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Sing Me A Story: The Making of A Music Biographer
Joe Nick Patoski
by Diana Finlay Hendricks
Preface/Proposal: Joe Nick Patoski project
Diana Finlay Hendricks
How does one become a definitive Texas music biographer? Joe Nick Patoski started his career as a music fan. He has been a radio broadcaster, managed rock bands, written for the Austin American Statesman and Rolling Stone. He rose to a coveted senior editor position at Texas Monthly as Texas music peaked in the late 1980s and 1990s. Connections he made along the way earned him a front row seat and backstage pass to some of the most influential artists in Texas music history.
For this segment of my thesis, I plan to focus on four tracks of Patoski’s career: music promoter, music critic, feature writer and biographer. While his writing career has a much broader span than music, I will narrowly track his career path with an emphasis on his music-related writing career. Through personal interviews, archival research in the Southwestern Writers Collection, a critical study of his biographies of Selena, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Willie Nelson, his Texas Monthly features, and personal correspondence/ telephone conversations, I hope to identify the qualities of a successful music biographer.
This research project will be significant to me as a music historian, writer and photographer, as I seek to learn trade secrets from a master. This project is potentially significant to the Center for Texas Music History and the Southwestern Writers Collection as a study of one of the most prolific contemporary donors to the collection, with primary and secondary source material useful to both programs at Texas State University. And this project should prove to be of both scholarly and popular interest to the Journal of Texas Music History.
Sing Me A Story: The Making of Texas Music Biographer Joe Nick Patoski
The Chicken or the Egg: “Texas Music” or music made in Texas?
To begin this process, I will attempt to define Texas music. Is it a historical sound? Is it a definitive rhythm or style? Is it static or fluid? Through this process, I will also ask Patoski, and others knowledgeable in this field of study, the “chicken and egg” question that we regularly pose in the study of Texas music history. Has Texas music become world renowned because of the volumes of writing devoted to Texas musicians, or have volumes of writing been devoted to Texas music because it is world-renowned? Alternately, is there such thing as "Texas Music," or are we talking about "Music Made In Texas?"
Gary Hartman, Director of the Center for Texas Music History, has written the book on Texas music history, so he was a logical first stop in this study.[1] Hartman believes the "uniqueness" of Texas music is a result of ethnic cross-pollination, geographic diversity, the sheer size and population of Texas, its brief history as an independent nation, and the mythology and mystique that have been promoted by a variety of people inside and outside of Texas over the years.[2]
Gregg Andrews, professor emeritus at Texas State University, and founder of the Center for Texas Music History, speaks to the fluidity of Texas music in his description. "It's important to remember that what we call 'Texas music' is not static. It's dynamic and constantly being reshaped, redefined, and cross-fertilized across ethnic, class, and generational, as well as geographical lines.”[3]
Andrews looks to songwriters as an example of what makes “Texas music,” as opposed to simply music that is made in Texas. He explains, “As a mecca for songwriters looking to draw inspiration from its diverse cultural influences and historic dance halls, honkytonks, and other numerous venues, Texas attracts many from outside its borders who are drawn to the spirit of independence, anti-slickness, and insistence on creative control among musicians. Newcomers in turn are influenced by the music they hear. Soon their own music is reshaped by Texas songwriting traditions and cultural institutions, but the music that emerges is a fusion of elements from within and from outside the state.”[4]
He explains further, “In other words, songwriters who come to Texas are not empty cultural vessels when they arrive. They bring with them certain traditions and influences, which then get added and stirred into the mix of Texas music. For those who then make Texas their home, audiences begin to identify them with what we call 'Texas music,' even though their songs represent a fusion or blending of Texas elements and outside influences.”[5]
