Goin' to... El Paso, Thurs, Dec 3

A head's up to all my friends in Far West Texas:


Author Joe Nick Patoski to discuss Stevie Ray Vaughan: The Last of the Great Texas Bluesman
December 3, 2009
5:30-8 p.m.

Joe Nick Patoski Stevie Ray

$4 museum members, $8 nonmembers – Seating is limited.
This is the fourth and final lecture the El Paso Museum of History is hosting on Texas Music History.

Joe Nick Patoski has been writing about Texas and Texans for more than 35 years. In addition to biographies on Stevie Ray Vaughan, Selena, and Willie Nelson, he has written the text to the books Texas Mountains, Texas Coast, Big Bend National Park, and Conjunto. A former staff writer for Texas Monthly magazine, his cover story in the August edition of Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine details his killer hike along the ridge of the Franklin Mountains a year ago.
Patoski’s lecture will explain how and why Vaughan became the legend he is today, leading a brief journey through the blues scenes in Dallas and Fort Worth in the 1960s and in Austin in the 1970s that informed Vaughan and an entire generation of players. Most went to school in the bad parts of town to witness bluesmen like Freddy King and Lightnin’ Hopkins in their element, learning by example. But the opening of Antone’s Home of the Blues nightclub in the mid 1970s changed everything. Clifford Antone elevated blues into a fine art in Austin and his venue became the incubator for SRV and Double Trouble, Jimmie Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli, Marcia Ball, and many others.

5:30-6pm, Snacks - Meet & Greet
6-7pm, Lecture
7-7:30pm, After lecture discussion
7:30 – 8 p.m. Blues discussion at the Double Tree
Purchase a membership on December 3rd and get in free
RSVP to 351-3588

Onward and Upward, Luther Dickinson & The Sons of Mudboy

When James Luther Dickinson departed this world in August, there was no funeral. Instead, three days after he died, his older son Luther gathered with members of Mudboy & the Neutrons, Jim's favorite band of them all, along with Steve Selvidge, Sid's son, and Shannon McNally, at Zebra Ranch in northern Mississippi, the Dickinsons' home ground, and made an album that Memphis International Records has now issued.

Jim produced the project in absentia, and wrote the liner notes, which say all that needs to be said about Jim, his life, his music, and his deep sense of place.
Listening brought a smile to my face and a few tears. Most of all, it made me appreciate the fact Jim was my friend. I miss him badly, but Onward and Upward let me know he's still around, still in the air.

Lean in close to the speaker and you can hear the fife of Otha Turner, the cacophony of the Memphis Jug Head, and the shouts of joy and cries of sorrow of the men, women, and children who worked the Delta dirt for centuries.

As good as the music is, Jim's liner notes are even better:

"I refuse to celebrate death. My life has been a miracle of more than I ever expected or deserved. I have gone farther and done more than I had any right to expect. I leave behind a beautiful family and many beloved friends. Take reassurance in the glory of the moment and the forever promise of tomorrow. Surely there is light beyond the darkness as there is dawn after the night. I will not be gone as long as the music lingers. I have gladly given my life to Memphis Music and it has given me back a hundredfold. It has been my fortune to know truly great men and hear the music of the sphere. May we all meet again at the end of the trail.

"May God bless and keep you.
World Boogie is coming.

James Luther Dickinson"

Do yourself a favor and order it now right here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Luther+Dickinson+sons+of+mudboy&x=0&y=0


Completing the circle, Luther's significant other, Necha, gave birth to a sweet baby girl named Lucia. Mary Lindsay Dickinson wrote to tell me the news:
"It seems like Necha's been pregnant forever, yet I remember like yesterday when she and Luther told us the good news, over dinner in Oxford. I can't help feeling sorry Jim can't be with us, but I have faith he's smiling down on us from Heaven and feeling proud."

And doing so in perfect rhythm and melody.

Bobz World, Los Fresnos

Driving across the Rio Grande Valley, listening to Hugo de la Cruz doing the Friday Night Scoreboard in Spanish to the tune of football marching music and team corridos makes one appreciate the unique sense of place the Valley conveys. You're like nowhere else.

The latest evidence was found out on Texas Highway 100, on the other side of the booming roadside town of Los Fresnos from Little Graceland, 18 miles east of Port Isabel and South Padre Island, just west of the Vickie Roy Home Health Care billboard with Vickie Roy posing with her husband Chad Roy in an Elvis jumpsuit.

In the vernacular of oversized concrete sharks and creatures that decorate the fronts of T-Shirt shops up and down the Texas coast, Bobz is a series of mixed-themed giant sized monuments. That's because Bobz' corporate parent, Seven Seas, is the warehouse for those shops - you think those elaborate lamp shades and curtains of hundreds of tiny shells are one-of-kind? There's plenty more where that came from. In that spirit, Kevin the artist has constructed an impressive collection of concrete creatures either nautical, such as the the giant sea snail or the leaping squad of happy dolphins, or prehistoric, as the brontosaurus out front suggests, although a pirate theme was emerging judging from the rebar skeleton.

Inside were more souvenir shop items than a Bowlen's on Route 66. There was a snack bar with ice cream, beach wear, shell art, personalized pens, fart powder, computer mouse joy buzzers, cheese, kitsch, cutesy, Biblical themed merch - everything a roadside attraction should have. A Christian music radio station played on the sound system. The cashier didn't understand my question until I asked in Spanish. Free. But don't climb on the statues.

UPDATE: I googled Bobz and found that there was more to Bobz World than met the eye, and what I was seeing was the home office of Seven Seas. For $15 I could've experienced the full tilt Bobz, with a fake volcano. Instead, I saw it on this you tube vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edrdbpXGdA8