Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Honoring Nanci Griffith today. She was an Austin treasure that never completely got her just "due" in the music world. From Wikipedia:
Nanci Caroline Griffith (July 6, 1953 – August 13, 2021) was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter.[1] She appeared many times on the PBS music program Austin City Limits starting in 1985 (season 10). In 1994 she won a Grammy Award for the album Other Voices, Other Rooms.[2]
Griffith toured with various other artists, including Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets; John Prine; Iris DeMent; Suzy Bogguss; Judy Collins and The Everly Brothers.[3] Griffith recorded duets with many artists, among them Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, John Prine, Don McLean, Jimmy Buffett, Dolores Keane, Willie Nelson, Adam Duritz (singer of Counting Crows), the Chieftains, John Stewart; and Darius Rucker (lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish). Griffith had a backing band which she referred to as the Blue Moon Orchestra.
(more information can be found there).
Have a listen to a couple of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK462XnRjQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTBzGjp6JDM

Jake

[Shakey Jake]

Today's post comes from the Traces of Texas Facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Woody Franke thoughtfully submitted this great photo of Curly Fox and Texas Ruby, two TV performers in Houston. Says Woody: "Growing up in Houston in the 40s and 50s, KPRC TV (Channel 2) had local entertainment in the afternoons with a 30 minute music show by Curly Fox and Texas Ruby. Here are a couple of photos that they would send on request. I wonder how many of your followers are as old as me and remember them. They were backed by a three-piece band that were rumored to be ex-cons from the Huntsville Prison. I don't know if that was true or not."

[Shakey Jake]

I went to see Carlos Santana last evening. My son purchased ticket for us to go. The Arc Angles performed before Carlos. They're a group formed by the remnants of "Double Trouble" after Stevie Vaughan's death. Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon were part of Double Trouble and the original Arc Angels. Tommy quit playing with them years ago. Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton are still part of the group. They disbanded for a number of years because of Doyle's addition to heroin. I was surprised, and I don't think they've played together since 2012 or so. Earth, Wind and Fire was supposed to be the group performing before Carlos, but something must have transpired for the change. Anyway, they just played the same songs on their "Living the Dream" album from around 2009. They didn't have any new material at all which makes me think they just put the group together at the last minute to fill a void.
Here's the setlist from Santana's concert:
1.
Soul Sacrifice
2.
Jin-go-lo-ba
(Babatunde Olatunji cover)
3.
Evil Ways
(Willie Bobo cover)
4.
Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
5.
Oye cómo va
(Tito Puente cover)
6.
Europa (Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile)
7.
Everybody's Everything
8.
Ain't No Sunshine
(Bill Withers cover)
9.
Venus
(Shocking Blue cover)
10.
The Game of Love
11.
Joy
12.
Roadhouse Blues
(The Doors cover)
13.
Put Your Lights On
(with Orianthi)
14.
Corazón espinado
(with Orianthi)
15.
Maria Maria
(with Orianthi)
16.
Foo Foo
Encore:
17.
Are You Ready
(The Chambers Brothers cover) (with extended drum solo)
18.
Smooth

[Shakey Jake]

The small town of Cut N' Shoot was on the news last week because of the shooting and manhunt following the Cleveland, Tx murders. It has a strange name and the story of how it got it's name is equally strange (if you believe it). It is believed that the town of Cut and Shoot's name originated from a community conflict in July, 1912 that nearly resulted in violence. The exact cause of the dispute is uncertain, as there are different versions of the story. Some accounts suggest that it revolved around the design of a new steeple for the town's only church, while others claim that it centered on conflicting land claims among church members or the issue of who had the right to preach at the church. As per reports, a young boy who was present during the confrontation exclaimed, "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!" The boy's statement stuck in the minds of the locals and eventually became the name of the town.

[markiver54]

Thanks for the Santana review Jake. I hope you and your son enjoyed the concert.

[Shakey Jake]

Today's entry comes per TSHA:
On this day in 1930, an angry mob stormed the Grayson County courthouse in Sherman and lynched an African-American farm hand accused of raping a white woman. The ensuing riot was one of the earliest and worst examples of racial violence during the Great Depression, and initiated a flurry of similar incidents in Texas. Despite the efforts of a small detachment of Texas Rangers, including the legendary Frank Hamer, the mob burned the courthouse and most of the town's black business section, prompting Governor Dan Moody to impose martial law. Eventually, fourteen men were indicted on various charges, though lynching was not among them. By October 1931, only two of the fourteen had been convicted, one for rioting and the other for arson.

[Shakey Jake]

Today's entry comes from the T of T Facebook group:
Boz Skaggs is touring again. He'll be in Texas for three concerts in June. Boz, who is 78 years old, was born in Ohio but moved to Plano as a boy. He learned his first instrument, the cello, at age 9, then received a scholarship to attend a private school in Dallas, St. Mark's School of Texas.
At St. Mark's he met Steve Miller, who helped him to learn the guitar at age 12. A classmate wanted to give Scaggs a "weird" nickname. This started out as "Bosley", then "Boswell" and "Bosworth". The name was later shortened to Boz. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, The Marksmen. After graduation in 1962, the pair later attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison together, playing in blues bands. Boz didn't get his solo career going until 1969, which is when he recorded this AMAZING piece of music with Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm section. Everything here blows me away. The arrangement is fantastic, the horns, naturally, are exquisite, and the piano and organ playing send chills up my spine. And then, of course, Duane freakin' Allman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv60Dz9hUPo

[Shakey Jake]

Another goodie form T of T Facebook group:
I hope y'all find this as interesting as I did. This photo was sent in by Traces of Texas reader Chris Hogg. It is of four unidentified graves that he ran across a few years ago while working on a ranch in the oil fields of southeastern Howard County.
The graves belong to a woman and three children who died of cholera while traveling with a wagon train in the mid 1800's. Their names have long since faded from the sandstone used as headstones and nobody knows who they were. But that hasn't kept the ranch from maintaining the graves for well over 100 years now. They built a fence around it and they keep the weeds down.
Just Texans being Texans. Makes me proud to live here. It kind of brings a little lump to my throat, thinking of these people and the way they lived and the suffering and how they've been cared for all these years by folks who never knew them. Thanks to Chris for sending this to me!

[Shakey Jake]

"My time just had not come." That's the way [Texas Ranger] Captain John H. Rogers explains why he was able to walk into the muzzle of a double-barrel shotgun in the hands of a desperado who had it leveled at him and cocked, threatening to shoot if the ranger captain took another step.
It was at Cotulla in the early days. A saloonkeeper had been in the habit of shooting up the town and doing as he pleased. He resented the intrusion of the rangers. Rogers' company had been there but a short time when the man got drunk, took several shots at another man who was riding away from the saloon, shot up the town and then defied arrest. The saloonkeeper loaded a double-barrel shotgun with buckshot, cocked both barrels and said he would kill anybody who tried to arrest him. "I looked in the door," said Captain Rogers, "and saw him with his gun to his shoulder. He had it leveled on me and both barrels cocked. My first thought was that maybe I had best not try to go in the front way. "I naturally figured that he might shoot and that I had better try to get in the back way. But then I realized that such a step would be showing weakness and that it might cause trouble. There was but one thing to do and that was go in and get him right then and there. He had been getting by with his gun play too much and it would not do to let him think he had anybody bluffed."
Old rangers tell the rest of the story. "Praying" John Rogers walked right in to the muzzle of the gun that was leveled at his head and told the "bad man" he knew better than to shoot. "You have been getting by with this stuff too long. You'll have to cut it out,'' the captain was saying as he walked straight to the bar behind which the man had fortified himself. Captain Rogers then caught the gun by the barrel, raised it away from his head and caught the man by the collar. Come out of here come with me," he commanded and the fact that Captain Rogers is living today proves that the gunman "came out."
----- San Antonio Light, September 10, 1925

[Shakey Jake]

On October 19, 1918, at the age of eighty-three, Alejo Perez Jr. died in San Antonio. Perez was less than a year old when his mother took him with her into the Alamo at the beginning of the siege in February 1836. He was almost certainly the youngest person in the mission during the battle and on the day of his death was the last survivor of the Battle of the Alamo.
Here's a photo of Alejo Perez at roughly the time of the Civil War.

[Shakey Jake]

This story came across my feed and it's just too good not to repost here:
Paul English - Of all the rough characters the Outlaw Country music scene can boast, only one has a glass eye and is a former gang leader and pimp. Only one when asked once by a 20/20 reporter if he carried a gun, and if so could he see it answered, “Which one?” because he notoriously carried two at all times. Oh, and for years wore a cape. YES, A CAPE! Because he wanted to look just like the Devil.
He is none other than Paul English, Willie Nelson’s long time drummer, money man, and friend. And despite his significance in the Outlaw movement, there is little information and appreciation for Paul out there.
Paul’s parents were devout Christians, but despite all his Sunday learnin’, he ended up becoming the leader of the “Peroxide Gang” in Ft. Worth, TX, and later an outright pimp. Ft. Worth was the first place Willie Nelson really started playing music professionally, and in the late 50’s, it was a rough scene. Downtown was full of brothels and night clubs, and stabbings and shootings were very common. One club Willie played at was Gray’s Bar. They had to rig up chicken wire in front of the stage to protect the band from flying beer bottles and would-be homicidal stage crashers.
Sometimes Willie would not get paid. Willie met Paul, and Paul told Willie he could help him with that. Paul became Willie’s strong man, and eventually Willie’s drummer. I’ve said many times in conversation that if it wasn’t for Paul, Willie would be living under a bridge in Houston. And Paul says, “Had it not been for Willie, I would be dead or in the penitentiary.”
“I started making the papers in 1956 when the “Fort Worth Press” started running a “10 Most Unwanted” list. I made it five years in a row. I was involved in three murder trials, but they never led to anything. I was the kind of guy they were always trying to stick charges on . . . In ’55 I started running girls. This went on for a long time. It was a good business but you had to work hard . . . I had become really adept at picking locks. We had a contest on how many daytime burglaries we could pull and I think I pulled twelve. I don’t think I was ever legitimate until I started playing drums for Willie in 1966.”
Wilie Nelson’s band is notorious for being like one big family, and Willie gives a lot of credit to his success to the fact that he’s been able to keep the same people around him for so long. The very first part of that family was Paul English. Paul officially became Willie’s drummer when Willie asked Paul, ironically, if he knew any good drummers. The only reason Willie never considered Paul was because he thought he couldn’t pay Paul enough money.
But Paul saw something in Willie, and he might have been one of the first to see it. Paul gave up his high living lifestyle to go play for Willie for sometimes no money at all, or IOU’s, because he could see Willie’s singular talent, and knew it would eventually pay off. And pay off it did. During Willie Nelson’s heyday, Paul English was the highest paid drummer/sideman in music according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Whatever Willie made, Paul got a 20% cut of.
Paul’s strong arm tact and loyal friendship is one of the reasons Willie Nelson was able to become such a success, and was able to become the face of The Outlaw movement. Willie gave tribute to his friend and manager on the groundbreaking album Wanted! The Outlaws with the song “Me & Paul.”
But you can’t talk about Paul English without talking about the cape. For years the man wore A CAPE for crying out loud!
“I had this beard similar to what I have now, and everybody would say, “Anybody ever tell you you look like the Devil?” And I’d say “Well, you’re not going to hurt my feelings because the Devil was the prettiest angel in heaven.” I considered it a compliment. We saw this cape in the window and Willie said, “Aw, you got to have this.” I did think I looked like the Devil so I bought the cape. . . when I got off stage that night, there were about fifteen girls waiting for my autograph, and so the cape stayed.”
So if you ever see Paul English, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste. For if not for this legendary sideman, The Outlaws may have never put Nashville in its place.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1836, in the aftermath of the decisive Texan victory at San Jacinto, ad interim president David G. Burnet and Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna signed two treaties at the town of Velasco. The public treaty was to be published immediately, and the secret agreement was to be carried into execution when the public treaty had been fulfilled. The public treaty, with ten articles, provided that hostilities would cease, that Santa Anna would not again take up arms against Texas, that the Mexican forces would withdraw beyond the Rio Grande, that property confiscated by Mexicans would be restored, that prisoners would be exchanged on an equal basis, that Santa Anna would be sent to Mexico as soon as possible, and that the Texas army would not approach closer than five leagues to the retreating Mexicans. In the secret agreement, in six articles, the Texas government promised the immediate liberation of Santa Anna on condition that he use his influence to secure from Mexico acknowledgment of Texas independence; Santa Anna promised not to take up arms against Texas, to give orders for withdrawal from Texas of Mexican troops, to have the Mexican cabinet receive a Texas mission favorably, and to work for a treaty of commerce and limits specifying that the Texas boundary not lie south of the Rio Grande. Both the governments of Texas and Mexico then proceeded to violate the terms of the treaties, and their conflict continued.

[Shakey Jake]

The passengers on the eastern-bound Kansas Pacific train on Saturday night enjoyed the rare opportunity of witnessing one of the fiercest fights between desperados and equally courageous Texans ever witnessed upon the Western Plains. The facts, as related by one of the railway men last evening, are as follows:
An old drover from the far-off plains of Texas got upon the Kansas Pacific train at Ellsworth, with the intention of going to Kansas City. There also got on board the train at the same station two of the cattle dealers, one of them a short, muscular little fellow, who plays the most prominent part in this affair. A party of three of those pestiferous thieves known to all Western railways--monte gamblers--soon made their presence known in the car next to the sleeping-car, and in a few minutes, had pocketed the old drover's last $20 note. It was at this juncture that the above-mentioned little cattle man "came out strong"--as Mark Tabler would say.
He interfered on the old drover's behalf, when the monte men very arrogantly told him to mind his own business. The young man resented the hint, words led to words, blows led to blows. The young man managed to put in a series of scientific sledge-hammer blows, which soon sent the monte thief howling and bleeding over the seats. The other monte men joined in to take a hand, when the other cattle drovers met them, and in a short time punished them fearfully. Finding themselves beaten, they retreated at the muzzle of the cattle men's revolvers to the sleeping car, and locking themselves up in the drawing room, bade defiance to further attack.
A council of war was held in the front car, when it was agreed that the monte men should be allowed to hold the sleeping car until the train reached Salina, where a Sheriff's posse had been telegraphed for. But this arrangement was not satisfactory to the brave little drover. He had resolved upon recovering the old man's money, and appeared to treat with contempt the knives and pistols pointed at the windows of the drawing room.
After washing off the blood from his face and hands, he walked boldly into the sleeping-car, where the three gamblers, driven to bay, stood watch within the locked glass door. With a huge navy revolver in each hand the young man dashed open the door of the den, and putting his cocked revolvers at the astonished gamblers, coolly demanded the old drover's lost money.
Finding that he was determined to have it or do worse, and seeing the passengers closing in with cocked revolvers, the gamblers gave up the money. This did not satisfy the young drover. He now demanded the surrender of all the knives and pistols in their possession. After some parleying, the arms were given up, and the monte men held under guard until the train rolled into Salina, where a Sheriff's posse awaited them with bracelets and a guard of honor. They were taken from the train and escorted to jail. Conductor Brinkerhoff and Pullman Car Conductor Flint received the thanks of the passengers for their coolness and prompt action in securing the arrest of the monte thieves, while the young drover deserves more praise and credit than mere words can express. He learned the monte gang a lesson they will never forget."
----- Dallas Weekly Herald newspaper article on Saturday, September 13, 1873

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
On this day in 1843, two ships of the Texas Navy--the sloop-of-war Austin and the brig Wharton--won a decisive victory in a return engagement with two Mexican ships off the coast of the Yucatán. The Austin and the Wharton chased the powerful new Mexican steam warship Moctezuma and steam frigate Guadaloupe some fourteen miles before the Austin, having sustained seventeen hits to hull and rigging, withdrew to Campeche. The Austin, commanded by Edwin Ward Moore, and the Wharton, under John T. K. Lothrop, had sailed from New Orleans in April hoping to engage the Moctezuma and to break up a rumored amphibious assault on Galveston Island. The two Texas ships had first engaged the Moctezuma and the Guadaloupe on April 30. Their second encounter, a little more than two weeks later, was a clear victory for the Texans and was immortalized in an engraving on the cylinder of the famed Colt Navy revolver.