Is it Texas music or simply music made in Texas? Ed Ward, co-founder of South By Southwest Music Festival, and rock and roll historian for NPR’s Fresh Air, has written for Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Creem. He coauthored Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll. The former Austin American Statesman and Austin Chronicle music reporter currently lives in Montpellier, France. Geographically and philosophically, he brings a worldly view to the argument when he says, “Ridiculous question! The mix of cultures anywhere gives a regional quality to the popular music which is made there, and Texas is one of the most blatant examples of that. To cite just one example, the mixture of black rhythm and blues, traditional Mexican forms, and rock and roll which emerged from San Antonio's West Side in the '60s couldn't possibly have happened anywhere else. Same for the western swing of Milton Brown and Bob Wills. Same for the mixture of Tex-Mex, country, and rock and roll which produced Buddy Holly.” [6]
How can we pose this question without asking Eddie Wilson for his opinion? In 1970, Austin native and band manager Eddie Wilson leased an old armory building on Barton Springs Road, just south of the river. He named it the Armadillo World Headquarters, and according to a definitive feature article in the Journal of Texas Music History, it would become “the epicenter of Austin’s bourgeoning music scene for most of the 1970s.”[7]
Wilson believes it is Texas music, with a distinct flavor. “Nowhere else has the ethnic musical stew been so blessed with ingredients. I have a large collection of southern cookbooks and in most of them that predate the depression, Vegetable Soup recipes begin with ‘two pounds of beef.’” [8]
Like vegetable soup, Eddie Wilson believes that Texas music derives its unique flavor from that sense of place that tastes like – or sounds like – home.
A litany of similar comments come from other experts from all walks of the Texas music industry. And yes, it is an industry. The Office of the Governor has created the Texas Music Office to serve as the information clearinghouse and promotion office for the Texas music industry. Casey Monahan, Director of the Texas Music Office, directs newcomers to their website, which states, “Trying to define [Texas music] is like reviewing a dictionary. There is way too much detail to try to pin it down. However, this much is clear: Texans have given American music its distinctive voice, and that's no brag, just fact.” [9]
Had these questions been posed to a less biased, more scientific, academic group of individuals, perhaps the results would differ, but a study of one of the most popular Texas culturalists and premier music biographers of all time cannot help but draw the spirit of Texas Chauvinism to the table.
The Making of A Music Biographer
Generations of literary scholars have studied word-for-word, minute details of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in effort to determine why the Prince of Denmark took so long to get his revenge. A less academic examination might reveal that Shakespeare needed to write a long enough play so his audience would get their money’s worth at the Globe Theatre. In that spirit, if this project did not have a suggested twenty-five to thirty page length, Austin musician and author Jesse Sublett could summarize the making of a music biographer and the secret to Joe Nick Patoski’s success in seven words, “He knows everything and says it funny.”[10]
Joe Nick Patoski is almost, but not quite, a native Texan. That may help. His mother was a Greek National and his father was a Lithuanian, first generation American. He tells the story of his earliest memory - moving from his birthplace in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Fort Worth, as a toddler. “I wasn’t quite three when we moved to Fort Worth. My dad picked us up at the airport to take us to our new home. We stopped off on the north side of Fort Worth, and I had my first barbecue meal. My first taste of smoked beef brisket covered in sauce was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was familiar and strange and exotic all at once - a vivid memory of horror and fascination. It had this intense heat, but you wanted more. I’ve been trying to figure out Texas and Texans ever since.”[11]
Patoski’s fascination with Texas led to a career as a writer and consultant in the music business that has spanned almost a half-century, and he is nowhere near slowing down. From his days as a writer for the Daily Texan, the University of Texas at Austin student newspaper, he became a stringer for Rolling Stone and wrote for them from 1974-1980, wrote for the Austin American Statesman, and was a regular feature writer and contributing editor for Texas Monthly for more than a quarter-century. He is currently a freelance writer, with articles published in Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, No Depression, Austin Sun, Austin Chronicle, and Dallas Morning-News, as well as Rolling Stone, Spin, and Country Music Magazine. His work has also appeared in Garden and Gun, Mother Jones, Village Voice, Westways, and Conde Nast Traveler.[12]
Along the way, he has written for many other pop culture, travel and music magazines, driven taxi cabs, managed rock and roll bands, and has become a leading authority on Texas culture, including and beyond music.
