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My name is Nori Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center at Fondre Library at Rice University. I am interviewing John Carrick. Today is April 28th, 2020. This is part of the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. Can you tell me about your early life? Ok. My,

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uh, my memories start in the early fifties. Uh, in Spring Branch, Texas, our home was five houses inside the city limits at that time. Wet Road was the city limits. There was no I 10, we just called it the Austin Highway. Um, and our home was

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a nice ranch style home. Uh But all around us were huge patches of East Texas Piny forest and people had horses and it was, it was not rural and it was not urban. It, it was an interesting mix of both. I attended the school in the

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Spring branch school district was, was considered a pretty good one. My dad was a conductor for Southern Pacific Railroad, uh, and he made pretty good, pretty good money. Um, so we weren't rich but we never really wanted for anything. My, uh my father lived through the

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depression pretty tough and he liked to refer to himself as frugal. We referred to him as cheap. Uh Like I said, we had everything we needed but trying to, trying to talk him into stuff was just like pulling teeth. And uh my mother was a entrepreneur.

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She, she had different regular jobs and then she always had some kind of business on the side. Oh, by the time I got to high school, I was a contrarian. Uh in retrospect, I had a learning disorder that had not been noticed. And, uh, I think

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I tried to cover up for that for that by being army and I got real good at it and I didn't have a lot of friends, you know, close friends. Oh, yeah. I was in, in, in minor trouble a lot. Uh, and that's kind of what

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it was like growing up for me. Ok. Um, what first drew you to music one morning, uh, before school. Those of us who didn't really fit in and smoked cigarettes gathered in the parking lot before school to, to do that, to smoke cigarettes. And somehow it

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came up in conversation that I owned a mandolin, uh, that my uncle gave me but I didn't play it and there was a guy there, Les Pender. He's the one that started all this. He had been playing, I guess what later came to be known as

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rockabilly. It was just early rock and roll and he had quit that. But he heard about the mandolin and he said, I'm gonna come over to your house after school and play it and he did and he figured out three or four chords on the mandolin.

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And then he turned to me and said, sing something, uh, like cotton fields, uh, some popular pop folk music song and he played it and I sang it and then he started singing harmonies and he finished the song and he looked at me and he said,

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you sing real good. We're gonna start a band. And at that time in my life, there was no one telling me that I did anything real good. Uh I, I was kind of a, uh, I heard it phrased one time I was a victim of unrealized

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potential according to teachers and parents and stuff. So anyway, I was all for it and less, uh rounded up a cheerleader from Memorial High School, Bow Hatch and from our school it was he and I, uh, Bob Meineke and Tom Mace and we started learning some

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songs. We ended up playing at the high school talent show and we knocked them out and suddenly people started talking to me and inviting us to parties. And, uh, it was kind of a social experience that I had managed to avoid up till then. That was,

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that was fairly short lived. And me and one of the other guys in the band, I think it was Tom May went to the Jewish community center in Houston on Sundays. Uh Mr Lomax of the folk songs of North America Lomax family. I had the Houston

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folk music society gathering there every Sunday. While we were there, we met lots of interesting people, uh old Commies, people that did real folk music. And I think it was there that I met a guy that became my best friend for decades. Fred Maxwell, he attended

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Memorial High school and he had a little trio and he asked if I would like to join that band and I did, Fred was a hustler. Next thing you know, we are, we are working, we're working almost every weekend and making grown up musician money. Um,

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you know, playing some pretty, pretty big shows. Uh, the first couple of used to National Boat and Sports shows that was a big deal playing it with name brand folky acts and, and concerts with the Smothers Brothers and, and folks like that and playing all the

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clubs around town. And, uh, uh, you know, if people ask me about my music history and what I've done, I, I have this little story. Well, you know, I, I played with uh Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark and Towns and John de uh KT Osland

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Gate, Mouth Brown Lightnin Hopkins Man, Lipscomb and the world of other people. And, and then I graduated high school and got serious about music. And, uh anyway, one day I, I looked up and I realized that Fred and all the other people in the band who

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were all a year ahead of me in school were gonna be going off to college. And I, I have gotten really used to, um, uh, the attention, the money and some of the benefits that come along with being a young musician and I didn't want to

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lose all that. And I asked Fred, what am I gonna do? He said I'm gonna teach you to play guitar and you can either start a band or go play solo. And so he began to teach me to play the most complex song that we did,

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which was uh don't think twice. It's all right by Bob Dylan. And uh we did a fairly complex version of that, lots of chord changes. And as I was almost had that learned, I said, what are we gonna do next? And he says, well, now we're

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gonna learn to do, don't think twice. It's all right in another key. And that proceeded till I could play that song in about five or six different keys. Once I had all that done, he began to teach me how the chord changes uh in, in, in

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that song was really all I needed to know to play that style of music. And he taught me how to listen to stuff and to imagine playing it with without any kind of music or, or notation at all. I think he realized that I had some

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sort of that I learned things differently. And so I started, uh, playing solo. I think my first solo show was at a, a place, uh, the George Massey brand. And what was the name of that place? It was a little coffee house over on Louisiana. And,

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uh, is that? Yes. Yes. And it was a real live coffee house and, and, you know, there I play was like Dan Hicks and, and all those other people I mentioned, uh, and some really great youth and talent. Um, and, and, uh, you know, again, I'm

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gonna, I'm doing, people are telling me I'm doing good and, uh, I played a little bit at the jester, which was where the, that was where the big kids were and it was an honor and a learning experience to be there. Uh, and then the Beatles

