Some Texas (music) History

[Gdjjr]

Lotta quotes from the who's who of

That ’70s Show

In 1972 the Austin music scene exploded with a new, rootsy form of country that turned its back on Nashville and embraced the counterculture. Forty years later, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey, and a host of other cosmic cowboys and redneck rockers remember the first Dripping Springs Reunion, the time Waylon Jennings almost got busted, and the birth of outlaw country.

JOE NICK PATOSKI The Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 marked a huge cultural shift. But when you look back on it now, the psychedelic music that came out of it had a pretty brief run. What started in Austin in that fuzzy 1970 to 1973 period is still playing out. There’s a continuity that you can’t say about any other regional music explosions in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century. And that ain’t blowing smoke. The singer-songwriter tradition is linked directly. The whole idea of neo-traditionalist country was articulated by Asleep at the Wheel and Alvin Crow rediscovering western swing. The Americana format, and all that stuff that people call Texas music, it all came out of Austin.

 

[Sunni Man]

The Armadillo World Headquarters in the heart of downtown Austin was ground zero for the music scene during that time. ...

Armadillo World Headquarters - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JGalt]

I heard about that hippie lovefest going on there in the late 70's, but didn't make it there until the 80's. That was the point in time when every young, lilly-white dick who owned a guitar, was playing out their fantasy of being a black man living back in the 1920's.

Stevie Ray Vaughn was at the top of the heap, and every guitar player in Texas had to learn to play his songs note for note. My common-law wife at the time used to hang out with him when he was just getting started. I myself sat in at the Stubbs BBQ joint's Sunday night open mic clusterfuck, and got to be on the same stage with George Thorogood, the horn section from Earth Wind & Fire, and a bunch of other musicians whose names escape me now.

The Texas blues scenes kinda faded out in the late 90's to the early 2000's, thank God. It gave way to a harder sound: Pantera, Drowning Pool, etc. By that time, I gave up my aspirations of being an old black man, living in the 1920's. I just wish I'd seen Dimebag Daryl of Pantera before he was murdered. They got their start over in Pantego, which was right next to Arlington. There's a cemetery right outside of Pantego where Lee Harvey Oswald is buried, which reminded me of Pantera's song "Cemetery Gates." During the last few years of my stay in Texas, after I lost a GF and became addicted to crack cocaine, I used to pick up hookers and smoke with them at the back of that same cemetery.

Thank God I'm not the same person I was then. It was only through the grace of God that I got out of there alive, and have been clean and sober for the last 13 years. I have a wonderful loving wife, a three bedroom two bath two car garage house on 100 acres of wooded land in Wisconsin, and it's all good.

 

[Gdjjr]

My mother used to tell me I should go to Nashville- seems like I should have gone to Austin. It was sure a lot closer. I never cared for the ambience of Austin though, and we didn't know what was going on there. Just something about it made me not comfortable. Still does. I just don't like it there. Reading the stories, the anecdotes and behind the scenes accounts of what went on in both places makes me glad I didn't go to either.
It is interesting and entertaining reading though.

 

[JGalt]

My mother used to tell me I should go to Nashville- seems like I should have gone to Austin. It was sure a lot closer. I never cared for the ambience of Austin though, and we didn't know what was going on there. Just something about it made me not comfortable. Still does. I just don't like it there. Reading the stories, the anecdotes and behind the scenes accounts of what went on in both places makes me glad I didn't go to either.
It is interesting and entertaining reading though.

I went to Nashville during the winter of '79. It was one of the most depressing cities I've ever liven in and unless you were part of the Nashville music mafia, you didn't get any breaks.

I did buy a maroon 1964 Chevy SS from a preacher's kid for $35 bucks though. The transmission linkage had come loose and he was going to sell it to a junkyard. It had black bucket seats and that car would be worth a bit of money these days.

 

[Gdjjr]

I did buy a maroon 1964 Chevy SS from a preacher's kid for $35 bucks though. The transmission linkage had come loose and he was going to sell it to a junkyard. It had black bucket seats and that car would be worth a bit of money these days.

hehehehehehe- that's awesome!