Steve Davis, Wittliff Collections Curator for the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos, believes that Patoski is one of Texas’ great natural resources. Davis said, “Joe Nick understands Texas music as well as anybody ever could. A lot of times, people get hooked into particular genres, but he is familiar and comfortable with everything from zydeco to cowboy poetry.” Davis spoke to Patoski’s access to the music, “He’s not someone up in an ivory tower just studying it and talking about it. He is as great of an expert in Texas music as we have in anyone in the world.” [13]
Musicologists may argue that the Manuel Penas and Alan Govenars of the world might be more knowledgeable about specific genres, but, as Davis says, “They are narrow specialists, while Joe Nick hears it all.”[14]
Eddie Wilson says, “Joe Nick has genius level IQ, plus lots of bells and whistles; memory, good ears and good taste, personality and manners that make him stand out from much of the backstage crowd.”[15]
The Southwestern Writers Collection in the Wittliff Gallery at Texas State University-San Marcos houses Joe Nick Patoski’s materials, which Davis says is one of the largest and most diverse collections in the archive. Davis, who began his career in the archive as a graduate research assistant in 1994, says, “Joe Nick began donating before I began working here. And it’s wonderful. As he completes a project, he continues to add to the collection. He gives us everything. I went down to the parking garage to help him bring the Selena papers in. He popped his trunk and it was full of papers and notes and phone numbers, and one of those plastic hot dog baskets from Dairy Queen. Everything that had anything to do with the Selena project had all been piled in there.”[16]
Dairy Queen baskets and all, the Southwestern Writers Collection is a good place to begin to nail down the corners of Patoski’s career. The Southwestern Writers Collection currently holds more than seventy-five boxes and thirty-nine linear feet of cataloged materials donated by Patoski.[17] These numbers do not include his Texas Monthly editorial files (most of which are listed under the Texas Monthly catalog), the Willie Nelson book research materials (which are in the possession of, but have not yet been catalogued by the Southwestern Writers Collection), or current works in progress.
The Southwestern Writers Collection has arranged Patoski’s personal correspondence, clippings, photographs, and artifacts into nine categories: Writing, Correspondence, Promotional Material, Research Material, Artist Development, Personal, Photographic, Ephemera and Printed Material, and Sound Recordings. While Texas and southwestern music is arguably his major area of interest, he has written about topics ranging from miniature golf and mountain ranges to cornydogs and swimming pigs. Many of these topics are well represented in the writing and research sections of his collection.[18]
The Ground Work
Secrets to his success? In a room full of veterans of the Austin/Texas Music industry, the answers are as varied as the personalities in the room. One word answers range from hard work, talent, and pure luck to sense of humor, good memory and Joe Who? (Just joking, though - there is a smart alec in every crowd). Ultimately, there is much be said for being at the right place at the right time in the history of the Texas music.[19]
Taxi driving aside, a Cliff Notes- version of Patoski’s multifaceted career includes promoter/publicist; newspaper writer, feature writer and editor, freelancer, and biographer.
Texas music writing has developed, transformed, and changed dramatically in the forty years since Patoski began his storied career. While some might argue that Patoski is an “untrained” journalist, (he started college in political science and drifted toward anthropology), he reads a lot of good columnists and a lot of good sports writers.
“I took a journalism class in high school, and my English teachers encouraged me to keep writing,” he says. “But there was really no one I wanted to be. I wanted to write for the Texas Observer. And I wanted to write about music. I have written about a million things. I’ve done all that, but I think the music press made me.” [20]
It was a niche into which he settled comfortably. Patoski sold his first story for twenty-five dollars, to Buddy magazine, which billed itself as “The Original Texas Music Magazine,” based out of Dallas/Fort Worth. From that first paid story, he took the long way to get to where he is today, with side trips to Minnesota, El Paso, and few cross-country bus trips, and even a couple of rock-star tours of Europe.
