BFT: Antones? Clifford Antone? And before you say anything, your... The Vulcan Gas Company closed down about the same time that he was opening on 6th Street?
HW: No, he opened probably about '75, I think, '74 or '75; so we'd been closed several years.
BFT: Is he around town then?
HW: Perhaps to visit; I'm not sure. I don't really recall meeting him.
SL: I don't really know Clifford at all. He would know who I was. I know his family, but I've never really had any contact with him to speak of.
HW: I certainly enjoyed some good times at his place down on 6th Street. He had some great acts in there, and it was fairly funky and he made it work.
BFT: In terms of how it felt there, and how it feels now, would you rather go see a show in the old building or do you like...
SL: I think I'd rather go to the original place.
BFT: What else was happening on 6th Street, when Clifford's place was there?
HW: Now, that I don't really know.
BFT: Why don't you talk about what was going on when ya'll had your club. What other... Because you've kind of mentioned that there was a big change in community from being like more integrated, Arab Americans and...
SL: There was a string of a half-dozen clubs of varying sizes and reputations along Red River...
BFT: Right in there now where there are like junk shops and antique stores?
SL: Yeah.
HW: Uh-huh, pretty much. I'm trying to remember the name of the one that was there at... Red River and 11th or so or...12th.
SL: Well, it started out being called the 12th Door and...
HW: Well, the one that was run by Leaven.
SL: Yeah, gosh, what was that one?
HW: Mike was just mentioning that he had worked there the other day. I forget the name of it now.
SL: Now that wasn't the One Knite was it?
HW: No, no, this is well before the One Knite.
SL: Yeah.
HW: Ah...
SL: Beats me.
HW: Well... But they had the Elevators a time or two... This would've been mid-sixties, well before we had anything going on...
SL: Yeah. Well of course, the Jade Room was there...
HW: That was over on Lavaca.
SL: Yeah, all right, excuse me.
HW: That was about 15th and Lavaca.
SL: What was that club's name? I don't recall.
BFT: New Orleans?
HW: New Orleans!
SL: That's right.
HW: Sure enough.
BFT: Ernie Mae's got a live album that was cut in there.
HW: Right.
SL: I really enjoyed working in the New Orleans Club. It had a marvelous sound to it.
BFT: Did you record that album? Do you know?
SL: Ah, no; I did not. I, however, was working with the Elevators back then and became familiar with it. And it was a great place to listen to music and record. It was just so odd, broken-up and multi-leveled and peculiar that it was a nice place to play.
BFT: Did you ever hear Ernie Mae?
SL: Yeah, enjoyed her.
BFT: Yeah she's still plugging it...
SL: Yeah.
BFT: ...After all these years. Any...
SL: Is Blind George [McClain] still alive? I wonder, as long as we're talking about piano players.
HW: I don't know. I haven't heard or seen anything...
BFT: Who is that?
SL: He was blind and he had a number of physical disabilities that ended him up all kinda bent around...
BFT: Um-hmm.
SL: ...And you kinda had to get used to him before, before you could hear him. But he was good. I think maybe his physical problems, whatever they were, increased to the point where he just really probably couldn't play too much anymore...
BFT: Um-hmm.
SL: ...But he was a neat guy.
HW: I think he was in a band for a brief period of time, with Ike Ritter and Benny Thurman maybe.
SL: Um-hmm. I think that's right.
HW: I forget the name of it.
BFT: It seems like I've heard someone else mention that name: Blind George, yeah. Anybody that you -- locals, I guess -- that you saw and heard, took an interest in at that time, that you felt was destined to stardom, that either made it or didn't?
HW: Well...
BFT: Or anybody that you thought surely was going to make it, and now they've vanished, and you don't know where they are?
HW: Not that I can think of off-hand. I always felt Angela had a great deal of potential. And of course, we were certainly impressed with Winter when he showed up, and that was one of the acts we got to sort of watch as it developed.
BFT: Was Tommy playing with him then?
HW: No, I don't think so. Not that I know of.
BFT: Was Janis Joplin bopping around while ya'll were booking shows?
HW: A little bit. She was mostly a folky during her stay in Austin. But I do remember a particular show that... I forget, I think maybe it benefited an old black musician named Teeholy Jackson.
SL: Right.
