Like a Lighthouse to Stormy Seas

This comment - part of a review of Eiza Gilkyson’s latest album, Secularia - really resonated with me
as we watched, with due reverence, awe, and massive enjoyment, the performance by Three Women and the Truth on Sunday evening. The reviewer’s commentary had referenced the profound, if often deceptively simple, wisdom-filled lyrics which Eliza so frequently creates in her song-writing - comments which could equally be attributed to the writing of the other two of this particular threesome, Gretchen Peters and Mary Gauthier. All three, intentionally though not universally, put female characters and the female experience to the fore in so much of their writing, with great subtlety and wonderful melody.

You can probably guess from the above that we HUGELY enjoyed the gig which had brought us to Austin this year - it was everything, and more, that we’d been hoping for, and well worth the trip. What was unexpected was the hilarity of the exchanges between the three women in their between-song repartee amongst themselves and with the audience - they frequently had us all in stitches, and it made for a very intimate and personal, almost house-concert, atmosphere. Truly wonderful.

As an added unexpected bonus, after the gig was over, and we’d managed to have brief one-to-one conversations with each of the three artists at the signing desk, we were offered a lift back into the City by a young couple with a typically Texan pick-up truck. (the One World Theatre is a full 15 miles from the Centre, with no public transport, and, it transpired, unreliable wi-fi which scuppered our intended taxi ride back) Much to our amazement, it turned out that Bella (her boyfriend driving the pick-up was Noah) is one of Eliza Gilkyson’s granddaughters, and a fledgling musician herself. You can just imagine how much we enjoyed our conversation on the 25-minute ride home! Since then, Bella (Castillo) has been kind enough to forward us a link to her first recorded song ‘On Your Way Home’, which is quite beautiful. So, maybe the start of a fifth generation of great musicians and poets in the family!

This being Austin, of course, we’d already had some truly great music at the weekend. At the suggestion of and accompanied by our wonderful hosts, Veronica and Jay, who almost feel like old friends already, we went to a great rock ‘n’ roll session courtesy of the Denny Freeman Band, who played a ‘Happy Hour’ gig at the Saxon Bar on Friday evening - for free! A good many venues in Austin will have two or three separate gigs each evening, some of them 7 evenings a week - maybe starting at 6, 8 and 10, and often featuring truly world-class musicians, and often, as in this case, with no cover charge or charge for the first of the bands of the evening. It’s no wonder Austin is known as the live music capital of the world. Within maybe 3 or 4 beats of the opening number of Denny’s band on Friday, more than half of the audience was up and dancing - despite there being no specific dance-floor - and the band rocked the whole place to the rafters for the first two hours of the evening. Amazing! We learned, too, that Denny, a brilliant player of electric blues guitar, amongst other instruments, was a one-time teacher of one of Austin’s most famous guitarists, the late Stevie-Ray Vaughan, whose statue we see most days as we walk into town from our ‘home base’. We’re hoping to see older brother, Jimmy Vaughan, later this week, thanks to a tip-off from Veronica and Jay.

The Denny Freeman Band

 Saturday was a relatively music-free day for us, though. We were lucky enough to be invited to dinner at the home of Donna and Phil, the parents of our friend, Danny, both of whom we’ve met before, so a great treat to get together again with these warm-hearted and fascinating people. Danny and Maizy Rae collected us mid-afternoon from our accommodation, so that we could get there in time to watch the football match between Danny’s team, Texas University Longhorns, who were playing the Christian University of Texas. We did our very best to understand the rules and strategies of American football, though I think more practice is needed! It didn’t help, of course, that we were enjoying our conversations with Phil and Donna, at the same time as being hugely entertained by the antics of the gorgeous and charming 2-year-old Maizy. We didn’t see the whole of the game before it was time for dinner, so Danny was keen to get Maizy back home to bed soon after dinner, in order to watch the final part of the game on ‘catch-up’ TV. He took his leave of the four of us, with warnings NOT to reveal the result of the game to him before he could watch it at home. We learned, though, that Danny would have needed to take a circuitous journey home, to avoid being tipped off about the result by the lighting on a massive spire on the University’s campus - which always lights up with the team colours when they win (as they did), to broadcast the result to the whole of Austin!

Danny and Maizy Rae.

Only three full days left in Austin now, until we fly to New York on Wednesday. Still lots of time for plenty more music ….