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hit, uh, and all those places where we had been playing, not just me, but all these other musicians, they just folded almost overnight and there was, there wasn't any place to play. And I, I had a, a friend who had been the, uh, uh, manager at

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me and that was a friend then and a friend now a guy named Steve Gladson. He also later worked at Liberty Hall, uh, and Steve and I got to talking and we're both 17, right? And we decide we're gonna open up a club. My gosh, we're

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gonna open up a club for acoustic music. And we, we find a location at 12 13 Richmond Avenue. It was a building that it was an old house that had been, had a big hall added on to it. And I think it was where the Houston

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Opera rehearsed sometimes. That's why the add-on was there. Room sounded pretty good and it was, it was big enough. And, uh, we started doing little fundraisers and raised, you know, some hundreds, maybe a couple of $1000. Uh, and we rented the place that was no problem,

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but then we needed licenses and permits and they, they weren't given those to 17 year old kids. So my mom, entrepreneurial mom saw some potential and stepped in and started taking care of that part. And, uh, my friends and, and musicians and people who love that

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kind of music from all over the city, almost all of them kids. Uh We got together and painted the place and made signs and did all that. And we, uh, we opened up Sand Mountain Coffee House a month, month and a half before I graduated from

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high school. And since we didn't sell booze and it was the only place in town that had, that still had acoustic music. Uh, it was pretty much a hit from the first weekend we opened and the first summer we were open that summer, which was as

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I graduated from high school, you know, the place was full almost every night. And, uh, local musicians that I didn't know, started showing up and, uh, Guy and Jeff and Towns, uh, and a, uh, a world of other people who were not famous at all at

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the time. They were just good. Uh That was, that was the regular crew there. It was pretty special. Who else was there? Uh, Vince Bell played there a lot. Kay wrote was a really talented, uh, I couldn't even begin to tell you all the, all the

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great people that played there. And, uh, once school started again, uh, weeknights slowed down dramatically, but weekends were still good and we just kind of kind of kept going. And, uh, so that's that part. Ok. So I wanna, I wanna rewind just a little bit because

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you talked about, um, and, um, the jester and I was wondering if you could talk about either of those clubs. What were they like on the inside? What was the vibe? Are there things that you like distinct memories that you attach to those? Uh, are you

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ready? I'm ready. Ok. So the first club I worked at, it was an old house, uh, pretty much on the corner of Louisiana and Roseland fairly close to downtown and it was that, it was an, it, it, it was just an old house that George Massey,

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uh, had, had put together as, as a coffee house. Uh, you got to park out on the street and walk up a sidewalk like you were going to house. When you came inside, you came into the living room area where there were tables and then if

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you walked straight, you walked into another room, have no idea what it was used for originally. Uh, and from both of those rooms, you could see into what I imagine was originally a sun room. And that was where the stage was in that room. There were

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low tables and cushions and you, and you sat on the floor and in the other two rooms there were regular tables where you sat. Uh, there were a lot of really bad seats where you couldn't see because of the support wall in the middle. Um And

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as, as best I recall the room where the stage was, was, was, was painted red. There was, there was nothing particularly weird about it. Uh It was just a, a kind of a nice place. Uh, and they had the original kitchen in the house where they

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made the coffee and the, and the different drinks and, and they brought them out and I guess they had some kind of sound system most likely very unsophisticated. Oh, what else do I remember about that? A guy named Ki Harold Kirkpatrick, everybody called him Kirk. He

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was kind of the manager. And, uh, uh again, there's a lot of really good talent there. Nobody, I mean, guy played there a little bit. I think Jeff played there a little bit, but I I think we're just too young for them at the time. They

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were, they were in college and it was a lot of high school kids and, and I don't, I, I don't know that it really called to them but that's, uh, again, that's where I met Dan Hicks. Uh, him and a buddy were just traveling to the

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United States in a VW van and they just kind of landed there for two or three weeks and they played and that was a good introduction to that kind of ragtime bruise that he did in his early career. And, uh, so that was, that was me.

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So eventually I, I got fired and my impression was that, that the manager was uh mad at me because I, I ended up having a girlfriend that he wanted. But anyway, so the jester, it was a commercial building. It was be on Westheimer between the railroad

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tracks and where the Galleria is now. There was no Galleria. Oh, and I believe that the jester was the stepchild of a place over on mid lane which we called San Hay called the Mac Jack Beer Garden. And the Mac Jack had some acoustic entertainment and

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bluegrass and stuff. I think mostly on the weekends and Mac Webster, I think wanted to go more for that. So he opened up the gesture commercial buildings set way back from the street, big parking lot. Uh I'm trying to remember where the front door I think

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he went around to the back of the building to come in. So you'd go around the back, you'd come in and the stage was on your right. And it was a, I don't know how to put it. It was a good stage. It was slightly elevated.

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Uh, and it was nicely decorated and carpeted and had pretty good lighting. It was a little drama to the lighting and it was all tables, uh, no cushions, nothing on the floor. Um, just a nice place, not an elegant place, but a simply nice place. And

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in the, if you were on the stage, in the back left corner of the building was where the, I wasn't really a kitchen because they didn't serve food. It's where they washed the dishes, uh, to have a dishwasher and stuff like that. It was also where

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you tuned up and left your cases and there was AAA door there that led out into the parking lot. Uh, you know, where you'd smoke cigarettes and hang out with the other guys and, you know, drink wine and stuff like that. I remember there were always

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a lot of those guys, part of the culture was old jaguars. So they would have XK one twenties XK, one fifties and sedans. Uh, it was just something they did and it was always, always fun to go somewhere with a Brion and those old beauties anyway.