“The Austin music thing really started when I was in Minneapolis. I was working at an independent music store called the Electric Fetus.[21] It was a lot like Oat Willies [in Austin]. I was reading Chet Flippo, and what he was saying about Doug Sahm and Soap Creek Saloon, and Austin was happening,” Patoski recalls. “I had done a few pieces for Buddy Magazine, and had even already gotten some hate mail. I sent a review to Creem, and got a letter from Lester Bangs encouraging me to do more, and a thirty dollar check. This is what I wanted to do. He thought I could do it. So I came home to Austin.”[22]
Encouragement from Lester Bangs was high praise for this Fort Worth kid. A legendary American music journalist, Bangs was the editor of Creem at that time, but he also wrote for Penthouse, Playboy, The Village Voice. Music genealogists reading this will remember that Bangs was fired from Rolling Stone, by another music journalism giant, Jann Wenner, after a negative review of Canned Heat. [23]
“One of the first things I did when I came to Austin and started writing in the ‘70s, was work out a deal so I could get into Soap Creek [Saloon] free,” Patoski admits with a laugh. The Majeskis, who owned Soap Creek hired him to write about Clifton Chenier. He liked the media pass, and started writing about music for the Daily Texan. “But that didn’t last long. Most of my early writing there was for pearl, a monthly magazine supplement to the Daily Texan,” he recalls. [24]
pearl magazine was named after Janis Joplin, and the feature style of writing focused on Texas culture and music, which was a good place for Patoski to hone his writing skills and develop a style that would work well for him for the next forty years.
“I went on a Texas brewery tour –Pearl, Lone Star and Shiner, and that was back in the day when you didn’t just get a token and a cup of beer to taste. They would let you sit around the breweries and do nothing but drink all day if you wanted to,” he says. He learned how to write about everything, and even what appeared to be nothing at all. “I learned to write publicity and reviews. I even did one review on ‘Albums to Sniff Glue By’ It was the 1970s, you know.”[25]
Patoski clearly recalls those not-so-romantic salad days of his writing career. “I drove cabs, I worked at Discount Records, a really bad chain record store out of San Antonio. It was so uncool after being in a so cool, real record store in Minneapolis. But pearl became a pretty good soapbox. Enough so that one night at about two in the morning at Soap Creek, after listening to Doug [Sahm], I was drunk on my ass and high as a kite, and I met Richard West, from Texas Monthly. He had read me in pearl, and asked me to write for him.” [26]
West, one of the first writers for Texas Monthly, created the popular Bum Steers awards, the Best and Worst Legislators lists, and set style and standards that continue in the magazine today. He was a good mentor for Patoski.
Another of Patoski’s writing mentors was Chet Flippo. Chet was writing for the Statesman, writing about Doug Sahm and Soap Creek, and things that were starting to happen in Austin. “He left sometime after I got to Austin, to open the New York office of Rolling Stone. Austin was still pretty wild. I happened to be at the Opry House when Tim O’Conner pulled out a gun, and pointed it at Leon Russell, and Ray Benson almost got winged. That got me my first byline in Rolling Stone.”[27]
He recalls, “My first interview with Willie [Nelson] was in Zoo World magazine, in 1973. I do a lot of talks, and tell people that after writing about Willie and many others, I can safely say that no single public person living in the twentieth century defines Texas or Texans better than Willie Hugh Nelson.”[28]
Music was happening. And Patoski had a seat on the bus. “For Zoo World, I went on the road with Barry White to write about his Christmas message to the word. It was all about love. Zoo World put Barry on the cover dressed as Santa. We were getting all these freebees from Barry’s people, and they were all L.A. mob,” he remembers.
