{"id":662,"date":"2011-02-03T18:38:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T00:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.atomicnewstools.com\/pages\/?p=662"},"modified":"2012-01-28T18:41:25","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T00:41:25","slug":"a-storyteller-visits-gruene-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/a-storyteller-visits-gruene-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"A Storyteller Visits Gruene Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>

All the Federales say they could have had him any day.<\/em><\/p>\n

They only let him slip away out of kindness, I suppose.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPancho and Lefty,\u201d by Townes Van Zandt<\/em><\/p>\n

|\u2014\u2014\u2014|<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a>GRUENE, TEXAS \u2014 The power of story told in song resonates with many of us. We can recall song lyrics learned three decades or more ago \u2014 while forgetting the name of a co-worker one happens along at the grocery store, or where you laid the car keys.<\/p>\n

Most of us can only regurgitate the chorus of memorable songs without the prompting of actually hearing it played. Somehow, though, if a song is playing on the radio, or being sung in Gruene Hall, the words return to even the most involved of songs \u2014 those that deliver a narrative, as does \u201cPancho and Lefty.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why an overflowing crowd at Texas\u2019 oldest dance hall stood and sang the chorus to \u201cPancho and Lefty\u201d at noted troubadour and writer Rodney Crowell\u2019s direction, as he sang the stanzas in his final encore. Van Zandt\u2019s song, first recorded in 1972, tells the tale of a Mexican bandit who is betrayed by his sidekick Lefty and killed. Lefty manages to escape into the United States and live out his life quietly in Ohio, though possibly with a guilty conscience.<\/p>\n

A few folks there might not have known the chorus, but darned few. Crowell encouraged the crowd to sing and remained silent, praising the increasing volume of each rendition. It was a sweet ending to a memorable night of storytelling, both in song and prose, by the 60-year-old southeast Texas native.<\/p>\n

Crowell is not famous, not in the pop-radio way of younger stars like Keith Urban or Alan Jackson. He has written many songs that others<\/em> have made famous \u2014 \u201cShame on the Moon,\u201d a hit for Bob Seger; \u201cTil I Gain Control Again,\u201d which topped the charts of Crystal Gayle, to mention two. In the late 1980s he posted five straight No. 1 singles and was widely known for his marriage to Rosanne Cash, the Man in Black\u2019s talented daughter. Since then Crowell has had a respectable if unspectacular career, if measured by records sold. By any other measure, he is one of America\u2019s songwriting icons, as he proved Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Gruene Hall was built by town founder A.D. Gruene in 1878 and has only modestly changed since. The dance hall is legendary for its raucous concerts, dusty ceiling fans vaguely stirring the air as boots scoot on a battered wooden floor. There is no air-conditioning. The ceiling fans are woefully inadequate, leaving patrons at the mercy of whatever breeze wafts in from the Comal River through the screened windows. I have ineptly danced here to some fine bands, usually holding on to a longneck beer to give me balance.<\/p>\n

This night folks sat in folding chairs on the dance floor, crowded into the benches and tables further back \u2014 or they made do with standing. Up on stage perched a table lamp like you would see in someone\u2019s living room, sitting on a tall end table. Tonight, Rodney Crowell would perform solo, playing one of two acoustic guitars, and read from his just-published memoir of growing up in Jacinto City. It\u2019s called \u201cChinaberry Sidewalks.\u201d He had to wear sunglasses when reading because of the spotlight\u2019s glare.<\/p>\n

Since Gruene Hall has been around since Rutherford B. Hayes was president, it is possible this is not the first time someone has conducted a book reading there interspersed with belting songs, while the hall\u2019s patrons sat quietly with none of the usual back-channel chatter and beer-bottle clinking of most concerts \u2014 even of the sit-down variety. But it probably hasn\u2019t happened often. Several hundred folks listened as Crowell told of his parent\u2019s legendary fights, one of which sent them both to the emergency room; of stupidly following the mosquito-fogging truck on his bicycle, a memory we East Texas transplants share; of being smitten in sixth grade with the beautiful girl who ignored him \u2014 and the disastrous results that followed when he crashed his bicycle into the rear panel of a teacher\u2019s prized vintage vehicle.<\/p>\n

Then Crowell, a skinny guy with curly gray locks and a face sporting some mileage, would sing a few songs, weaving together a narrative of his childhood, of loves won and lost, of battling personal demons \u2014 performed deftly with wit and grace. Two hours later, the journey ended. Crowell sauntered through the crowd, shaking hands and smiling. He was headed to the table set up by Book People to sign copies of his books in a corner near the bar.<\/p>\n

A book-signing in Greune Hall. Wonder when that last occurred? And who was president?<\/p>\n

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Print this entryAll the Federales say they could have had him any day. They only let him slip away out of kindness, I suppose. \u201cPancho and Lefty,\u201d by Townes Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-40"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}