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And, uh, that was a gesture. It was a, it was a nice place very well done. And, uh, that's the jester, as I recall it. There was, there was, there was one other place I, I talked about where, uh, there was a big folk music club,

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uh, for a couple of years at the same time as the jester and it was called The Ballad Deer. And it was on, uh, Shepherd on that, that one way section. When you come off of 59 you know, when you're headed to Richmond Avenue, there's an

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whole shopping center on the left, uh, and sort of had the same vibe as the gesture, you know, and that was the, uh, uh, first place, my little high school band with Fred, uh, that was the first place we played and we were regulars there and

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the club was, and we had called ourselves The Balladeers. And then we saw this club opened up called the Ballad Deer and it was kind of a match made in heaven. So we worked there quite a bit with a lot of, again, a lot of talented

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people. So those are the, the primary folk clubs that I remember are there. I had also found that there's a place called two places, one called the Peanut and the levee. No one's ever heard of them, but I, I was able to track them down through

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Houston Chronicle ads. Never heard of The Peanut, but the levee was, I, I don't recall it being a folk music club. It was one of those uh Dixieland kind of places is, is what I remember the levee being. And there were some, again, some, some very

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talented people there, uh uh who Gary Boggs and David. David, uh David Boyce, who later played with Boyce and Kramer. And uh but that's what I remember. I never heard of the Peanut. And then there was another place now that you mentioned it called the Bird

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and the, the bird. Yeah. Yeah, the bird was on Shepherd, uh, kind of where the original Leo's was in that general neighborhood and it was kind of one of the last Beatnik style holdouts. They had a, a bathtub in there where you could sit with your

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date and, and, uh, you could sit on the floor, but again, they had some live music and, uh, and la off downtown on the Market Square when Market Square was, was still, uh, pretty low rent hookers and drug dealers and pawn shops and abandoned buildings and

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stuff. But Locker Off had been there forever and they had some, some folk music there. I think I only played there once. Yeah. So, ok, more's coming back. That's what I remember. All right. Um So you talked a little bit. Um, you started to talk about

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Sand Mountain Coffee House and could you just talk about what those early days were like? Uh I can only talk about what they were like for me, I'm still in touch with a lot of people who came there and a lot of people who played there

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and it was, um, almost everybody who became a regular there refers to it as like a family, both the audience and the people that work there. And the musicians and my mother got the nickname, uh, her name is Mrs Kerrick Corianne Carrick. She got the nickname

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Mama C and she was kind of like the mom to hundreds of people. You know, they could, they could talk to her about things they couldn't talk to their parents about. And, uh, uh, for me, a young man and he and a young musician, it was,

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uh, it was just, um, I'm trying to say it was a very wonderful place to be. Um, and, and I, I'll say this if you ask people why they started playing music, you can probably get a million different answers. But if you ask a young man,

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why he continued to play music, I think there's one answer that would be overwhelmingly co common. Uh, so, yeah, owning that club and playing music, uh, was, was pretty wonderful. And all the people I got to play with and learn from, oh, just the whole deal.

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It's just really special. And it turns out it was really special for hundreds of people for, for reasons, several couples that met there that are still married. Uh, people who have told me that the years that they spent at Sand Mountain for the best years of

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their lives. Uh, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico two years ago and I've run into 10 people here who used to go to Sand Mountain. It's a, it was significant in a lot of people's lives and, and for different reasons. Uh, hm. It was pretty

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cool and we kept it, we kept it going, you know, we never, you know, I mean, people will try to applaud me and mo for uh you know, for giving a home for the music and the songwriters and stuff and for my mom, it was a

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commercial adventure. Uh And for me, it was a chance for me to keep doing what I, what I loved and, you know, we never, never really thought of it as something that might be significant. But again, the people I'm in touch with it was, it was

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so significant for them that, that it's, it's really touching for me, it gives me a whole different perspective on it there. Ok. Um Can you talk about um some of who were some of the regular performers and if you have any stories or anything about them

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that you'd like to share, uh see regular performers. Uh Well, Jerry Jeff is one and uh when Jerry Jeff, well, on stage it was like the temperature went up a little and the lights got a little brighter and he was just, he was just so so

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alive in his music. Uh you know, it was, it was really special and he would play just as hard for a room with seven people in it as you would for, for a room with 100 and 50 people in it. Uh You know, he, he was

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magical. He was very magical. Oh Guy Clark for, for the years that he was at Sand Mountain, which, which I'd say would be from 1965 when we opened till, until he moved off to California. He wasn't really much of a songwriter yet. He was a folky.

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I mean, he played all kinds of, uh deliciously obscure stuff and he did it well and he played it with heart. Uh and, and it, again, it's just great fun to uh to watch it, you know, same thing, didn't matter who was out there. He was

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gonna be, he was gonna be guy and he had written a few talk and blues songs. Uh uh you know, but everybody wrote Talking Blue Sox, his were very clever. Uh And he was just good and he's one of the guys I, I think I originally

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met at the uh Jewish community center. The Chester. I know Tales was again a regular, uh not famous, just a regular and uh town started riding uh before most everybody else that, that was a regular and he was writing some, some nice stuff again. He had

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some hilarious talking and blues songs. Oh, and he had a, but he had a nice repertoire. He had a interesting, very laid back but effective presentation. Oh, one of the stories I remember was there's a beautiful song on a Judy Collins album and it's called the

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whale song. And on the whale song, Judy Collins was singing a cappella and in the background they're playing those songs that the whales do as they go through the seas and it's just beautiful and, and towns would get up there and he'd talk about how the