[Shakey Jake]

From T of T Facebook Group:
Charlie Lockhart and associates in Snyder, Texas, circa 1900. Charlie, who was 45 inches tall, moved to Snyder in 1898, when he was 22 years old. He ran for county treasurer in 1900 and won, then was re-elected eight more times. In 1930 he was elected state treasurer. "Ripley's Believe it Or Not" ran an article about him, noting "the nation's biggest state has the smallest state treasurer." Charlie refused to let his stature be a detriment, saying that he was "a little man with big ideas." He resigned in 1941 and passed away in 1954. He is buried in Snyder.

[Shakey Jake]

From TSHA:
On this day in 1871, more than 100 Kiowas, Comanches, Kiowa-Apaches, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes from the Fort Sill Reservation in Oklahoma attacked Henry Warren's wagontrain on the Butterfield Overland Mail route. They killed the wagonmaster and six teamsters and allowed five to escape. The Indians, who suffered one dead and five wounded, returned to the reservation. One of the escaped teamsters reached Fort Richardson, where he told his story to General Sherman and Colonel Mackenzie. Chiefs Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, leaders of the raid, were subsequently arrested. Satank was killed while trying to escape, and Satanta and Big Tree were tried by civil courts in Texas (the first time Indians had been tried in civil courts), found guilty, and sentenced to hang. Governor Edmund Davis commuted the Indians' sentences to life imprisonment. The raid caused General Sherman to change his opinion about conditions on the Texas frontier, thus ending his own defensive policy and the Quaker peace policy as well. Sherman ordered soldiers to begin offensive operations against all Indians found off the reservation, a policy that culminated in the Red River War of 1874-75 and the resulting end of Indian raids in North Texas.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1836, a large force of Comanche warriors, accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies, attacked Fort Parker, located on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. During the raid the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann Parker. The other four were eventually released, but Cynthia remained with the Indians for almost twenty-five years, forgot white ways, and became thoroughly Comanche. She was perhaps the most famous Indian captive in Texas history. Her son Quanah became a celebrated Comanche chief. Below is what is considered to be Quanah's last photograph taken in 1910, a year before his death.

[Shakey Jake]

