An Evening at the Old Quarter in Galveston

Martina and I recently spent the evening at the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe in Galveston. The Old Quarter is an iconic listening room, a place where the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Blaze Foley played. It is also a place that was critical in the success of troubadour Hayes Carll. Carll stills plays the venue, though he has been known to fill halls more than ten times the Old Quarter's size.

The Old Quarter's owner is Rex "Wrecks" Bell, and he was very kind and approachable. I asked Rex if the Arkansas flag above the stage was from Blaze Foley, but he said that the flag was there because of the 40 acre farm he and his wife have in Arkansas. It must be noted that Rex is a legend in his own right. He is the namesake of Townes Van Zandt's "Rex's Blues," and not only did he play bass for Townes and Lightnin' Hopkins, for decades he has provided a venue for talented songwriters to cultivate their talents and be taken seriously.

The act hired to play that night was caught in traffic on the way from Austin, so Rex and his wife Janet decided to "open" the show. They played a very enjoyable set for a crowd of eleven, and everything was very loose and relaxed.

The Old Quarter has been compared to a shrine, and the moment I walked in I felt like I had entered a holy place, a temple of song, a place of truth and beauty. In a single moment, I came to love the place because it was clear that it exists for the sake of the song. And I am the kind of man who, in the words of Waylon Jennings, "would rather give you a song than diamonds or gold."

Here is a photograph that Martina took of Rex and Janet Bell at the Old Quarter.

Here is a link to Townes Van Zandt playing "Rex's Blues" live at the Old Quarter in 1973, back at the original Houston venue. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioJizJ93DdQ

Photographers: Swartz Brothers

Ever since I read Richard Selcer's Hell's Half Acre, I have been fascinated with the story of the Swartz brothers, the photographers who had a studio on the 700 block of Main Street in Fort Worth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Swartz brothers worked on the edge of the Acre, and they are credited with the iconic photograph of the Wild Bunch, which included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Today my father showed me an old family photo, and I was thrilled to see the Swartz name embossed in the bottom right corner. The picture features the man known in family lore as Grandpa Eidson and his three daughters. Grandpa Eidson, W.T. Eidson, was from Ireland, and he was a member of the Texas Cavalry in the war. He was also a friend of Sam Bass, and their relationship is documented in at least one Bass biography. W.T. Eidson is buried in Old Shiloh Cemetery in Flower Mound. Once I have a scanned copy of the Swartz Bros. photograph, I will post it on this blog.

Here is a Swartz Bros. photograph of some young men who would go on to become important to the genre of Western Swing.

Bob Dylan in Texas

The first time I saw Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan he was playing in a warehouse space on Cadiz Street in Dallas not far from 508 Park Avenue, where Robert Johnson recorded "Me and the Devil Blues." For Dylan to play in a place that was like, as a writer for the Dallas Observer put it, "the box that the Longhorn Ballroom came in," is a bit incomprehensible. But there he was. The greatest poet of our time was playing a warehouse where they were selling drinks out of ice chests.

There were no seats. It was standing room only, and my old man and I got there early and found ourselves on the concrete not far from the stage. Dylan lit the place up. He was electric. He played "All Along the Watchtower," "Positively Fourth Street," and "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat." He picked up an acoustic guitar and played "Tangled Up in Blue," and then he fired up the electric again to close the show. It was the first of five Dylan shows that my father and I have seen together. Never enough.

Here is a link to Bob Dylan and the Pride of Abbott, Texas covering Fort Worth's own Townes Van Zandt. Dylan may have first heard this song after he met Townes on Guadalupe in Austin back in the 70s.

Dylan and Willie Play Townes

Fort Worth Packing House

My father called today to tell me about this picture in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. My grandfather saw it, but the picture was too small for him to recognize anyone in the photograph. He thinks that his father and a couple of uncles may be in the picture. The next time I visit my grandfather, we'll enlarge the photograph on a computer to see who he sees and then contact the UTA archive if he recognizes anyone. They are trying to identify the men in the picture. If you can identify anyone, please contact spcoref@uta.edu or call 817.272.3393.