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whales were endangered. And he said, I, I wanna do this song. Uh and he would start, he'd sing at a Cappello and when he got to the space between the verses, he would just kind of bello and make these really annoying sounds kind of like whales

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sort of. And he'd sing another verse, Dead Pan Straight and people in the audience had no idea if he was serious or if he was joking or what we're all backstage, you know, trying not to crack up. He had a uh bizarre sense of humor. It

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was before his um his demons got bad. And uh you know, uh for a while he uh the club had an apartment upstairs and we would let people live up there and in return, they would come down and, and clean the club once or twice a

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week. And uh him and his wife Franny would do that turns out Franny did most of it. And, uh but again, uh he was, he was the first of the, of the real songwriters in the bunch. And uh let's see, Mickey Newberry would come in sometimes

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and he was, he was a songwriter from the Get Go and had these beautiful songs and, and uh Mickey was just this beautiful man and uh all the women love Mickey. I mean, he didn't even have to sing and they love Mickey. But, but when he

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sang it was just his voice and the emotion he put into it was just, just stunning. He wasn't a regular but he, you know, he came in some and uh and the other regulars that, that I remember uh my friend Kay wrote, she lives in Tucson

00:32:16.839 - 00:32:38.900

now. Uh Kay had, she didn't sing like, but she had a voice similar to Joan Baa, just a crystal clear soprano. And she played guitar like Doc Watson. I mean, she was one of the best guitar players that ever went through there and she did real

00:32:38.910 - 00:32:56.099

folk music that she had found herself. She didn't really do a lot of copy stuff. Uh And she also like one of the last people in, in Houston to have polio and she was on braces and uh I think at first everybody wanted to go, oh,

00:32:56.119 - 00:33:19.060

let's be nice for, for the little cripple girl. And when she started singing, oh, all of that went away. And uh she's still my friend uh, today and who else regulars and who will come to me. And then there were the occasionals, uh, that dropped in

00:33:19.069 - 00:33:33.890

Janice played there. I don't know, two or three times. I met her at a place in, uh, that I work at, in Beaumont and that was a fun story. I, uh, they called me and asked me to come down there and play in Beaumont while I'm

00:33:33.900 - 00:33:49.140

in high school at that time. And boy, I flattered. So I got down there and I walk in and this woman on stage with her, with her hair in a bun and this kind of retro black dress and she's singing Joan Baez songs and a beautiful

00:33:49.260 - 00:34:05.949

soprano voice. It was that, that style that and it wasn't insulting, it was just a, a category, you know, she was perfect chick folk singer and she sang a couple of songs and then she said, well, that's her mom. That's how, that's how mom likes me

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to sing and I'm gonna sing like me. Uh And then she started doing some blues. It just blew me against the wall. And that was Janice. Uh and I was just overwhelmed and I think the second act was, uh Johnny Winters who I actually met once

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before. And uh I just thought, and I'm the headliner and more than a little nervous anyway. But so, yeah, Jamie's played there a few times and I mean, people passed through town Doc Watson played there one time we had, we had Nance Lipscomb play there a

00:34:49.459 - 00:35:10.219

bunch. If you don't know, man, go listen to his music. Uh Yeah, he was a black guy from Navasota who played the blues and had about as much dignity as anybody I've ever met. And he was, he was magical to me. And uh gosh, I, I

00:35:10.229 - 00:35:28.560

couldn't begin to tell you Frank Davis, you know, played there. So in the, in the early years, uh but just a, just a host of people. And uh did he play there with KT Oslin or by himself? I don't remember if KT played with him. I

00:35:28.570 - 00:35:44.409

mostly remember them at the Jester. And like I said, we played at the Houston International Boat and Sports Show for the 1st and 2nd show. And one of the years uh there was this put together band and it was, I think it was called the Jesters

00:35:44.419 - 00:36:04.669

and it was all the regular performers at the jester and they only had to do one set. So it was like 12 of them up there. Kind of like Chris Merel. Um But that's what I remember a KT from that time. OK. Um Let's see, you

00:36:04.679 - 00:36:24.310

kind of talked about your mom because she is, when, you know, whenever I've talked to people about Sand Mountain, they always have stories about her. Um Kind of like how, how she was real focused on everybody kind of um following in the straight and narrow and

00:36:24.320 - 00:36:42.889

that's, at least that's, that's one of the stories I get. Yeah, she didn't, she didn't want any, any drinking. And II, I, I'm not so much sure that it was, I mean, she did not only to really disapproved of drinking, I don't think she approved of,

00:36:43.260 - 00:37:04.709

uh, illegal drinking and she didn't want to put, you know, our licenses and our business, which was profitable, put it, put it at risk. Now, towns and a bunch of other people, we found out later after we closed, they would put wine outside the back door.

00:37:04.719 - 00:37:25.800

The green room in the place was in the back corner of the building and they would come around there and put wine outside a window in that room and run a little rope up into the green room and they would pull the wine in and, and

00:37:25.810 - 00:37:44.429

drink, you know, and, and, and oftentimes, you know, when we closed at night and we went to clean the place we would, you know, we would find Botts in there, you know, people were drinking. Oh, so, yeah, I guess until 1972 there was, there was no

00:37:45.139 - 00:38:13.270

alcohol there. Now, now here's a story. Uh, my mom came to understand that marijuana was, was not necessarily evil, but she, you know, she didn't run around the club or something. But at night when we would almost always go to go to some place nearby the,

00:38:13.280 - 00:38:30.550

the ones a meal or coins or, or some all night place and, you know, have a little breakfast before everybody went home and, and just hang out and sometimes she'd get in the car and, and I remember one time and I could not tell you who

00:38:32.030 - 00:38:53.709

somebody lit a joint in the car with my mom. 00, you know, this, this fain horror. But then it became commonplace when she rode with somebody else or a bunch of us in the car. We go, you aren't gonna smoke one of those marijuana cigarettes for

00:38:53.739 - 00:39:11.810

you. And I think, I think she wanted to breathe the secondhand smoke. But I'm, I'm not absolutely certain, but I know the story is true. Yeah. And she was, uh, she had a great compassion, you know, to this day I know people that said they were

00:39:11.820 - 00:39:38.199

closer to my mom than they were to their own moms that they could talk with her better. It was a, it was a kind of an odd thing. Oh, my moral didn't have a lot of friends. But these kids, you know, she'd get, she'd get to

00:39:38.209 - 00:40:00.689

kind of mother him and she would help them through difficult topics and my guess is she probably helps some of them find once in a while and stuff like that. But once, once they didn't need her, she'd cut him loose even though they still wanted to

00:40:00.699 - 00:40:22.120

be her friend. You know, she, she wasn't rude or anything like that. But she seemed to operate best with the ones that were needy. I, I always thought that was kind of, uh, it is interesting. Hm. I said that's interesting. It is interesting. It is interesting.

00:40:22.129 - 00:40:41.909

And that, you know, and then somebody that, that she had helped and then didn't need her. I mean, I can think of a couple of people, uh, later on in life when they became needy again and needed some comfort. Ok. They kind of got back in

00:40:41.919 - 00:41:06.409

the loop. So I, I, I've often wondered if, because she's told me when she was growing up as a kid in that, you know, she was born in the Indian territories in New Mexico, uh, that women as Children were really held in low esteem. They weren't

00:41:06.419 - 00:41:24.939

mistreated or anything like that. But it was, it was really all about the boys and, uh, it, it, I think that affected regret me. I'm pretty sure it did. Hm. You know, she's, I feel like what is it? I think it was Lacy Moore. I know.

00:41:24.949 - 00:41:43.129

Lucy. Yeah, I lay, talked about, um, riding around with her in the car, looking for towns and a, that, you know, she, she's worried, worried about how things were going with him and that he was going down the wrong path. And, um, yeah, that, that she

00:41:43.139 - 00:42:05.649

just had, she seemed to have a lot of concern but that would, that would fall in line with, you know, one want to help people of the uh not feeling worthy of, of love that people could only be around her if they needed her. But that's,

00:42:05.659 - 00:42:29.159

that's really speculation. I'm not a shrink. You thought about that said she was your mom. Um So you um were kind of, you, you helped open up Sand Mountain, then you ended up leaving Houston. Um Could you at least kind of mention, you know, when you

00:42:29.169 - 00:43:01.659

left and then came back, I left in uh 19 69 uh at the invitation of the Houston Police Department, uh They suggested that I might want to radically change uh certain parts of my life or get out of town. They uh had me in a situation

00:43:02.149 - 00:43:26.949

that could have been really, really serious for me. Um And, and I still, I still remember the uh they pulled me and my friend over in front of uh I guess it was Woolworth uh on the main street and he and I have been then collecting

00:43:26.959 - 00:43:48.479

what we needed to make our day. Ok. And these two police officers without seeing our I DS knew our names, knew where we lived and they knew that we both came from a certain branch and they said they spent their lives putting away North Siders and

00:43:48.489 - 00:44:11.479

black guys and, and Hispanics, they use different words and uh they just didn't know what to do with kids who came from good families and good neighborhoods. So what they had decided was they were gonna give us one warning and, uh, you know, said when we

00:44:11.489 - 00:44:32.340

get you again, you know, if you keep doing this gonna go down hard. So I was, uh, I was out of town within a week. Um, my friend just moved around in Houston and ended up dying, which is really sad. But so anyway, that's why I

00:44:32.350 - 00:45:01.090

left. And, uh, when I was in Austin, I would, I was still playing acoustic and electric by that time and I, uh, I would find talent and send it back to Sam. Uh, and about that time, I'm not sure why. I don't know if acoustic music

00:45:01.100 - 00:45:25.800

was falling out of favor or my mom started squeezing the Eagle a little hard, trying to cut corners and I'm not sure which came first, but the business started slowing down a lot and the, the great talents, the, the ones we have got, Jerry Jeff Towns,

00:45:25.810 - 00:45:45.830

blah, blah, blah. All those guys, you know, they were, they were having careers away from Houston. Um, an Anderson Fair had opened up and because they served, not just because they serve booze, they ran a really good show there. You know, it was a, it was

00:45:45.840 - 00:46:05.669

a really nice place. Uh, and there were more places around town that were having a, uh, acoustic music. Uh, Cory's Theodore, uh, just Laga Hula Hands. I mean, there was just more acoustic music everywhere and it really kind of sucked it off. From Sand Mountain. The

00:46:05.679 - 00:46:30.530

business was going down. And, uh, so I finally taught my mom into, uh, into selling beer and wine. And we did that and I also started sending them kind of kind of cosmic cowboy acts, uh from Austin. And then we had some good ones like that

00:46:30.540 - 00:46:51.000

Dog Tooth Violet. Again, it's a big six piece electric, uh, country i hippie country band and they were real good and started bringing the crowds in again, big time. It, it was different. It wasn't, it's a lot of songwriter stuff, but, uh you know, when we

00:46:51.010 - 00:47:08.270

do some acoustic stuff, but it was, it was those bands that started making the money. And then, you know, I opened up a club and in Austin, the first of the new clubs on Sixth Street uh and started finding more and more talent to sit down.

00:47:08.649 - 00:47:26.649

And, uh anyway, my partner in that business was a Texas oil man. Once I got the business up and running, he had way better lawyers than me. And, uh, you know, he just took a big piece of my life and, and all the money I'd invested

00:47:26.659 - 00:47:42.620

and sent me down the road and I went back to Houston and started running the club and I still still have the same problems that I had when HPD asked me to move. And uh so we were still making a lot of money, but I was

00:47:42.629 - 00:48:09.330

spending a lot of money and mom got sick and eventually her and I couldn't, couldn't be in business, artistic differences. Uh, plus my issues and she decided to sell the club on payments and, uh, got screwed out of it. And, uh, that was the end of

00:48:09.340 - 00:48:33.419

Sand Mountain 76 or 77. So there's, that is, it turned into a dance studio, correct? I thought, uh, I think when I mentioned earlier that that big hall and front, I can't, I can't really remember whether originally it was built as a rehearsal studio for the

00:48:33.429 - 00:48:57.600

Houston Opera or for the Houston ballet. And what happened to it after we closed it? Uh I don't know. I bet it went through several incarnations. I, I think I was told by Craig Calvert of Wheatfield that his parents ran their dance studio out of there,

00:48:57.610 - 00:49:25.189

out of Sound Sand Mountain. I might be wrong like out of that building. Um I don't know once it, once it was gone, you know, I uh my lifestyle demanded its own attention. Right. So, how did you progress out of that? Yeah, I uh you know,

00:49:25.199 - 00:49:44.879

times got tougher and tougher for me. Uh It was my fault and I really kind of hit a bottom and my, my father got me a job working for Southern Pacific and all this time I'm still playing, I'm still playing quite a bit. And uh so

00:49:44.889 - 00:50:00.739

I went to work for the railroad and uh things just got worse and worse because now I had a regular source of income and, uh, uh, it got worse and worse and, and, and finally the railroad kind of busted me. And they said, you know, you,

00:50:02.149 - 00:50:20.479

you don't have to do anything about this thing, this problem you have, but you can't come back to work unless you do. So, I went and got help and I, I, I'm one of the fortunate few, you know, uh, I haven't had a drink or anything

00:50:20.489 - 00:50:42.889

in 34 years and I'm still playing music here in Santa Fe. And, uh, when the town didn't shut down, we play real regularly. Uh, I play with some real good guys. Very talented, easy to get along with watch. Pretty good. A lot cheaper too. So you,

00:50:42.899 - 00:51:01.889

um, how much longer did you end up living in Houston before you moved on to Austin and then on to Santa Fe? Ok. Um, after, uh, the railroad help me, uh, get my shit together, I hope it's ok to say that I worked for the railroad

00:51:01.899 - 00:51:18.540

for about another two years. And then I came to the conclusion that I have hated that job when my dad had it because he was gone so much. And when he was home, he was asleep and I was in the process of, uh, yeah, get in

00:51:18.550 - 00:51:34.889

custody of my daughter. I've been, I've been playing a lot in California, uh, for a couple of years and I was right on the verge of, of moving to a level where I was actually gonna be making a living wage pretty good. And, uh, I needed

00:51:34.899 - 00:51:53.070

to get custody of my daughter and, uh, I came back to, I gave up on California and came to Houston and after a while I opened up a, a vintage guitar store right next door to Rockefeller in the satellite lounge. And, uh, that was, that was

00:51:53.080 - 00:52:17.780

pretty successful for a good while. What was that like? Being next to Rockefellers. Well, I mean, at the time, you know, if, if those acts that weren't in a colosseum, but we're still playing larger venues. That was, that was it in Houston, you know, that was

00:52:17.790 - 00:52:36.229

the place. So, every, every day, uh, it would be BB King, it'd be Merle Haggard. It'd be the Pointer Sisters, the muscle shows, band, sub dudes. Uh, you know, you name it. You know, they were, they were doing one or two nighters at Rockefellers and of

00:52:36.239 - 00:52:56.310

course, they'd get there early for sound check and they would end up wandering into my store every day and it was, uh, it was great. I got to meet a lot of my musical heroes, uh, be people I'd never heard of, you know, and, uh, it

00:52:56.320 - 00:53:16.159

was, it was great. We had a, we just had a rule there. Kind of, um, don't, don't bug the musicians, you know, they're in there. They're in the music store to mess with guitars just like you are, you know, leave them home. I remember one of

00:53:16.169 - 00:53:33.000

my, one of my favorite stories is regards that, uh, one of my employees told me this but, uh, Bill Gibbs used to come in sometimes and I'd, I'd known him. We played shows with him in the early, uh, early days as ec talk, my guitar player

00:53:33.010 - 00:53:50.649

knew him from high school anyway. So he'd come in and, and, uh, Billy's quite an artist, a graphic artist. He does a lot of, kind of retro stuff and he would come in, I'd say something and they go, well, maybe you could do it like this

00:53:50.659 - 00:54:03.219

and, and he'd sketch it out and, and one day and we had a big piece of roll of butcher paper. We probably tore it up for packing and we put some on the floor and we're down on the floor and he's doing stuff and I say,

00:54:03.229 - 00:54:26.100

hey, could you go in and, and we're doing that and somebody comes in and is, is that Billy Gibbons on the floor? Yeah, he is. No. What's he doing? He's, he's drawing pictures. Oh, and that was it. You know, it was kind of fun. I got