HW: And it was at the Methodist Student Center, maybe '65 or '66, and he was having some sort of medical problems. And so, everybody did this benefit, and it was headlined by the Elevators. And it was an afternoon gig, if I'm not mistaken, and she played at that. That was one of the last, sort of folky gigs, I think, she did here probably. She was kinda just passing through town, if I'm not mistaken. And Powell St. Johns and Tary Owens had a little acoustic act they did.
SL: Yeah, I believe Tary had something to do with organizing that show.
HW: He probably did. He was, I think, one of the people that, perhaps the only person that recorded Teeholy Jackson. He was a fiddle player, if I'm not mistaken. But she went on to San Francisco shortly thereafter and flamed out.
SL: All that happened?
BFT: The rest is history.
SL: Right, yeah. No, there are lots of people that you see going through that you really think have alot on the ball. And I assure you, one of the things you learn very quick when you're on the business side of the music business is that enough talent ain't enough! You've got to have lots of good luck, a level head, and many, many other things. Really does eat you up if you don't stay careful.
BFT: Besides the fact that you decided to get out of the club management business, why did you sever ties with the personal relationship with, a more personal relationship with music than, than you had back then. Or do you still feel like you have that kind of relationship?
HW: Well, I guess we found other ways to spend our time where we could not make any money also. It was fun while we were doing it, and it still can be. We had to suffer through alot of bad music to hear the good, I can assure you of that. We had some really lame acts through that club.
BFT: So if you, if we were going to close things out right now, if you were to make one or two more profound statements either about Austin history, or music history in Austin or blues or anything that you just have to say so that it can be recorded?
SL: I guess I'll say that it strikes me for sure that the thing that's happened over and over again in Austin music is that when previously separate groups of musicians get together -- such as rock and rollies and country guys, or such as black guys and white guys or such as jazz guys and symphonic guys for that matter -- it's when those happen that we get something interesting. And that applies not merely to the performers, but also to the audience.
BFT: That's quotable. Anything...
HW: I can't think of it... It slips away.
BFT: Well, we'll have cameras around for a while so you can call me up in the middle of the night. You got another question?
SL: One of the things we liked about the Gas Company, Armadillo, places like that, is that opportunities were made for other artists. And okay, so you got some music and that's the draw; but then you've got all sorts of other people who get to do their thing, get to help out, get their stuff seen. It makes a critical mass if you get it right.
BFT: Oh, there are great concert posters from what I've seen before I got in town of this guy that you were talking about earlier...
SL: Franklin?
BFT: Franklin!
SL: Oh yeah, we had more than one good poster artist and alot of them moved over to Armadillo. And Armadillo developed ones of their own, and certainly that was an important thing. And any time you can get that kind of space and energy together, it's important to expose people to all manner of art. Everything you can ram in there. Ah, so, absolutely.
BFT: Rather than strictly show business?
HW: Oh yeah! That was one of the things I think we sort of... That was one of the main community services that we provided, was exposing the various people who came to our shows to these various, mostly out of town acts that they would not have be able to see otherwise, you know?
BFT: Nobody else was bringing them in.
HW: No.
BFT: Alot of people didn't know who they were anyway.
HW: That's true, but once we established ourselves as a club, people would come just to see what was gonna happen and...
BFT: They trusted your judgment.
HW: I guess so.
SL: Fools!
HW: Sometimes it was worthwhile, sometimes it wasn't.
BFT: No, but that's important. That's how a room gets its own reputation, you know? Not just the acts it books that already have a name, but if you know so-and-so, whom you've never heard of is going to be playing at the Vulcan on Monday night, you like the Vulcan, you feel some community there.
SL: There's a small presumption it might be worth going to.
BFT: Yeah, you go and check it out anyway.
HW: Right. Well, there was certainly that because the only other place that I can think of that we had a bunch of that was the... Well, the Jade Room perhaps at one point, but there were alot of other people, fraternity types or whatever that frequented that. And then, of course, the I.L. [Club] on the night that our friends maybe played there. But other than that, there just weren't that many places.
BFT: I miss that. One of things that I have ended up talking about, especially dealing with situations where I have to write things about why we're doing this project is trying to communicate what possibly happens when blues stops being so much a folk form -- and I don't really mean country folk blues, but I mean person-to-person kinda communication -- to being show business, to being you know commercial music, and...
SL: Oh yeah. Well, it happens in a number of ways. Sometimes you even end up with a new form. I mean, what do you think Barry J. Gordy was all about? And I think that was by and large successful. Although, of course, as usual, nobody but him got paid.
[End of interview]
