of Ray Manzarek on "Soul Kitchen" or "Peace Frog." Dig this, y'all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBidu-BNSbA

 

Jerry Jeff's "Gettin' By" to Start Off the Week

Back when I lived in the Czech Republic, I used to receive Jerry Jeff Walker's newsletter. It was welcome news from home in the days before the internet. I was really proud of my Jerry Jeff Walker T-shirt, too, and I liked to wear it around town until I ruined it by spilling a care package worth the salsa all over the front.
Come to think of it, I must have cost Jerry Jeff a lot in postage, but I reckon I made it up to him because I always made sure to take plenty of folks to holler "So well! So well! So well!" at his shows when I was back home in Fort Worth.

"Gettin' By" is one of Jerry Jeff's standards and a fine song to start off the week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJoL_f0i_c   

Chris Wall

Chris Wall has written songs of emotional insight and wisdom such as "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight," "The Poet Is Not In Today," and "Old Broken Record," and he has also written songs that pay the electricity bill, such as "Trashy Women." A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of talking with Chris Wall for a little while at Hondo's On Main in Fredericksburg after he finished his set. I asked him if "Old Broken Record" was influenced by the unrequited love poetry of William Butler Yeats. He said that it was not. He said that the song was actually built around "it always gets stuck on you you you." The image of the Moon revolving around the Earth follows the theme of the record's revolution. Here is a link to "Old Broken Record":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52CCfVqBL5s 

 

Some might think, "Why in the world would you ask a question about an Irish poet to a country singer?" The answer is that many of our best songwriters are quite well-read and draw inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Guy Clark actually mentions Yeats in the opening line of "Cold Dog Soup," and Robert Earl Keen cites the 13th century Persian poet Rumi as an important influence. Ray Wylie Hubbard's career was probably saved by Ranier Maria Rilke, the Bohemian poet, and Mother Hubbard's writing also reflects an understanding of world religions. In fact, he explicitly mentions Hinduism in his song "Stolen Horses." Let's just say that wisdom can be conveyed in a southern drawl.   

Hayes Carll

I first heard Hayes Carll while driving down the road in Dallas not long after "Flowers and Liquor" was released about ten or so years ago. I was immediately drawn to his music and started attending his shows whenever he came to town. Back when I first heard him, I figured that if Hayes Carll did not receive greater acclaim it was because there is no cosmic justice in the state of Texas. While pretty boys in fancy britches were singing pop with a twang in huge venues, Hayes Carll was sharing thoughtful, articulate songs in venues of a significantly smaller scale. Thankfully, Hayes Carll now has the attention he deserves, and he has a strong, loyal following. Here's a link to Hayes Carll playing "Beaumont."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQyw3YNWIc 

Cheerleaders for Chess

The University of Texas at Dallas' chess program is so good that the team even has cheerleaders. Good is probably an understatement for UTD considering that they have had teams that were ranked the best in the Western Hemisphere. The picture below is from yesterday's match against the University of Belgrade, which was played via Skype.

Hurray! Blue Bell has returned!

Blue Bell returned to North Texas shelves today, an answer to the prayers of much of the citizenry. I am sure that I am not the only one who has stood in the frozen food section of the grocery store wondering if buying a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia during Blue Bell's absence was tantamount to betrayal of our iconic Texas brand. Fort Worth billionaire Sid Bass, to whose family Fort Worth owes much of its current success, saved our beloved ice cream from (as one newsman put it) a meltdown. Hurray for Sid Bass! You Scream! I scream! We all deserve the T-shirt.

A Fine Day for Pedernales River Chili

We have reached the prime chili con carne time of year in Texas, and Lady Bird Johnson's Pedernales River Chili recipe is perhaps the most famous chili recipe in existence. When LBJ was in the White House, Lady Bird received so many requests for the recipe that she had it printed on card stock for distribution.

Here is a link to a scanned copy of one of Lady Bird Johnson's Pedernales River Chili recipe cards.

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/FAQs/Recipes/chili.asp

Gothabilly on Halloween

Ghoultown is a gothabilly band from Dallas, and their website bio describes them as "an uncharted crossroads between Johnny Cash and Rob Zombie." Who could resist a little cowboy graveyard rock on Halloween night?

