BFT: So, some of the stories that I've heard at about the same time -- maybe in the early days of, of before your club got off the ground -- they had discovered that there was a market getting UT students to come over, and they would have "College Night," you know, and...

HW: Ah, yes!

BFT: It went from having three or four white kids who happened to be males, and guitar players hanging out; to people calling to reserve a table; and then people to call in and reserve several tables pushed together; and then entire fraternities wondering, "Can we have the hall tonight," you know. And it went through a period where they played to more white folks than they did black folks, at least on certain nights.

HW: Uh-huh.

SL: If you're curious about that aspect, it's just jumped into my mind that there's an accessible fellow -- who was very close to that scene -- who's name was Herman H. Howze, H-O-W-Z-E. He is now in San Marcos; he is working for the university down there. He is their, oh, I don't know...director of drug, drug-troubled students or something, but you can call him up on the phone and get old Poncho...

BFT: Herman?

SL: Yeah. Poncho Howze is what he was called. He... The reason he might be interesting to talk to is, was, he was the kind of social secretary for one of the big fraternities, and he got very much into that, and being a sort of rowdy individual, probably remembers some pretty good stories.

BFT: Probably does. For the period I've heard W.C. mention it, and I've heard Blues Boy mention it, and James Polk, who's... I guess, he was playing any instrument that he could get his hands on then. He pretty much plays keyboards now, but they ended up playing for, a while, as many frat parties and clubs on the west side of town than they did anywhere else. But it was again that situation where they could perform, but they couldn't hang out, you know.

SL: Yeah.

BFT: You guys weren't in the frat scene?

SL: No, no! Our major contact with the frat scene was listening to the ladies explain why they had decided to join this other scene, because they couldn't stand the frat guys anymore!

BFT: 'Mind telling me how old you are now, in 1990-91?

SL: I'm 50.

BFT: 50.

HW: 50. Coming right up on it.

BFT: Well, this is working out very well, because I had kind of... For this first segment of the project, trying to deal with people that are around 50 and older, and I thought that ya'll were about that age. But I wasn't sure.

HW: Right!

BFT: Not from looking at you, but from listening to your stories of already being up and running around in the early-sixties.

SL: Yeah, well, it was an interesting time. What is the Chinese curse? Yes.

BFT: How's it when you look at Austin now? Have you pretty much lived here since then?

SL: I have. Houston's lived here all his life.

HW: I spent five years in California in the early-seventies, but other than that I've been here.

BFT: How is Austin changed from the '60s? I mean, obviously you're...

HW: Well, it's certainly gotten a lot bigger, of course! It still kinda got the small town flavor. I think it's mainly gotten... The people seem to have gotten a little more tolerant, shall we say, in the 30 or 40 years it's taken to get as big as it is. That may to some extent be the fact that people have come from the North and the West and the East and what not.

BFT: So, the people that are out and around come from enough different backgrounds that there's now more cosmopolitan?

HW: I think so, to some extent.

BFT: In the '60s, early-sixties, was UT pretty much a very Texas, you know, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso based school? Did it seem international or national then?

SL: Oh, it seemed pretty eclectic to me. I did not... I had been to other schools, and I did not feel that it was provincial. It had then as now many annoying features, but I felt like there was probably one or two of each, you know, whatever it was you were looking for.

HW: It was considered the most liberal college, I expect, in the state in those days, particularly by people from outside of Austin.

BFT: So, if you were going... If you were from the outside and you were going to spend time in Texas, then Austin was pretty much the place to do that?

HW: Well, I suppose. It wasn't at all considered cosmopolitan in those times and, so you know, I guess Dallas would've...was more so along those lines, but it was the largest school in the state, even then.

SL: I certainly found Austin and UT subculture a vast improvement on, oh say, Houston, that was what I mainly had to compare it to, as far as Texas was concerned. It was just a... It was just a much happier place to be. But I think I have a little disagreement with Houston as to why in... How it feels now as against then, or maybe it's just a change of emphasis. Yes, it is a more cosmopolitan place, but I think we have lost a sense of "well, we're all in it together," and we have lost the ability that was there then, to figure out a way, to find some old boy that would help you get it done. I think it's a colder place now than it was then.

