Postcard from Rosenberg - “The Boldness of Black Cowboys”

Mention the word “cowboy” today and many are quick to think of Gary Cooper in High Noon, or Gene Autry singing under “starry skies.” Indeed, one can’t overstate the impact Hollywood, comic books, and showmen like Buffalo Bill played in shaping the mythology of the American West. What is rarely reflected in too many of these depictions, however, is that in the 1800s, alongside countless Mexican vaqueros, one out of every four cowboys were black- many of them ex  slaves. In this episode, we’ll introduce you to two extraordinary cowboys, Larry Callies and Myrtis Dightman Jr., who are not only working hard to change perspectives surrounding these narratives, but whose stories are epic on their own terms. 

Myrtis Dightman Jr. at the ranch of Larry Wilkins outside Tomball

TRANSCRIPT

(As this transcript was obtained via a computerized service, please forgive any typos, spelling and grammatical errors)

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Evan (00:00):

Hey, y'all. It's Evan here. We'll get back to our regular scheduled programming next week, but I'm sharing something a little special with you today. In working on this show, people often ask me who's the most memorable character you've interviewed? That's honestly a question I can't answer because given the extraordinary people, this project has introduced me to it hardly seems fair to single anyone out. That said there are some folks who you just end up forging a natural connection with, and Bobby Earl Smith is easily one of them. You might remember him from our very first episode on The Dry Creek Cafe. And if you're new here, recommend going back and starting at the beginning for some context. One of the elder statesmen of Austin's music scene, Bobby Earl is perhaps best known as a founding member of Freda and teh Firedogs, a band that was instrumental in cementing this town's identity in the seventies as the kind of place where it was cool for the counter-culture kids to embrace country. But while popular in their heyday, if you haven't heard of them, it's not because they never recorded. It's because their recordings weren't released for 30 years, at which point the band had long since moved on. Considering this, it brings me great joy to report that their much delayed debut album was reissued on vinyl last month. And in celebration of this occasion felt moved to revisit the conversation I had with Bobby Earl and let you hear the story of their formation through a few clips that ended up on the cutting room floor. Regardless of whether you're new to Freda and the Fire Dogs, or are maybe old enough to remember them from back in the day, the songs and tales you'll hear provide a snapshot of a time and place when Austin was coming into its own. I'm Evan Stern, and this is a special bonus edition of Vanishing Postcards.

Bobby Earl Smith (03:35):

I grew up in San Angelo, Texas. It's about 200 miles north and a little bit west of here. It's right at the edge of the Chihuahuan desert. There are three rivers that converge in San Angelo. The North Concho river, the Middle Concho and the South Concho. And that's where I grew up

Evan (04:00):

Reflecting on his youth in west Texas, Bobby Earl Smith says it was pretty much a blur of Sunday school services, Wednesday Bible study, evening prayers and the occasional tent meeting. But while the Harrison and Irving Street Church of Christ preached baptism by total immersion, he and his buddies preferred immersing themselves in music-

Bobby Earl Smith (04:19):

Jerry and I and another boy from church Kingston- trio was really big. I loved the Kingston trio. I love rock and roll. I've always liked a whole lot of different kinds of music, but we learned a bunch of Kingston Trio songs, and that was my entree into folk music. And we'd sing it. My dad would have his buddies over to play dominoes and he and his buddies would call us and say, "You know, y'all come sit, come in and sing for us." And we we'd played different, you know, events. So we've, we had a little four piece band with two guitars, uh, a vocalist and, uh, drums. I graduated from San Angelo Central High School. And, um, then I went to college at, uh, Abilene Christian College when it was still a college. And before they anointed themselves a university. The strictness of, uh, Abilene Christian, I was, I was either on disciplinary probation or academic probation, all all, but I think two semesters there, uh, in my four years, because I was, I was going to sneak out and I was going to drink.

Bobby Earl Smith (05:43):

You couldn't drink openly, but I was going to have my fun. And I was playing music. We played a dance in Fredericksburg, uh, while I was at Abilene Christian and the principal of the high school, uh, we were playing the Nimitz hotel in downtown Fredericksburg, and the principal of the, uh, public school the high school was a graduate of Abilene Christian. And he called the administration in Abilene when he found out that the band was playing for their prom was from Abilene Christian. And we almost got kicked out of school. My dad had had a heart attack a year or so before, and I basically told him, I said, you know, if you kick me out of school, you're liable to get my dad another heart attack. And that's going to be on your account -

Evan (06:34):

Though Abilene Christian carried its share of frustrations, it was there he met his wife, Judy, whom he still calls sugar. 56 years later. Like many, continuing studies brought them to Austin and being what you might call backsliders, they found themselves fitting right in.