Here is a link to one of their videos. I especially like the horses in skeleton costumes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssCAdUgkr5A 

Floydada: Pumpkin Capital USA

Floydada, Texas, which is up around the Panhandle, is known as "Pumpkin Capital USA." There's a good chance that the fat orange squashes that many of us have carved into jack o' lanterns come from Floydada. James McMurtry actually wrote a song about the town, although it is called "Levelland." Floydada wouldn't fit the meter. Below is a link to an article about Pumpkin Capital USA as well as a link to James McMurtry's "Levelland" video.

Floydada: Pumpkin Capital USA:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/31/us-halloween-texas-idUSKCN0SP0I320151031 

"Levelland" by James McMurtry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-D824LHti4 

Cormac McCarthy, The Road, and an El Paso Hotel

A few years ago, Cormac McCarthy, who could be described as a reclusive genius, granted an interview to Oprah Winfrey. McCarthy's take on language and the subconscious is fascinating, and the anecdotes from his hardscrabble life can be quite funny. In the interview, he discusses the birthplace of The Road, which was a hotel room in El Paso. When he describes the book's origin, he talks about imagining fire on the mountains beyond his hotel window. I can not help but wonder if his apocalyptic vision was somehow connected, subconsciously or otherwise, to the words written on a mountain across the border in Ciudad Juarez, "LA BIBLIA ES LA VERDAD. LEELA," or "The Bible is the truth. Read it." I imagine that this question has already been posed by a member of the Cormac McCarthy Society, but it's new ground for me. Here is a link to a segment of the interview.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RmgK0ds2d4

John Prine Covering Blaze Foley

Good ol' John Prine is a formidable songwriter, but he is also an accomplished interpreter of the songs of others. In this clip of John Prine playing Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons" on Austin City Limits, he also tells the story of his connection with the Armadillo World Headquarters and ol' Blaze himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0SsSqIxspo

Burrus Mill Recording Studio: Saginaw, Texas

As unlikely as it may now seem, Burrus Mill in Saginaw, Texas once was home to an important recording studio. Bob Wills recorded "New San Antonio Rose," which went on to sell more than a million records, in that studio. "Pappy" O' Daniel, a musician in his own right, hosted a radio show that broadcast statewide from that location, and the fame he achieved on the show helped him become the governor of Texas. Not long ago my grandfather told me about Pappy's gubernatorial campaign. A wagon traveled through the North Side of town giving away biscuits. "Pass me a biscuit, Pappy" was O' Daniel's slogan. In the 1930s, a free biscuit was always welcome, and I imagine that "Pappy" garnered at least one vote per cat-head.

When the major labels were in town to record regional acts, they would sometimes use Burrus Mill Recording Studio. Ted Daffan's Texans first recorded at the mill in 1940. Daffan, incidentally, was an early pioneer of country steel guitar. Okeh, a major label for "hillbilly" and "race" recordings at the time, produced sides by Ted Daffan's Texans in 1942.  Here is a link to two of the act's California recordings.

http://dismuke.org/blog/?p=1612  

Milton Brown: Father of Western Swing

Although Bob Wills is indisputably "the King of Western Swing," Milton Brown is the genre's father. Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies played a style of music that was sometimes called hillbilly string or cowboy jazz. The group played at the Crystal Springs Dance Pavilion in Fort Worth, the venue that some have credited to be the birthplace of Western Swing.

Milton Brown would probably be better known today had he not died soon after a car accident on Jacksboro Highway in April 1936. That same year both a Bob Wills and a Milton Brown version of "Right or Wrong" was released. Younger generations are more likely to associate the song with George Strait, who recorded it in 1984. Here is Milton Brown's version of "Right or Wrong."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnjE5aB-cWQ

Townes: A Cameo Role

Listening to Willie and Merle's new album this week, I got to thinking about buying their "Pancho and Lefty" album on cassette for my dad back in the 80s. I believe that I bought an Iron Maiden album in the same transaction. Oh, the wild testosterone of youth... Anyway, after watching the video of "Pancho and Lefty" recently, I realized that Townes Van Zandt is one of the Federales. Watch for the tall man with the writing utensil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAL5etIiWEw