It was a musical
weekend. On Friday evening I went to “Love and War in Texas”, a restaurant/bar
in Plano that features live music on the patio (and Cowboy Church on Sunday –
only in Texas would you find such duality). Houston Marchman and The Contraband
were playing – I had never heard of them, but a quick google revealed that he
had released 9 CDs, so that, in the words of a friend, “Sounds like he knows what he's doing, then...and that everything he
does won't sound the same”. How true that was – the venue was small enough
that I was able to chat with him in the bar during a break. He spent 10 years
in Nashville, and then left, disillusioned,
because they had such a narrow perspective of country music – in Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughan
is considered “country”. He had CDs for sale (of course) and I asked him which
one I should buy. They were selling all 4 currently available CDs for $30, so I
bought them all. Several days (and several listening hours) later, I remain
impressed.
On Saturday, after working for most of the day, I went to
the movies. “The Ten” was rated a stellar 7.2/10 on IMDB – it was “Ten stories, each
inspired by one of the ten commandments”, but seemed to me more like ten
Saturday Night Live sketches, back-to-back. It had its moments (the highlight
was possibly Winona Ryder screwing a ventriloquist’s dummy), but I wouldn’t
recommend it, nor see it again.
On Sunday, after several hours at Traders
Village (which I’ve mentioned before),
I headed over to the White
Elephant Saloon in the stockyards area of Fort Worth. There’s always live music going
on there. That night it was Don
Burke, accompanied by a guy who is a regular, very talented, backing guitar
(and whose name I can’t recall), and fueled by beer and tequila. In the middle
of one of their sets, a guy, who they obviously knew, asked if he could sing a
song he’d written out on a pile of paper napkins. They agreed. I was dreading
the outcome, having been at an earlier “amateur night”, but he had a powerful
(perhaps a little too powerful)
voice, and Don and friend improvised beautifully. It turned out the singer was
a well-known local “rancher and lawyer” – the song may not have been memorable
for its lyrics, but it certainly was for its delivery! Don was also accompanied
by another singer, whose name I didn’t catch initially, but who obviously had a
certain stage presence.
During a break, I spoke to Don. He gave me one of his CDs, and
refused to accept payment. There are
many people out there trying to make a living doing what they love to
do – more power to them. I asked Don who the “mystery singer” was – he told me
he was Randy Brown,
a local guy who had a number one hit on the Swing Charts, and called him over
to introduce me. The White Elephant Saloon (Amy has a t-shirt) is listed as one
of the top 100 bars in the US
– I can tell you why. Put it on your list of places to visit. Randy had been
playing at Pearl’s, a dance hall
just up the street. He’s from around here – Aledo. The music scene here is
almost a victim of its own success – country music (in its many incarnations)
is experiencing a revival that has been quietly going on for years. The Austin
City Limits music festival is now huge – I might consider going if I thought I
could get anywhere near enough to see anything.
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