Bobby Earl Smith (06:50):

Maybe it's Barton Springs. Who knows what it is, but it, uh, it always had that, uh, a tolerance for tolerance.

Evan (07:01):

Bobby Earl made it through law school, but admittedly spent more time playing his guitar than hitting the books at the library. By the time graduation rolled around, he was gigging so much, he put his license on hold for another 14 years. And while this lifestyle didn't exactly pay an attorney salary, its rewards could be rich. Like the wild night he met a future legend named Marcia Ball.

Bobby Earl Smith (07:26):

I had been playing with a band called Dub and the Dusters. And we had played The One Knite. It was a small dark, uh, bar. Uh, it was painted all black on the inside. The door was- they took an opened casket and they knocked the bottom out. And you walked through, you know, a casket shaped door into this- And they used flat black on the walls and painted the entire place black. It was dark as hell in there. They had all sorts of objects hanging from the ceiling, everything from waffle irons to, you know, toys, children's toy horns to children's drums. Whatever you can imagine was hanging from the ceiling. I don't know why, but there you have it. And so Dub and the Dusters was playing one night. The drummer was, uh, Freddy Fletcher, who is, um, Bobbie Nelson's son.

Bobby Earl Smith (08:39):

Bobby Nelson is Willie Nelson's sister. Freddy was still in high school. He was playing drums for Dub and the Dusters. And back then it was before two o'clock closing. And back then the bands started strictly at nine o'clock. We would play 45 minutes, take a strict 15 minute break, come back, um, play another 45 minutes, take a 15 minute break. And then the final set would be an hour. And we would end at 12 o'clock. This is Monday through Friday, but back then, if you were scheduled, play at nine, you by God, better start at nine, because there were a bunch of bands waiting to take your place. If you took a 20 minute break instead of a 15 minute break, I mean, it was, it was, uh, the owners ran tight ships and actually looking back that made for some pretty good sets. You planned out your sets. You got on. You got off.

Bobby Earl Smith (09:45):

You didn't take a lot of time between songs. It was, it was good for business. In my opinion. Dub and the Dusters, we, we played a set and we took a break and 15 minutes rolls by. The band's ready to start playing. But Freddy Fletcher is not there. And I started looking around and it was a small club. He wasn't in the club. I'm going, "What the heck, where's Freddy?" And at that time, Roger "One Knite" Roger Collins, uh, one of the owners of The One Knite comes up and he says, "Y'all are running over your break. What's going on?" And I said, "I'm waiting on Freddy. I'm sure he's maybe he's in the bathroom. I'm sure he's going to be here." A couple more minutes roll by. No Freddy. Roger is on my ass. He says, "Bobby Earl, you need to get started!" And I said, "We need a drummer!" About that time Freddy comes in and I said, "Freddy! Where the hell have you been?"

Bobby Earl Smith (10:49):

I said, "We're late. Roger's on my butt!" He said, "Oh man," he said, "I met this long legged check. We went out to her van. She's from Louisiana. She's a Cajun. We smoked some of the best dope." I said, "Freddy! Great! But we're about to get fired." So we, we got up on the stage and we started playing, and we're rolling along. Freddy said, "Hey, let's get that chick up. She's a singer. She plays in a band." Well, I had, I had a rule about no sit ins, no sit ins, no exceptions. Because I had learned over the years by experience that only two things basically can happen when you have a sit in. Either they'll be so bad, they'll stink up the place so bad that you lose your crowd. And it's hard to ever get them back once you lose them. Or they'll be so good, they'll show us up.

Bobby Earl Smith (11:45):

What's the use in that? So there's no sit ins. I said, "Freddy, we've been over this. We don't do sit ins. He said, "Oh, come on, man. She's got some great dope". He said, "She's she sings in a band." He said, "Come on!" And I don't know what it was, but I relented. I said, okay. I said, what's her name? He said, Marcia. So I called her up. She tentatively comes up and it's a long legged woman with in blue jeans, long hair. And she comes up and I hand her the mic and I said, "What do you want to do?" And she said, "Do y'all know Me and Bobby McGee?" Well, we did because it was in our set list. We start playing, it comes time for her to start singing. She started singing Me and Bobby McGee. And when I got home that night, I told Judy, I said, "I found the girl singer I've been looking for." I realize girl singer in 2020 is probably not the way to describe it, but I'm pretty sure that's probably what I said back then.

Bobby Earl Smith (13:27):

So Dub and the Dusters broke up. I think within a few days of that night- not because of Marcia, uh, because I was being an asshole was the main reason. The rest of the band got tired of it. And so I told Marcia, I said, "I got all these gigs booked. I said, why don't we try playing together?" And she said, "Well, I'm from Louisiana. I don't know any country." And she said, "I heard what you do. And about half of your songs are probably country, the rest are rock and roll and blues and just a mixed bag." And I said, don't worry about it. I, I said, uh, "You just do what you do. And, and, uh, I can teach you the country songs-"

New Speaker (13:27):

Bobby Earl Smith (14:39):

We practiced for a week. I was trying to think of a band name. And I had written all these names down. Well, when I was a kid in San Angelo. And this is going to sound as stupid as I guess it is. We called Dalmatians fire dogs. I did not know what a Dalmatian, that a Dalmatian was a fire dog. I always liked that name. So one of the names I had written down and I don't remember the other names I had written down was fire dogs. And so I'start reading off this list. And Freddy Fletcher said, "That's it, Fire Dogs!" And I said, okay, what goes with fire dogs? And Freddy said, "Freda!". So that's where Freda and the Fire Dogs came from. Later on, people would come up and they'd say, "Which one of you is Freda?" Well, everybody assumed it was Marcia, because Freda is a woman's name. And we would do this stupid routine, this, uh, Abbott and Costello routine where we'd go, "I don't know, I'm not Freda, are you?" And Marcia would be doing it with us, you know, us four guys. And it was, I realized how off-putting and how ill at ease that must have made some people for us to be going, "I don't know. I'm not Freda, are you Freda? You know, it was just a dumb, a dumb stoned hippy joke.

Evan (16:01):

Bobby and Marcia were joined by John Reed on guitar, Steve McDaniels on drums and David Cook on steel and rhythm guitars. The band caught on quick. They played to packed crowds, the Split Rail and Armadillo. And when writing of them in 1972, the Austin American statesman gushed, "It would be hard to over praise Freda and the Fire Dogs. This is a great bunch of youngsters, both personally and musically- their brand of country music is pure listening pleasure. But while they all seemed to be in the right place at the right time, this pace proved hard to keep up with-

Bobby Earl Smith (16:36):

In '72, we recorded a record, uh, on spec and the producer was Jerry Wexler who had produced Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. And, um, for Atlantic records. He was one of the principals of, uh, of Atlantic records. Jerry Wexler, he was establishing an Austin music, uh, division of the label. I mean, he loved the Austin scene. He recorded Doug Sahm. He recorded Willie Nelson. Freda and the Firedogs was going to be, uh, one of the very first releases. But he and the partners at Atlantic were on their way to splitting up. And so we hesitated so long to sign the contract. The myth is we never signed the contract. We did. We just hesitated so long that, uh, Jerry Wexler and the partners were about to split up by the time we signed it. So Atlantic never executed the agreement, never released the record. Jerry Wexler gave, it, gave me the master tapes 30 years later, and I put it out. Uh, we were just long haired, hippy, goofy people that, uh, didn't have sense enough to, to know a good deal when we saw it.

Evan (17:54):

After this, the band ran its course within two years and went out with a bang at Willie Nelson's 1974 picnic. Who's to say, what could have been had their Atlantic recordings avoided the vault? It certainly didn't hold Marcia Ball back as she went on to record more than a dozen albums and blaze an award-winning trail as one of our great rhythm and blues singer pianists. And Bobby Earl doesn't seem to hold a trace of bitterness. He and Judy raised two fine sons without having to deal with the stresses of touring and the road. And while many today have taken to bemoaning Austin's explosive growth, Bobby Earl, insists the magic that made this town special can still be found.... And what do you still love about Austin?

Bobby Earl Smith (18:38):

Every damn thing, except for the traffic. The main difference that we notice is the traffic. Everybody says, well, the town has changed. It's not the same. Well, to me, it's pretty much the same. It feels the same. Um, it's always been a town that welcomed diversity and a lot of arts, a lot of writers, a lot of musicians, a lot of artists of all, all kinds.

Evan (19:02):

I know a few old codgers, who'd probably scoff at this attitude, but think I know why Bobby Earl feels this way. He's never stopped playing and remains as immersed in music as he was when he first moved to town. Music has the power to transport us. And I think it's worth noting that while we may no longer be able to catch a set at the One Knite, we still have old records and listening to Freda and the Fire Dogs while sipping on a cold Lone Star can get us pretty close.

Larry Callies photographed at his Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg