Charles Stagg house (abandoned) Vidor, TX
More on Charlie Stagg.
Blues In the Night: Ricky Broussard
By Michael Corcoran, AAS 2004 His eyes were darting, terrified, like an animal not yet used to a new cage. Ricky Broussard looked spooked as he waited to take the stage at the Hole In the Wall — a territory he once utterly owned — on June 7, 2002. He stiffly nodded and smiled at […]
A phone call for Mr. Amos Milburn
It sometimes takes just one person to make the rest of us look bad. Lola Anne Cullum was the African American talent scout in Houston who discovered both Amos Milburn and Lightnin’ Hopkins and signed them to a deal with Aladdin Records in Los Angeles. Milburn was the fantastic piano player and singer who profoundly […]
Maud Cuney-Hare, a former Austinite you need to know about
By Michael Corcoran In the spring of 1897, renowned Austin pianist Edmund Ludwig (originally of Heidelberg, Germany), arranged a dual recital at the Millett Opera House on Ninth Street with pianist Maud Cuney, the head of the music department for the Texas Institute of Deaf, Dumb, Blind Colored Youth. But when Cuney discovered that opera […]
Henry Lebermann: Secret History of Austin Music #1
When Henry Lebermann was 6 years old in 1879, his mother, Alice Marie, born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans, took him from their home in Galveston to visit her parents’ native Paris. What a glorious time it must have been in young Henry’s life, meeting relatives he didn’t know he had […]
Overheard at SXSW 1989
1. “The registration line was insane. That’s 25 minutes of my life I won’t get back.” 2. “Do you know where Saturday’s day party is?” 3. “Austin learned its lesson from the Armadillo. No way they’re tearing down Liberty Lunch for an office building.” 4. “I’m in such a hurry I’m gonna have to grab […]
Janis Joplin’s Detonation Blues, Pt. 1
To be a high school beatnik in 1960 in Port Arthur, Tex. is to set yourself up for a rough time. But Janis Joplin had made up her mind that she was going to live life her way, damn the small-minded. She discovered the blues at a time when blacks and whites couldn’t eat at […]
Austin’s most important recording?
The Soul Stirrers are best known today as the Chicago gospel group that launched the career of Sam Cooke from 1951 until he crossed over to pop with “You Send Me” in 1957. But the group is actually from Trinity, Texas, by way of Houston. The Stirrers revolutionized gospel quartets by adding a fifth member- […]
Hattie Burleson’s Dead Lover Blues
A blues singer who recorded for Brunswick and Paramount and owned the Green Parrot dancehall, Bastrop-born Hattie Burleson was the queen of Deep Ellum in Dallas in the 1920’s. But on Aug. 20, 1919, she looked headed to prison after shooting to death one of Dallas’ most prominent black citizens, Dallas Express founder and editor […]
Houston 1917: the Race War of Camp Logan
by Michael Corcoran The gallows smelled of fresh-cut lumber. Thirteen nooses for the black soldiers who’d killed 15 white cops and civilians in Houston. As the ropes were tightened around their necks, one of the condemned men started singing a Negro spiritual. The others fell in with shaky voices that got stronger. “I’m comin’ home,” […]