00:54:26.110 - 00:54:48.729

another story. Billy and the band are doing a live recording at a club down the street, uh, on Washington Avenue and, and they were in there working on sound for a week or two. They just rented the whole club and to do that. Of course, there's

00:54:48.739 - 00:55:09.600

recording engineers and monitor mixers and guys that deal with all the wires and the overhead mics and the lights. They're shooting, shooting live videos in there too. So there's the pretty big crew involved in doing this on one day, Billy brought a bunch of guys from

00:55:09.610 - 00:55:29.199

the crew down to my store. You know, they, and, and they came in and they're looking around and, and these guys are, are looking at what I call little treasures. Oh, look, here's a, here's an old hand painted ukulele, you know, how much is it? So,

00:55:29.209 - 00:55:47.120

that's 100 and 50 I know. Can you do any better than that? Well, yeah, let's have it for 100 and 20 and doing a bunch of stuff like that. I, I don't know if you know Billy, but there's two Billies, theirs, the Reverend Willie G, that

00:55:47.129 - 00:56:06.159

guy, uh the persona. Uh, so he's in here and he's got a couple of his guys with him, you know, and Billy goes, uh, boys make my pal over here and he's going when he's getting a couple of nice guitars and the amp and some stuff

00:56:06.169 - 00:56:20.199

like that. So all these other guys check out with their little treasures, you know, and Billy comes up at the counter and he has a checkbook and he goes, uh John, how, what's my total here, Billy? That's, I'm just gonna make up a number. Here I

00:56:20.209 - 00:56:45.449

go. Bill. That's $1000. And he goes, well, how much is it? With the discount? I said, well, Billy, you don't get a discount. Well, at that point, the reverend Willie G falls away and it's just me and Billy and Billy says, how come I don't get

00:56:45.459 - 00:57:06.459

a discount? And I said, Billy, because you got all the money and he sat there for a second and he went, you know, you're right. And you really have to check. And I was, it was just a really, really human moment and I really, I'll always

00:57:06.469 - 00:57:24.439

remember that now, if that's like, I didn't tell you how I slept with Janice. Oh, ok. Ok. So, so it's, it's like that maybe the second time I go down to Beaumont to play that club. I told you about the halfway house, which was, by the

00:57:24.449 - 00:57:47.739

way, Mike Con, who later had Jubilee Hall and Liberty Hall. Um, anyway, so, so we do the show and when the place closes, you know, Beaumont in the sixties, not a lot of nightlife. So everybody piles in their cars and we go to some remote place

00:57:47.750 - 00:58:09.129

on the beach and we're just gonna drink, you know. Um, well, everybody had sports cars with this remote part of the beach. We bury every one of those cars in the loose and we're drunk and we're drinking. We, you know, it's dark and we can't, we

00:58:09.139 - 00:58:27.409

can't get them out of the sand, you know. So we determined that the thing to do is to go up in a sand dune and, and, and dig out a kind of a hole like a nest. And all of us pile in there to stay warm

00:58:27.489 - 00:58:51.080

and we're in, we're in a pile like a, like a litter of kittens or something in there. We just, we just pass out. So I slept with Janice and about seven other people, but that's all we did. Yeah. Um, so then, um, what finally took you

00:58:51.090 - 00:59:13.399

away from Houston, you know, and II, I guess I was selling off the business, I assume. Well, uh, guitar center and Mars music had, had been coming at each other from the east and west coast for years and they, the final battle it turns out was

00:59:13.409 - 00:59:35.439

in Houston. It seemed like they opened up, uh, five Mars Musics and three, you know, guitar centers, uh, in one year and all those discounts and stuff and it, I just didn't have the pockets to stay in business and I started doing stuff on the internet

00:59:35.449 - 00:59:55.370

anyway. So I, I closed the guitar store. Um, I just couldn't make it in the brick and mortar store anymore. And, uh, no, my daughter grew up, you know, wanted to go live with her mom. Uh, I'd had custody since she was about six years old.

00:59:55.379 - 01:00:13.550

Said, ok, you go do that and my wife at the time and I were free and we thought, you know, make a decision here either if we decide to stay in Houston. Uh, that's probably what we'll do or if we want to move, you know, we

01:00:13.560 - 01:00:31.639

can have a kind of second run at life. And, uh, you know, I had connections. I was gonna be able to, to make it in Houston. And my wife was a, uh IC U nurse and we decided to move to Weber, Texas. And, uh, we moved

01:00:31.649 - 01:00:51.649

up there, kind of kind of just because we could, bought a little log cabin on the banks of the Blanco River and ran into some people of course, and started playing music and, uh, uh and life was really good and then she died and then I

01:00:51.659 - 01:01:12.959

moved into Austin and uh played music. And, uh, you know, that I thought, I thought my married life, my romantic life was pretty much over when that life died. And after four or five years in Austin, uh I, I met the, the woman I'm married to

01:01:12.969 - 01:01:30.169

now and we, you know, we stayed there and just one day we went on a big uh trip with no destination. We just had a hole in time in front of us and we're gone for about a month or five weeks. We came back and, oh,

01:01:30.179 - 01:01:47.830

well, you know, Austin has certainly changed from the town that, that we grew up loving that we always wanted to live in. And if we were gonna move, where would we move and first we thought we'd move to Bozeman, Montana. And then we thought about winter

01:01:47.840 - 01:02:05.340

there and, uh, those were more. And then, and then we've been through Santa Fe and spent a couple of nights there with friends and found a couple of those old sand mountain people. So, well, let's, let's try, Santa Fe. We tried it and liked it and