In those early days, it was all about being in the right place and having the inside track, Patoski admits. “The first night Freddy Fender came to Soap Creek, and Doug brought in those West Side guys. They were the coolest cats. I was writing about Augie [Meyers], and Freddy [Fender] was breaking out, and I was getting these Rolling Stone bylines because I had the inside track.”[29]
Patoski had found himself in the loop. Willie Nelson’s 1975 concept album, “Red-Headed Stranger” debuted at a drive-in theatre in Houston. No one knows that this innovative concept album is about to break out, but Patoski is there. He says, “These people in New York were saying, ‘What the fuck is going on in Texas?’”[30]
Patoski wasn’t always on the front lines. “I didn’t go to Willie’s Picnic till 1974, in College Station,” he admits, missing the precursor, 1972 Dripping Springs Reunion, and the first Picnic in 1973.[31]
In 1974, he started as a semi-regular, defacto, rock critic for Rolling Stone, paid by the story, and generally writing outside the ordinary opinion. “I didn’t love ZZ Top – I had a permanent dislike for [Texas music promoter] Bill Hamm. I tried to prove I was tough.”[32]
Beyond the toughness, a major factor in his success could have been that Patoski was not stuck in one genre. Learning the family trees and genealogy of uniquely Texas musical sounds, and chronicling music from all corners of the state, Patoski found himself writing about conjunto, the Jimenez family, and accordion shootouts at the Rockin M, a popular conjunto dance hall between Austin and Lockhart.
“Knowledge of Spanish and an understanding of the culture were missing when conjunto first entered the ears of a bored North Texas teenager aimlessly flipping around the radio dial forty years ago,” Patoski writes. He says that he didn't have a clue what the vocalists were saying, but couldn’t help but get hooked on the passionate lyrics and vocals, and solid beat, and “amazingly tight” ensemble. [33]
“As I was sitting, listening, watching, drinking, and dancing among four generations of families, conjunto revealed itself as a community glue that held together people who were Mexican in heritage, Texan in outlook, and wholly original. Nowhere but Texas. This was authentic folk music—one of the last places left in America where real folks were making real music, performing in front of folks just like themselves.”[34]
Patoski’s fascination for conjunto music, introduced in part by his friend, San Antonio native Doug Sahm, and the knowledge base he developed about the genre is yet another illustration of what makes Joe Nick Patoski a definitive music biographer. His friendships with these roots musicians, along with his passion for this musical style and its offspring, tejano music, would lead to an in-depth, unauthorized biography of one of tejano’s greatest stars, Selena.
But that story will have to come later. “Along about the mid-1970s, Esquire asked me to be a rock music critic for them. I remember that they asked me to write about Emmylou Harris. I had seen her, I liked her, but there wasn’t much to say about her. But I wrote about her – and a lot of other people. It was a good time for music writing, and I was in a good place. I was cherry picking.” [35]
Patoski spent most of the 1970s cherry picking through the Austin music scene, going to cojunto and zydeco dances around the state, from San Antonio to Port Arthur, and even heading down to clubs in ten acre fields in Louisiana, developing a broad, baseline understanding, and amassing an extensive contact list of the who’s who of Texas music.