Texas Observer: Honorable Mention

Today I received an e-mail from an editor at the Texas Observer telling me that my short story, "Sailing the Interior," received an Honorable Mention in their 2016 short story contest. I was pleased to learn that it was among the strongest of the Honorable Mentions. No, I didn't win, but at least I was in good company. The winner is a professor of writing at Texas State and has work forthcoming at Tin House; and the finalists seemed to have pretty strong credentials themselves. To be honest, I saw merit in all of the work I read, and in the name of good sportsmanship, here is a link to the winning story.

https://www.texasobserver.org/2016-short-story-contest-winner-ben-reed/  

Texas Similes

Growing up, I was immersed in the Texas vernacular, and there seemed to be a simile for every occasion. To be as tough as boot leather or rough as a cob was to be praised for being manly. Or a person could be as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Or you could do something faster than a minnow can swim a dipper. Or it could be hotter than a two dollar pistol. And then there were probably a hundred similes used up at the packing house where my grandfather worked that I will not post on this family-friendly blog. 

When I first arrived at Southwestern University my freshman year, my classmates sometimes asked me where on Earth I learned to talk. Self-conscious, I tried to tone it down a tad, but now I take great pride in using the colorful sayings of my grandfathers and father. Fewer and fewer people know the old similes today, and as a fiction writer I use them often for they are part of my heritage and because they just sound right. After I finish the first draft of a story, I read the dialogue out loud. If a word or phrase doesn't sound natural, I revise it. And those old similes just seem to roll off the tongue.

   

Willie Nelson, Jerry Garcia, Ray Charles, and Frankie Laine: "That Lucky Old Sun"

My favorite male musicians tend to be of the bearded variety. Willie Nelson and Jerry Garcia, of course, would number among them. Until this morning, I thought that the Jerry Garcia Band was covering Willie Nelson when they played "Lucky Old Sun." The only version I knew was Willie's from "The Sound in your Mind" album, recorded at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, Texas. After a simple Google search, I now know that the song was written in 1949 by Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie, and that it has been covered by Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Aretha Franklin, and Louis Armstrong to name only a few. Ray Charles recorded the song in 1964 for the "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" album, and I have included a link to his version.


For your listening pleasure, please find links to four versions of the song, including Frankie Laine's 1949 recording, below.

Willie Nelson and Ray Charles

The Grateful Dead in Austin

Willie Nelson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiaDX9Mk8zc&list=RDiiaDX9Mk8zc

Frankie Laine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL3kvxN3xFc

Ray Charles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BM9TNa-FV4

Jerry Garcia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb8OudIe8DE

Funky Times Ahead

This Saturday Sleeping Panther Press and the Fort Worth Writers' Boot Camp will be at the Arts Goggle. If you happen to be in Panther City, stop by, say hi, and support the local literary scene by scoring yourself a copy of the Panther City Review.

When I first attended the Arts Goggle many years ago, it could have been described as a driving tour. You drove around the Near Southside from venue to venue looking at art and talking to nice people. Now the Goggle is a bona fide festival, and I must say that I am a huge fan. It is loose and fun and mellow with good food, live music, and plenty of visual art to gander. I no longer attend the Main Street Arts Festival because it has become too large and too crowded, but the Goggle suits me fine. Although 30,000 people attended last year, the vibe was still groovy and the time still grand.

  

Panther City Review Launches Today

Today the Panther City Review launches at The Last Word Bookstore at 615 Jennings Street  in Fort Worth. The journal looks great, and I am looking forward to reading from my story, "The Nine Lives of Ivy Lee Jones." The story is built around an apocryphal Texas law stating that a person can only be married nine times in Texas. You'll hear this and many more curious tales at The Last Word from 4 pm  to 6 pm.

http://www.panthercityreview.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/thelastwordbooks/