HW: Well, that's quite likely true.

BFT: Not as cooperative generally?

HW: That's quite likely true, yeah.

BFT: It's interesting to me that you would bring that point up and phrase it that way because -- maybe not so much with, say, some of the black musicians that I've been talking to that are around your age, but definitely with two or three people that are older, you know, 10, 12, 15 years older than you are -- there's this excitement of talking about how things used to be before the Civil Rights Act, basically, you know, before integration. So, they talk about strong community and cultural institutions that were intact, and community pride; and because of segregation, it made at least the black community... It made the black community more close knit.

SL: Uh-huh.

BFT: And then there's talk of the '60s as being a period where it seemed like some things were going to happen that were going to be good.

SL: That it was gonna work out somehow.

BFT: Yeah, you know, that there was some time that especially leader-type folks in the black community had gone through a good deal of struggle -- out-front, political, social struggle -- and then this big swing happens. And these guys who are a bit older now are looking back and saying, "Well, I might would've really preferred that things stayed as they were," because after the '60s things didn't work. And what has happened is that we don't have strong schools that are based in our neighborhoods; we don't have our own entertainment district, nightlife district; that's now the center of the ghetto; and there's, you know...

SL: Um huh.

BFT: ...Prostitution, drugs and crime on the corners where, when they were young people, they used to hang out and listen to music, the jam sessions.

SL: Yeah, there was an actual, organic, full, live scene instead of just people out there trying to score a little dope or so, you know?

BFT: Right! Yeah, so maybe it's not just a racial thing, but maybe it's a social-slash-cultural thing that's happened in Austin and in polarization that's going on again; but it's not really a strong, positive polarization.

SL: Well, you know if I was interested in this sort of thing, in this area, I would want to talk to people who remembered how things were before Interstate 35...

BFT: That's a good point.

SL: ...Because I think that is probably... I think the world would've been a better place, and especially Travis County, if they had put Interstate 35 someplace else.

BFT: Someplace else?

SL: Anyplace else, practically.

BFT: Where Mopac is, yeah.

SL: Maybe where Mopac is, maybe where Bluestein is, you know? Just anywhere but where they put it.

BFT: That's a real good point. The tentative title for the middle section of this documentary... I've been playing with a number of different titles, but had something to do with when blues cross the tracks, or when blues cross, you know, I-35, but I-35 is Austin's railroad tracks.

SL: Yeah, the railroad tracks in Austin never did anybody any harm. They ran crossways and so everything worked fine, and, you... Well, people of Houston's and my age, they talk about walking to school as youngsters -- to elementary school, to junior high across where 35 is now -- and some of them talking about walking east, and some of them talk about walking west, you know? It was very, very different before that.

BFT: Mm-hmm. We should make a point to talk about I-35 more, and how communities... Actually, I guess it's not so much how the communities or neighborhoods have changed or grown up around that it, it's how the development has been steered around that, I think, that...

SL: Well, a ditch, a gash, a disjunction of that size is terribly difficult!

HW: Oh yeah! As soon as they put the highway in, it seems like they immediately started eliminating all the little pockets and ghettos and so on that were on the west side, basically. There had been a big farmer's market on what was called East Avenue...

BFT: Mm-hmm.

HW: ...And then that was, that was basically gone, if I'm not mistaken, as soon as the highway came through, or shortly thereafter.

BFT: Yeah, I think that's where the police station is now.

HW: Right in that area, right.

BFT: One of the things... Actually, not during this project I haven't talked so much about that artificial barrier, but I have spent some time talking to folks that, that grew up here on the east side of town. And when they started working, you know, to build 35, there was a long time where there was only one way to cross it, only one bridge...

SL: Yeah.

BFT: ...You know? So it like bottlenecked everything and it made, pretty much made for, for people control. It made things pretty easy.

HW: Uh-huh.

SL: And that, of course, was taken advantage of immediately by those whose interests are in people control. So yeah, I'm sure that had a great deal to do with the way things did develop around here.