He attributes some of his insatiable curiosity about music in all forms to his longtime Fort Worth friend, Mike Buck, who Patoski describes as “the keeper of all things hip” turned him on to the black blues clubs of Cowtown. “Mike expanded my horizons and my curiosity, and without curiosity, this is nothing,” Patoski says. [36]
Another Cowtown transplant, Buck came to Austin as the drummer for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Today, Buck and his wife, Eve Monsees, along with Forrest Coppock, co-own the historic Antone’s Records in Austin.[37] And according to Patoski, his lifelong friend, “Mike knows that what is ‘hep’ is different from what is ‘hip.’” [38]
Buck kicks back in Antone’s Records and remembers, “I met Nick in 1970 or 1971. I ran this little record store, Syble’s Golden Oldies, in South Fort Worth, and was playing with Robert Ealey and the Five Careless Lovers. Robert had been around since the 1950s, playing that chitlin’ circuit with Frankie Lee Sims, U. P. Wilson, the Boogie Chillun Boys. Robert played drums and U.P played guitar. Robert was the real deal. He was a great drummer. He’d play that crazy jungle beat. We learned a lot from him. We were this crazy mixed race band playing the blues. Sometimes Nick would play harmonica with us. Sometimes he’d just come along. One night, we’d play rock and roll at the black clubs, like Mable’s Eat Shop or Chicken In The Basket, or Helen’s Sugar Hill, those little ghetto joints on the south side [of Fort Worth] one night. Then we’d play country in those rough clubs on Exchange Avenue up on the north side of Fort Worth the next night. And the Bluebird, every Monday afternoon. It was a good education for all of us.” [39]
He recalls the late 1970s as the days of Austin blues really taking off, “Nick went to Minneapolis and I lost track of time, but all of a sudden he was back, and we all wound up back together in Austin when I came down to play with the Thunderbirds in about 1977. He was always real supportive. We’d rehearse at his house. He always helped with publicity. We [Fabulous Thunderbirds] played a lot at the Rome Inn. And we were Antone’s house band. We’d back up Clifford [Antone]. And he’d bring in all his blues heroes: Luther Tucker and Jimmy Rogers, Big Walter Horton. And we’d back them up. And then he bring in someone big like Clifton Chenier, and we’d play with them. And Nick was always there, listening, and learning and writing about it.”[40]
Buck nails the secret to Joe Nick Patoski’s success from a unique viewpoint, “To me, first and foremost, Nick’s a music fan and a music lover. And it just shows in his writing. It’s been there all along. He’s very witty and intelligent. Smart and humorous are an unbeatable combination. But his love of music is the driving force behind it all.”[41]
The Archives
As mentioned earlier, in addition to the Joe Nick Patoski Collection, (Collection 029), the Southwestern Writers Collection in the Wittliff Gallery at Texas State University also houses three other repositories of his papers (The Crawford/Patoski Stevie Ray Vaughan Biography Papers; the Patoski Selena: Como La Flor Papers; and the Patoski Willie Nelson: An Epic Life Papers, which contain specific research related materials to the production of the aforementioned books. For this project, Collection 029 is a good place to dig down to the roots of a music writer.
By 1978, Patoski had become a regular fixture on the Texas music scene. Artists knew him. His name was on the guest lists at most of the clubs in Austin, and he was writing regularly for Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly. Patoski had started writing features and music reviews for the Austin American Statesman. This would afford him early freedom to write about Texas culture as well as music and develop a sense of place and pride in all that is Texas. “My first feature story for the Statesman was about D. E. Crumley’s old grocery store and gas station, and I gave it a headline, ‘Objets d’junk decorate store,’ and they went with it,” he recalls.
The Patoski collection, housed in the Southwestern Writers Collection, begins with his first two weeks of Statesman clips, and marks a pivotal time in Texas music history.
The D.E. Crumley feature is published on May 13. In that same issue, Patoski covers a breaking story, “Nelson signs 5 new acts to recording label.” Ray Wylie Hubbard, Steve Fromholz, Don Bowman, Cooder Browne, the Geezinslaws all signed to Willie’s Lone Star label. On May 16, he writes a news story about Sixth Street tenants being “victims of progress,” regarding the new Littlefield parking garage construction project and other downtown revitalization projects. True words speak to the future, as he quotes Jim Casey, one of the developers as saying, “The rent will change. The face of downtown will change.” [42]
