My favorite table at the Alamo Lounge was against the west wall, just under a small framed "Freda and the Firedogs poster. It was the late 70s in Austin, Texas. The Alamo Lounge was the bar on the ground-floor corner of the old Alamo Hotel on West 6th Street, and I wanted that poster.
To me, the Firedogs poster represented the beginning of the "progressive country rock" explosion in Austin, and the 1974 artwork was by Micael Priest, my favorite Armadillo World Headquarters poster artist. Freda and the Firedogs had been an essential part of a new music scene in Austin, a longhaired, country-rock, cosmic-cowboy sound that was just getting cranked up. The 1960s emergence of folk music as a distinctly countercultural scene in Austin with venues such as Kenneth Threadgill's and Janis Joplin as a local folk artist had set the stage for the 1970s development of the progressive country radio format at Austin's KOKE-FM and the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters music hall and beer garden.
Described by the press at the time as “freaks” and “hippies,” the Firedogs donned their cowboy hats and moved confidently into country music with their own style that incorporated rock “n” roll, folk, blues, and Cajun elements. The band consisted of Marcia Ball, John X. Reed, Steve McDaniels, David Cook, and Bobby Earl Smith.
Freda and the Firedogs played gigs in the local bars and
honky-tonks like the Split Rail, Dry Creek Cafe, and Soap Creek Saloon, as well
as opening for Freddie King at Armadillo World Headquarters and frequently backing
up Doug Sahm. They were the first “hippie” band to play the legendary Broken Spoke on
South Lamar. When big-time music promoter for Atlantic Records, Jerry Wexler,
came to town, he wanted to sign them as well as Willie Nelson and Doug Sahm, but
the Firedogs decided against signing with Atlantic, and the band broke up after the second Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic in 1974.
Freda (center) and the Firedogs, Dry Creek Cafe 1972, photo by
Burton Wilson
www.fredafiredogs.com
Although Freda and the Firedogs were no longer together by the time I discovered the Alamo Lounge, the individual band members, including Marcia
Ball, who had been dubbed “Freda” because it sounded good with “Firedogs,” were
still playing music around Austin and the Alamo Lounge was rockin’ with music
almost every night. I looked at that poster covetously each time I came in, examining
the screws that held it to the wall and wondering if it would fit under my
coat, but I left it there – not out of a sense of honor, but out of fear of
getting thrown out of the coolest music venue in Austin.
The bar at the old Alamo Hotel, at Sixth and
Guadalupe, had been renamed the Alamo Lounge in the early 1970s. The hotel was
a funky old 1920s, five-story brick building full of dusty old hangers-on and
down-and-outers, including Sam Houston Johnson, LBJ’s black-sheep brother. It had seen better days of politicians,
conventions, businessmen, and travelers, but now it was pretty rough around the
edges, and so were its tenants. They say that Tom Waits stayed there once, and
later on, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard filmed part of their video for “Pancho
and Lefty” in the hotel and its lounge.
Alamo
Hotel postcard c. 1940s
The heyday of the old hotel was long past, but the Alamo
Lounge gained a new life in the decade after 1972. The room was long and narrow, with a beautiful old wooden bar and a small stage at one end. The tables and chairs were worn and scuffed, and
there were a lot of memories of one sort or another hung on the walls. At night
the room pulsed with sound as musicians like Townes Van Zandt, Jimmie Dale
Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Bill Neeley, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett,
and Steve Earle played on the tiny stage for pass-the-hat money.
I remember one particular evening at the Alamo when a newcomer to
Austin, Mandy Mercier, was playing fiddle and accompanying Blaze Foley. Listening
to that lively young woman tearing up that fiddle made me forget about the
Freda poster. Mandy Mercier is still
playing fantastic fiddle music, but sadly, Blaze Foley went to his rest in his
duct tape-covered coffin only a few years later.
The Alamo Lounge closed its doors in 1981, and the Alamo hotel was
bulldozed to make way for a parking lot and, later, another bland
Austin high-rise. The hotel's furnishings were sold at auction, and one of the U.T. professors picked up some great bent-bamboo chairs for his living room, but I never saw the poster again.
Marcia Ball continued to treat folks to her bluesy, Cajun voice and that boogie-woogie piano beat––keeping time with one long, bouncing leg
crossed over the other. She went on to a highly successful career that has
included more than a dozen albums and Grammy nominations. As the years went by, I would ask younger
folks in the audience if they remembered Freda and the Firedogs. “No?” I’d say,
“Well, that’s Freda right there––that's her, yep, Freda and the Firedogs!”
It’s been a bit over thirty years since I sat in the Alamo
Lounge under the Freda poster, but at the Austin Book and Paper show last
weekend, I was fortunate to find and purchase an original 1974 Firedogs poster. There’s Marcia–big glasses and too-tall cowboy hat–and Micael Priest’s signature, almost lost in his classic cross-hatching. “Freda and the
Firedogs. Every Sunday at the Texas Opry
House, behind the Terrace.”
After safely getting the poster home, I wanted to email a few old friends, especially my brother-in-law Joe Specht, our family music historian, and tell them about my find.
But I wanted to have my facts straight, so first I googled Freda and the Firedogs
and found that Bobby Earl Smith, Firedog bass player and vocalist, is now an
Austin attorney as well as a recording artist, and he maintains the Firedogs
website at: http://www.fredafiredogs.com/index.html.
You can order a Freda and the Firedogs CD consisting of
the 12 original cuts the band made on a demo tape for Jerry Wexler in
1972. The website has a terrific
history of the band written by Joe Nick Patoski, as well as photos, poster art, and reviews. The music cuts include traditional
country tunes like Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya,” Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City,” Taj Majal’s arrangement of “EZ Rider,” and a couple of original tunes by
Bobby Earl Smith.
Freda and The
Firedogs:
Marcia Ball – piano and vocals
John X. Reed – guitar and harmony vocals
Bobby Earl Smith – bass and vocals
Steve McDaniels – drums
David Cook – steel guitar and rhythm guitar
Recorded August 10-12, 1972, Robin Hood Studios, Tyler, Texas
Produced by Jerry Wexler,
The CD is a reasonable $15. Be sure to ask Bobby Earl
about his own CD, “Turn Row Blues”––“9 new original songs and four old
favorites,” featuring James Burton, Lloyd Maines, John X. Reed, Casper
Rawls, Freddie Krc, Eric Smith, Warren Hood, and Bobby Earl Smith.
The longed-for poster will soon be on my wall, and the
original sound of Freda and the Firedogs floats to me through the air from 1974; life is good––go out and hear some
music you will remember.
2015 Addendum:
The University of Texas Press published Homegrown, Austin Music Posters 1967 to 1982, from the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, and edited by Alan Schaefer. A book (and poster) signing event was held at TSU on March 1, and my wife, Debbie, and I grabbed a handful of our old Armadillo posters and showed up.
The Armadillo poster artists on hand to sign posters included Jim Franklin, Kerry Awn, Guy Juke, Danny Garrett, Sam Yeates, and Micael Priest! Yes, my personal favorite of the Austin poster artists, a genius with pen and ink, Michael Priest, was seated behind a table next to another Armadillo legend, Jim Franklin.
Micael Priest self-portrait, 1977
We bought four copies of this beautiful book and stood in line for each attending artist, the writers, and the editor to sign them. As I reached Priest and Franklin, Debbie stood behind me and fed me our collection of Armadillo posters as the artists signed 'em. Both Priest and Franklin examined the posters closely and were impressed that they were original. Micael Priest had not been doing well for some time, and he died in September 2018. I was pleased that I had been able to tell him how much pleasure his art had brought me.
Of course, one of the posters he signed for me was Marcia Ball, Freda and the Firedogs.
December 31, 2017 Addendum:
My sister and brother-in-law invited Debbie and me to see Johnny Nicholas and Marcia Ball performing a New Year's Eve show at Nicholas' Hill Top Cafe, just north of Fredericksburg. I had been lucky enough to have a few brief conversations over the years with Marcia Ball when she attended the art shows where Debbie and I sold our creations, but a chance to see her and Johnny Nicholas perform on New Year's Eve could not be missed.
To skip to the end of this long Freda story, we had a great time watching the performers and listening to their music in this perfect, small venue. I reintroduced myself to Marcia, and she graciously chatted with us about Austin music history and signed the Freda Poster; it is framed and hanging within sight as I type. I'm grateful to have had a chance to rub shoulders with folks like Micael Priest and Marcia Ball!
Marcia Ball, Hill Top Cafe 12/31/17
Note: The Firedogs briefly reunited with all the original musicians at Soap Creek Saloon in 1979 to record an LP, "Live from the Old Soap Creek Saloon Austin, Texas" (Big Wheel Records), with special guest Sir Doug Sahm, but finding a copy of that LP will be a lot tougher than finding a Firedogs poster.
Wanna hear some '72 Freda and the Firedogs? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlGUMJ0ojRY
Or Marcia Ball a little more recently? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri8FMzc3Yt8
More about Michael Priest: http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2006-10-06/408173/
The “Pancho and Lefty” Video with images from the interior of the Alamo Hotel and the Alamo Lounge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzJAF1BxP4
A good 2002 essay by Nancy Meredith about some of the eccentric tenants of the Alamo: http://2merediths.com/Nancy/rememberingtheal.html
A site with 1981 Alamo Lounge photos by Dana Kolflat:
