Read Online Willie Nelson by Joe Nick Patoski - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joe Nick Patoski
Tags: BIO004000
Ads: Link
for rural folks, ranchers, and farmers across South Texas from the Wintergarden to the Rio Grande Valley, and the city’s curious mix of Anglos, Mexicans, and blacks, and its distinctive Latin flavor, San Antonio was more exotic than Hill County or McLennan County. Nowhere but in San Antonio did Mexicans play polkas with as much zeal as the Germans and Bohemians did. Audiences measured music by how danceable it was. If you could do the two-step to a song, it was worth playing.
J OHNNY Bush, the Mission City Playboy who drummed and sang, wasn’t that impressed by Cosett Holland. He’d heard too many hot fiddlers around his hometown Houston, like Cliff Bruner and Harry Choates. But Johnny took an immediate shine to the little red-haired cat with Cosett. There was something about the glint in his eye that suggested a fellow mischief maker, which became apparent the first time he went to visit the Nelsons at their rent house on Labor Street.
“As I drove up, Willie was running out the back door, and this iron pot was following him,” Johnny said. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. He outran that pot. Then he turned. When he did, that pot hit the garage. He stood there with that grin and said, ‘She loves me. You got a cigarette? I need a match. What time is it?’ They’d be fighting one minute and be laughing about it the next.”
Dave Isbell liked Martha well enough, but he encouraged her to stay home like the other women attached to members of the Mission City Playboys. “We didn’t want the gals coming out,” Dave said, fearing the women would chase away prospective fans. But Martha’s case was special, since she was as adept with a knife as she was with a pot.
“She was beautiful. She was an Indian gal, so she was pretty mean to him when she got pissed off,” explained Dave, relating how she threw a knife at Willie as he was walking out the door once and almost hit Holland. “I’m gonna find the meanest goddamn girl in the world and I’m going to marry her and I’m going to move in with you,” Cosett growled at Willie.
“I already found the meanest goddamn woman in the world,” Willie informed him.
Johnny Bush kept his distance. “She was hostile, it didn’t matter if she was drunk or not,” he said. “She liked me and my wife, Jean, all right. But she wanted Willie to get a job, she wanted some money coming in, just like all women did.”
Willie preferred playing music. “If he needed money, he’d go hock his guitar,” Johnny said. “If he got a gig, he couldn’t play the gig because he didn’t have a guitar. If his guitar was in hock, he’d hock the bumper jack he carried around with him in his green ’forty-seven Ford. The gas tank was always empty, but he could pull the choke and get the last drop of gas from the tank. He was always hustling until he could land on his feet.”
The Mission City Playboys played the Walter Ranch House, the Texas Star Inn, Mugwam’s, the old Al’s Country Club, Charlie Walker’s club, the Barn, out on the Houston highway, the Skyline in Austin, the Cherry Springs dance hall out on the Mason Highway near Fredricksburg, and clubs in Houston every once in a while.
One trip to Houston took them to ACA Studios, on Washington Avenue, a recording facility where a band could make a record by playing a song and having it recorded on audiotape. The Mission City Playboys’ recordings became seven-inch 45 rpm singles released by Sarg Records, a small label in Luling, east of San Antonio. Charlie Fitch, the owner of the label, chose the tunes “Satisfied or Sorry,” “No Longer Afraid,” and “Let’s Do It Up Brown,” hoping one would become popular on the radio and on jukeboxes, a hope unrealized.
When Dave Isbell quit so he could look after his sick wife, the band morphed into the Mission City Playboys led by Carl Walker, then Johnny Bush and the Hillbilly Playboys, with “exclusive management by Willie Nelson,” according to the
J OHNNY Bush, the Mission City Playboy who drummed and sang, wasn’t that impressed by Cosett Holland. He’d heard too many hot fiddlers around his hometown Houston, like Cliff Bruner and Harry Choates. But Johnny took an immediate shine to the little red-haired cat with Cosett. There was something about the glint in his eye that suggested a fellow mischief maker, which became apparent the first time he went to visit the Nelsons at their rent house on Labor Street.
“As I drove up, Willie was running out the back door, and this iron pot was following him,” Johnny said. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. He outran that pot. Then he turned. When he did, that pot hit the garage. He stood there with that grin and said, ‘She loves me. You got a cigarette? I need a match. What time is it?’ They’d be fighting one minute and be laughing about it the next.”
Dave Isbell liked Martha well enough, but he encouraged her to stay home like the other women attached to members of the Mission City Playboys. “We didn’t want the gals coming out,” Dave said, fearing the women would chase away prospective fans. But Martha’s case was special, since she was as adept with a knife as she was with a pot.
“She was beautiful. She was an Indian gal, so she was pretty mean to him when she got pissed off,” explained Dave, relating how she threw a knife at Willie as he was walking out the door once and almost hit Holland. “I’m gonna find the meanest goddamn girl in the world and I’m going to marry her and I’m going to move in with you,” Cosett growled at Willie.
“I already found the meanest goddamn woman in the world,” Willie informed him.
Johnny Bush kept his distance. “She was hostile, it didn’t matter if she was drunk or not,” he said. “She liked me and my wife, Jean, all right. But she wanted Willie to get a job, she wanted some money coming in, just like all women did.”
Willie preferred playing music. “If he needed money, he’d go hock his guitar,” Johnny said. “If he got a gig, he couldn’t play the gig because he didn’t have a guitar. If his guitar was in hock, he’d hock the bumper jack he carried around with him in his green ’forty-seven Ford. The gas tank was always empty, but he could pull the choke and get the last drop of gas from the tank. He was always hustling until he could land on his feet.”
The Mission City Playboys played the Walter Ranch House, the Texas Star Inn, Mugwam’s, the old Al’s Country Club, Charlie Walker’s club, the Barn, out on the Houston highway, the Skyline in Austin, the Cherry Springs dance hall out on the Mason Highway near Fredricksburg, and clubs in Houston every once in a while.
One trip to Houston took them to ACA Studios, on Washington Avenue, a recording facility where a band could make a record by playing a song and having it recorded on audiotape. The Mission City Playboys’ recordings became seven-inch 45 rpm singles released by Sarg Records, a small label in Luling, east of San Antonio. Charlie Fitch, the owner of the label, chose the tunes “Satisfied or Sorry,” “No Longer Afraid,” and “Let’s Do It Up Brown,” hoping one would become popular on the radio and on jukeboxes, a hope unrealized.
When Dave Isbell quit so he could look after his sick wife, the band morphed into the Mission City Playboys led by Carl Walker, then Johnny Bush and the Hillbilly Playboys, with “exclusive management by Willie Nelson,” according to the
Similar Books
