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September 20, 2006
* "i'm a rolling stone from texas..."
Though it was no surprise when the word came up from Austin today that Don Walser had died at age 72 after a long illness, the news was still hard on the heart. It had been a few years since Don had been able to take the stage and grace Austin audiences with his warm presence and bigger-than-life voice -- from a full-throated yodel to a smooth country croon -- but his fans had not forgotten about him, and they'll continue to remember his distinctive gift of music for years and decades to come.
It was the late 1980s when Walser surfaced on the scene as a country singer, though you'd really have to call it RE-surfacing, because he'd had a small career in West Texas back in the 1960s, before he'd settled down with a family and worked a series of military and government jobs. He explained his rationale to me in a February 1995 interview: "I've been around musicians ever since I was just a little fella, you know, and I noticed that they had to starve for a while before they could really make it. And I didn't really mind ME doing it, but I didn't want my family to have to go through that, and be away from 'em, and not help raise the kids."
He got another chance once he retired from the working world. I first saw Walser perform in 1989 at a talent contest at a long-gone Austin venue called the Lumberyard; Walser finished second that night to a decent but unspectacular singer-songwriter whose name I've long since forgotten. Soon thereafter, though, Walser was already making his mark on Austin, first at a great little North Austin country joint called Henry's and eventually at the legendary South Austin dance hall the Broken Spoke -- and even alt-rock stronghold Emo's, where the young punks had developed a fondness for Walser's traditionalist sound and songs.
Indeed, it was the classic-country identity of Walser's music that made the most lasting impression. In our 1995 interview, he recalled a brief dalliance he'd had with trying to make a dent in the commercial country world: "I had a bunch of songs that I thought were pretty good about 20 years ago, so I went to Nashville. And they all really liked what I had, but they all told me one way or another, real nicely, 'This is great stuff, but we haven't done it in 20 years.' So I told 'em, 'Well, when 20 years comes from now, I'll still be doing it.' And I am -- I'm still doing it."
Staying true to his roots served Walser well. He became an icon of sorts in Austin and eventually released more than a half-dozen discs on labels ranging from his own Walser Archive Recordings to major-label affiliate Sire Records. He toured nationally and internationally, but still played most of his shows in Texas, until being forced to the sidelines by ill health shortly after the turn of the century.
The last time I saw Don play was on Christmas Night of 1999, at the Broken Spoke. I remember wandering through the Spoke's little "Hall of Fame" room that night, and realizing how Walser had, over the past decade, earned his rightful spot among the country greats acknowledged there, from Willie to Wills...to Walser.
We'll have more about Don in our upcoming November-December issue of No Depression.
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 15, 2006
* "this goes up to eleven!"
September 15th is really just a theoretical, on-paper-only anniversary, but it does happen to be the specific exact day we chose to list as the street-date of our first issue back in 1995. Thus, we officially celebrate eleven years in operation today (even if the planning for issue #1 had in fact begun a few months earlier).
We're not making nearly the big splash out of this birthday as we did our last one, when we introduced an anthology with University of Texas Press and held tenth-anniversary shows at ten cities across the country. (We WILL once again have our annual shindig in Nashville next week as part of the Americana Music Association; those of you in Music City are welcome to join us at the Mercy Lounge on Wednesday the 20th for an evening of music featuring Dave Alvin, Mindy Smith, Hem, Charlie Louvin, Chatham County Line, and Tom Gillam.)
As the years roll by, they seem to feel less like milestones, somehow, and more just like the natural order of things. I'm always amazed, though, when we occasionally run across folks (like I did many times at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle a couple weeks ago) who were hip to what we were doing in the beginning, and have stuck with us all these years. Thus I raise my glass tonight to all the subscribers, advertisers and general well-wishers who helped us grow from that fledgling first issue to the reasonably grown-up publication we are today. (Hopefully not TOO grown-up...though, as with dogs, or nightclubs, 11 in magazine years is probably something akin to 77.)
Anyhow, if you're one of those longtime supporters, thanks for coming along for the ride. And if you're newer to our ND world, we hope you'll stay with us for another eleven years...
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)