On a cattle drive through Texas in the late 1860s, Texas Jack Omohundro chanced upon some ransacked wagons with a number of dead settlers scalped nearby. The dead were would-be settlers bound west across the plains. Texas Jack rode to the nearest fort and led some of the soldiers in pursuit. Following the trail of horses leading away, they came upon a group of Comanche. Getting the drop on the Indians, Jack and the soldiers were able to rescue a boy and two girls that had been taken captive by the warriors.
Escorting the children to safety on the backs of the Comanche ponies he took with him, Jack pondered what to do with the children. He asked the boy, the oldest of the children, “What’s your name, son?”
The shy boy hesitated and then asked, “What’s yours?”
“Jack”
The boy thought about it for a moment.
“Me too.”
Texas Jack took the children to a Fort Worth orphanage where he sold the ponies and generously offered to fund their education. For the rest of his life, the boy called himself “Texas Jack Jr.” He would later take up his benefactor's mantle as an actor and showman, starring as Frederick Russell Burnham, American Chief of Scouts in an early British film called Major Wilson’s Last Stand, which depicted battles between the British South Africa Company and native Ndebele warriors in present-day Zimbabwe. Having made his mark on cinema, he came back to America and started “Texas Jack’s Wild West Show & Circus," which he would tour around the world.
Jack Junior toured America, Australia, Europe, and South Africa, carrying on the tradition of showing audiences a stylized version of the cowboy lifestyle established by his namesake. Traveling the world, the show was in Ladysmith, South Africa in 1902 where a young man approached Texas Jack Jr. to ask him if he was really from Texas and to ask for a job wrangling horses or setting up tents for his shows. Demonstrating his namesake’s keen eye for showmanship, Jack Jr. asked the young man if he could pull together a rope trick act. The young man said he believed he could and Jack Jr. hired him on the spot. Texas Jack Jr. suggested the young performer adopt the nickname “The Cherokee Kid." This was Will Rogers's first job in show business.
Later in his life, as part of his traveling show, Texas Jack Junior wrote a poem about his life, including a verse about his capture by the Indians and rescue by Omohundro:
Come, give me your attention,
And see the right and wrong,
It is a simple story
And won’t detain you long;
I’ll try to tell the reason
Why we are bound to roam
And why we are so friendless
And never have a home
My home is in the saddle,
Upon a pony’s back,
I am a roving Cow-boy
And find the hostile track;
They say I am a sure shot,
And danger, I never knew;
But I have often heard the story,
That now I’ll tell to you
In eighteen hundred and sixty-three,
A little emigrant band
Was massacred by Indians,
Bound West by overland;
They scalped our noble soldiers,
And the emigrants had to die,
And the only living captives
Were two small girls and I.
I was rescued from the Indians
By a brave and noble man,
Who trailed the thieving Indians,
And fought them hand to hand;
He was noted for his bravery
While on an enemy’s track;
He has a noble history
And his name is Texas Jack.
Old Jack could tell a story
If he was only here,
Of the trouble and the hardships
Of the western pioneer;
He would tell you how the mothers
And comrades lost their lives,
And how the noble fathers
My saddle is my home,
And I’ll always be a Cow-boy
No difference where I roam;
And like that noble hero
My help I volunteer,
And try to be of service
To the Western pioneer.
I am a roving Cow-boy,
I’ve worked upon the trail,
I’ve shot the shaggy buffalo
And heard the coyote’s wail;
I’ve slept upon my saddle.
And covered by the moon;
I expect to keep it up, dear friends,
Until I meet my doom.
The year given in the poem of 1863 is incorrect. On his passport application forms, Jack Junior states that he was born in either 1866 or 1867, but that he did not know the particular date of his own birth.
Texas Jack Junior, who dropped the "Junior" when he began to perform outside the United States, married fellow performer Lily Dunbar on March 25th, 1891 in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia. Lily took the surname "Jack" as a married woman. They had one child, named Hazel Jack.
By 1897, the couple was living in London, England, and Jack was listed as a professional horse trainer. In November of that year, Texas Jack Junior filed for divorce from Lily, stating that "on the 13th day of October 1897 my said wife the said Lily Jack committed adultery with F.E. Mannell at No, 25 Whitcomb Street, Coventry Street in the County of London." Included in the divorce petition is a brief description of Jack's childhood:
"My parents are unknown, and...ever since my birth I have always been known and called by the name of Texas Jack, and have no other Christian or surname whatever; as when a child my parents were killed by the American Indians in Texas, who carried me off to their camp, where I lived until I was recovered from them by the United States of America's troops, about 1868."
It is unknown if the divorce was granted, but Lily Dunbar Jack died shortly afterward, passing away in London at the age of 31 in April 1902. Sadly, Texas Jack Junior died just over three and a half years later, on October 25, 1905, in Kroonstad, South Africa, where he had recruited Will Rogers three years before. His death notice lists him as a widower and notes that he left the entirety of his estate to his 14-year-old daughter Hazel Jack, listed as living in Prahran, Melbourne, Australia.

[Shakey Jake]

Well, it isn't often that I learn something that just blows my mind but I learned something today that blows my mind. Ready for this? The six year-old boy who voiced the character of Bambi in the classic Walt Disney movie grew up to become a highly-decorated marine and is now 89 years old and ---- retired of course ---- he lives in San Angelo, tutors math and physics, and still rides a Harley. His name is Donnie Dunagan (b. April 16, 1934), and he was Bambi.
https://www.npr.org/.../major-bambi-meet-the-marine-who...

[Shakey Jake]

Today I'll let you listen to Austin's own Jackie Venson. Jackie was born in 1990's Austin and studied at Berklee College of Music. I'll let you decide if she's any good or not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1VztRpRf1A