The granddaddy of all musical TV venues, Austin City Limits, has been on the air for more than 25 years. And if you wander down to Sixth Street, you’ll find hundreds of talented weirdoes wielding their axes.
As for great musicians, how’s this for a partial list — Willie (you don’t need to mention his last name if you’re in Texas), Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, Waylon Jennings, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Albert Collins, Delbert McClinton, Joe Ely, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Johnny Winters, and of course, Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman?
This heightened appreciation was all too apparent, Friday night, July 29, as Pure Prairie League, led by Pinehurst’s Craig Fuller, was about to perform at Gruene Hall, the state’s oldest and most prestigious dance hall. The rickety barn-like structure, once the hub of a king cotton community, is located 40 miles south of the state capital in the scrubby Hill Country and is rumored to have been a favorite hangout for Santa Ana’s troops. The preppie Texan standing beside me says, “They guzzled Coronas here after their victory at the Alamo.” It’s a joke — I think.
Fats Kaplin on pedal steel, mandolin, and fiddle, Fuller on guitar(s), drummer Rick Schell, bassist Mike Reilly, and rhythm-guitarist Curtis Wright open the show with a Texas tune. But this crowd doesn’t need cajoling. The place is stuffed to capacity, and these hardcore PPL fans have been on their feet for more than an hour, ready to rock. They’ll stay on their feet for two more hours and three encores — dancing, stomping, and generally whooping it up. Hey, this is Texas heaven.
In part it’s this magical July night. It’s cool by Texas standards — in the mid-80s — and the fans (the ones whirling on ceiling) are as cranked up as the two-steppers scuffing the worn dance floor.
“You know, it’s really simple,” says a middle-aged ersatz cowgirl. “I’m here because I love Pure Prairie League. I’ve always loved them, always will.”
As Fuller intros “Amie” — “I’ve been trying to find…, thinking just the other day…” — the cheering begins in earnest, followed by those familiar chords — A D G, I think — and the choir rises up with a single voice, gospeling to high heaven. They know every nuance, every syllable, every note in their very bones: “I can see why you think you belong to me/ I never tried to make you think/ or let you see one thing for yourself….”
“Maybe it’s because their music was there when I was most alive,” the cowgirl says after the cheering and applause die down and the band segues into another familiar tune. “But you know, ‘Amie’ and all the other old songs sound as fresh tonight as they did 30 years ago, maybe even fresher. These guys are just a big part of my life.”
But it’s more than nostalgia that energizes the audience. Fuller and Reilly have a stage presence that reduces a cavernous dance hall to the emotional dimensions of an intimate back porch. The audience feels a kinship with the band.
As the house lights come up, the crowd trickles out into the starry Texas night and my cowgirl friend is singing in a low voice: “Don’t know what I’m gonna do/ I keep falling in and out of love with you, ooh….”
Stephen Smith can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.