On May 17, Patoski covers a Donna Fargo concert, leading the story with, “Norman Vincent Peale’s power of positive thinking pays off as [Fargo] aptly demonstrated to a full house of believers at the Country Dinner Playhouse… Six musicians appropriately competent and anonymous, smiled a lot and seemed happy too. Two backup singers swang in subdued imitation of The Temptations and in keeping the crowd up, up, up, appeared to love every minute of it as well. As did the predominantly middle American sedentary variety of country fan who prefers listening to dancing (and who probably can’t do either very often if Don Williams or Debbie Boone costs $11 at the door, too).”[43]
Patoski’s ear, and the sounds of Austin were changing. The slick Nashville arrangements were swept to the curb by a more ragged, “outlaw” sound that was growing into the progressive country scene. He alludes to that in this early comment about Fargo’s happy concert at the conservative Country Dinner Playhouse, “Fargo matched vegas price with a vegas show that was both smooth and slick. Fargo obliged with the polish that befits a country pop singer who has worked the road for seven years. That kind of consistency though, often replaces emotional spark, which was the one ingredient missing from a happy night.” [44]
True to Patoski’s eclectic taste, the May 25 issue of the Statesman boasts, “New Wave Rockers Put On A Good Show,” reviewed the Elvis Costello, Mink DeVille and Nick Lowe’s Rockpile, which Patoski described as a great show with a sparse but fanatical group of people at the Municipal Audiorium. He describes Elvis Costello as projecting “the aura of a demented high school science teacher taking a pack of juvenile deliquents on a field trip down the low road of life.” [45]
And that same day, the Statesman ran another review of a Ronnie Milsap show held earlier that week, where “the Instamatics outnumbered the Nikons and fans outnumbered the curious as Milsap demonstrated what’s good about Nashville music.”[46]
And the times, they were a’changing. At that time, the Statesman had an old-school, weekly music columnist in Townsend Miller, a part-time volunteer who was a stockbroker by trade. Miller covered mostly country and a little “cosmic cowboy” rock, but tended to stay away from any music that was much more exuberant than twin fiddles.
Music was bringing money to town, not to mention national interest. If Rolling Stone and other national publications were focusing on Austin, Stateman management figured there was something to all this noise. They decided to start investing in people writing predominantly about music. To this point, no one was doing it full time. “I shared a music beat with Patrick Taggart, for a long time, as the first two paid music writers. When I left, I recommended Ed Ward.” [47]
Another legacy of Austin music journalism, Ward spent several years honing his skills at the Statesman, before continuing with an impressive career. He went on to co-author Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll and has contributed to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and countless music magazines. Ward is currently the rock and roll historian on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.[48]
Ward says, “ I had moved to San Francisco, when Jan Wenner expanded the Rolling Stone editorial staff in March of 1970. He didn’t know how to run a magazine. That lasted until October of 1970, when Wenner fired the whole staff – or every one of us who had independent ideas. We were all out on our asses. There were about a million start-up magazines on the West Coast. San Francisco had given birth to the first great new magazine in years, and everyone wanted in on the game. Creem was one of them. I managed to land the title of “West Coast Editor” for a while – which basically just got me into shows out there through the ‘70s. But I hated San Francisco. I finally landed a job. I was working as a secretary at Levi-Strauss. I had been going to Texas a lot. The Commander Cody Band were all friends of mine. Those Asleep at the Wheel guys were, too. I wanted to meet Chet Flippo. He was on top of what was going on. Chet introduced me to Joe Nick, who was the other hot shit music journalist in town, about 1972 or 1973. So we get to be friends, and sometime later, Joe Nick calls and tells me there is an opening at the Statesman. I got the job.”[49]
I ask Ward, sitting in his flat in Montpellier, France, to describe Austin, Texas 1979 to me. A fantastic memory leads to colorful descriptions of all the live music clubs of 30-something years ago, as he recite a who’s who list of live music venues and clubs. What begins as a random list off the top of his head, quickly leads to nearly forgotten overgrown paths back to the 1970s, down in the weeds where both Ward and Patoski spent a lot of time chronicling the transformation of Texas music.