01:02:05.459 - 01:02:27.300

then sold their houses and moved to Santa Fe. So that's, that's where I am now. All right. And Santa Fe is a really lovely place. It's, it's real cool. It's, it is not like Austin used to be, but it, it, it has a heart, a, a

01:02:27.310 - 01:02:54.110

creative heart. Uh It kind of feels the way Austin used to used to feel the now we're concerned that it appears that after the plague has subsided. Uh It looks like a lot of people are gonna leave major metropolitan areas and Santa Fe may be one

01:02:54.120 - 01:03:12.709

of the places a lot of people come and uh I know nothing stays the same. I get that, but you don't always have to like the changes. We're, we hope Santa Fe doesn't change so much with the changes. Uh or like what happened to Austin? Our

01:03:12.719 - 01:03:37.000

son lives in Austin and, and, and he loves it, but, you know, he loves qualities that they're different from what we lived. So, can I just wanted to ask you a um, a reflective question? Um And so how do you think that the Houston folk scene

01:03:37.010 - 01:04:12.300

changed over time? I, I think if anything, it, it kind of only changed stylistically, I think there's, oh, and what better if you go to Anderson Fair tonight or tomorrow night or on the weekend, you know, that there are very talented people, uh, doing good work

01:04:12.310 - 01:04:36.550

in music. Uh, but it would be far different from the, the style of acoustic music. Oh, that, me and a lot of the folks I mentioned grew up with because we came directly out, out of folk music, you know, the, the real deal, the folk songs

01:04:36.560 - 01:04:58.080

of North America book, you know, that's, that's where we came out of and we evolved that, you know, and I guess it depends sometimes I, I think it really depends on roots, you know, we came from there and, and, and I do, I do not mean

01:04:58.090 - 01:05:23.939

this to be negative. It's just an observation, I think a lot of people are doing it now. Americana for them is guy and towns and Jerry Jeff and those people, you know, uh, that's what I think and it doesn't mean that they're copying them but that,

01:05:24.780 - 01:05:46.530

that, that is their, their influence as, as opposed to those of us who I came out doing, doing the old stuff. It's, it's kind of like, I, I love Johnny Winter. Oh, and one of the things I think that separates Johnny winters from a lot of

01:05:46.540 - 01:06:15.270

other really, really? Great blues man is if you ever said that played with Johnny or talk with Johnny his depth in traditional blues and Chicago blues and stuff, his knowledge of all of that, it's just so deep. Oh, and so the people that come and their

01:06:15.280 - 01:06:37.590

roots are Johnny winters and Eric Clapton, you know, and Jimi Hendrix and nothing wrong with it. It's just different, uh, you know, and there's, there's great ones out there. But I, you know, I think the stuff that I enjoy most is, uh, something that has very

01:06:37.600 - 01:06:57.159

deep roots. It doesn't mean it's better. It's just what I like. That's, that's my observation. Yeah, that totally makes sense that the point of reference has changed for the different generations. And so it's harder for them. It's like, like a, it's like you have to interact

01:06:57.169 - 01:07:09.909

with what came immediately before and then it's like, then you have this whole other catalog that comes before that, that you're a bit more removed. So they, yeah, it totally makes sense. Yeah. I don't know if it makes sense or not. It's just, that's what I

01:07:09.919 - 01:07:43.219

think. Um, well, is there anything that you want to talk about that you feel like you haven't talked about, uh, give me second one time in my high school band. Uh, they had a contest at University of Houston and, and my band came in second and

01:07:43.229 - 01:08:10.409

God didn't place on that. Perhaps another interesting sidelight back in the day. Me and guy, I mean, guy was taller than me, but we were both fairly lean and dark haired and we came from sort of a similar cultural background and we dressed a lot the

01:08:10.419 - 01:08:39.379

same and we both played guitar and we both sang and, uh, there was sometimes some confusion about who was who. And I think, uh, I think God and I both benefited from that. Ok. I don't know what else you got lady. I, I don't have anything

01:08:39.390 - 01:08:52.128

else. I just want to make sure that you didn't feel like you were leaving something out. I mean, of course, everyone feels that they leave something out at the end. But you know, I just wanna make sure you felt like all the bases were covered. Yeah,

01:08:52.139 - 01:09:13.879

just, you know, uh I guess one other thing is, is that thing I, I talked about kind of cavalierly about why young men continued to play music. There was that and there was uh is this is me and iii I wonder if you can extrapolate from

01:09:13.890 - 01:09:41.620

me to a, to a larger group of people. Uh Like I mentioned, I never early on never fit in very well. And uh and I really needed attention and approval and uh I, I think that probably affected my music and sometime about 15 or 20 years

01:09:41.629 - 01:10:20.569

ago, something shifted and I got a whole new appreciation of music for that magical thing that happens. It happens for musicians and it happens for audiences when the, the connection is made. And for a few minutes, the musician or the band in the audience are, are

01:10:20.580 - 01:10:50.419

kind of all in the same metal space. And the audience is as important in that moment is the people making the music. It's just, it's, it's just a magical, I'm sure you've had that as somebody in the audience. And uh so I, I don't need approval.

01:10:50.430 - 01:11:13.390

I don't need acceptance. I, I do uncommon stuff when I play, uh I do stuff I love and hope to find people who will enjoy that. But that, that moment kind of when you finish the song and there's this pause before whatever's gonna happen before people

01:11:13.399 - 01:11:25.100

applaud or cry or laugh or whatever it is. They does. Then that's the, that's the moment that I live for, you know, musically. So, so there