Billed as “A Tribute to Jerry Jeff Walker,” and honestly, despite my zeal? I think this is the first — no — second time I’ve seen a show in legendary Luckenbach, Texas. I will note it’s been more than 20 years, and not much has changed.
A cousin fetched up some tickets and it was off — on a school night for me — to a show in a small, but mighty, town in the fabled hill country.
“Luckenbach Texas is not responsible for any lost or misplaced items.” (See fineprint.)
Just reminder — the original name was Jerry Jeff Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band.
Seven years of drought — erased in five weeks of rain.
Lyrics? With all in attendance singing the chorus.
“Cause I got a feeling
Something that I can’t explain
It’s like dancing naked
In that high hill country rain…”
Jerry Jeff on a School Night
Long list of luminaries with throwbacks to times even before old Austin, as a 1960’s era folk singer in New York’s Village. Roots of singers, songwriters, and outlaws.
The connection between Jimmy Buffett and Jerry Jeff is noted, alluded to elsewhere, but the stage banter changed, different story this time.
“Never let the facts interfere…”
(Hi mom.)
Towards the end of the line-up, Steve Earle played his songs, closing with “Desperados,” more poignant now with my own age, and the street always mentions how cool Steve Earle is — to this day. How cool is Steve Earle, even in a presumptive dotage?
He’s so cool, Jimmy Buffett sings back up for him.
Jerry Jeff on a School Night
I was too young, missed the improbable rise of redneck rock in old Austin’s incubator, but I benefited with poets and outlaw music, thought of as head-neck tunes, outlaw country. I remember it on the weird radio.
Most of the vague memories coming swimming back. At the time, he was just “Michael Murphy,” a local Dallas singer/songwriter, but also one of the backbones of the cosmic cowboy material, with the alleys of Austin, and west Texas highways. Name dropping is too easy, but Micheal Murphy was funny, “Humidity, pretty sure we invented it in Texas; we do it best.”
There are fragments of memory, my own memories of music, and as a soundtrack to my early life? That single album encapsulates so much of it, “Viva Terlingua,” with nary a bad track on it.
Jerry Jeff on a School Night
Single image, the wristband that was a ticket, “Viva Jerry Jeff…”
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