Ward recalls, “Steamboat was mainstream rock and white soul bands, Black Cat - blues, Raul’s, and of course, Antone’s was getting started. Soap Creek kept moving but it was a presence. Split Rail was closed but they opened a folk club at 6th and Guadalupe, the Alamo Hotel – which was only still standing because Sam Houston Johnson was drinking himself to death on the top floor of the Alamo Hotel. When that finally closed, they opened Emma Joe’s. Continental Club was a free for all on South Congress for singer-songwriters, punk and touring bands, and then there was Liberty Lunch and the Austex Lounge, a place for blues bands that couldn’t play anywhere else,” Ward shares, with near-perfect recall.[50]
“When I got there, Progressive Country was over. The people who were going to be stars were stars, and the ones left behind were trying to decide if they ought to just go to Nashville and be country. But music was still happening. When I came to town for the interview, Joe Nick picked me up at the airport and slid a cassette into the deck and said, ‘This is the band my girlfriend is playing keyboards with now – Joe King Carrasco.’ And then he gave me a tape of Standing Waves, and said, ‘This band is real good. You should meet their manager. He’s a real smart kid,’” remembers Ward.[51]
That “smart kid” was Roland Swenson. Ward, a premier story-teller in his own right, continues on that tangent, with a seamless, fascinating tale of music, money and exploitation, kickstarted by a woman who captured the attention of the Austin Chamber of Commerce and city fathers with a master’s thesis about the economic impact of live music in the capital city; how a bunch of friends pulled off the first South By Southwest Music Conference; and how Austin came to be the Live Music Capital of the World.
Patoski was on the front lines of that story, too, but it is a tale we will save for another time.
“…It’s Whore Work”
But speaking of that “smart kid,” Roland Swenson, co-founder and Executive Director of South By Southwest Music and Media Conference, picks up the Patoski story pointing to another facet of his career, “Joe Nick is more than just a critic and observer, he's been an active participant in the Texas music scene, having managed two seminal Texas acts of the modern era. Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns took traditional Texas latin sounds and married them to the energetic new wave scene in a fusion dubbed "Nuevo Wavo." He also managed The True Believers, the first band fronted by Alejandro Escovedo, whose take on big guitar rock sounds predated acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.”[52]
As with much of his career, music management involved a lot of on-the-job training. Patoski says, “When you start being a music writer, you discover that there is not a wall between the subject and the journalist. You get on an industry sweetheart list, and you get in with publicists and promoters, and eventually someone is going to ask you to write their bio or one-sheet. And that is when you step across the line. And you become an advertiser, a spokesperson. Basically, it’s whore work.”[53]
But the 1970s were almost over, and he was looking for adventure. Then, Patoski met Tex-Mex new-wave rocker Joe “King” Carrasco, when he opened a show for Doug Sahm. “I am a culture hopper,” Patoski admits, “an interloper. And Goddamned, why are my buddies in Austin into reggae? This is so much more exotic, and it’s in my own backyard. I’m digging it.” [54]
After three months of listening to Joe “King” Carrasco, Patoski crossed the line. “I said, ‘Hey, let me manage you.’ We went to New York in November of 1979, and by the summer of 1980, we had signed with Stiff Records and were on the European tour. It happened so fast. I was a smart ass and I thought I could do it.”[55]
Swenson recalls the early days of his thirty-year friendship with Patoski, “I first met Joe Nick backstage at the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1980, while he was the music critic for the American Statesman, and the band I managed, the Standing Waves, had just finished opening for John Cale. We chatted for a while, and he included a few sentences about my band in his review of the Cale show. I had no reason to think our lives would become intertwined in many ways over the next 30 years, but they did and he's been a friend and mentor to me ever since.”[56]
“I had gotten involved in the punk rock/new wave scene going on at Raul's Club, where the Standing Waves were among the top drawing acts. Around the same time, I worked with Brad Kiser and Lisa Marshall at a restaurant here in Austin. Lisa's boyfriend was Joe "King" Carrasco, and when he invited Brad Kiser to start a band with him, called The Crowns, they asked me for an opening slot for the Standing Waves. I booked them and then I found out the other member of The Crowns was Kris Cummings, who was Joe Nick's girlfriend. After that, the Standing Waves and Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns became fast friends and played shows together often. Eventually, Joe Nick began to manage the Crowns. With Joe Nick's guidance and connections, JKC and the Crowns became a phenomenon, landed a record deal with Stiff Records in England and began touring the world. Eventually, I ended up working for Joe Nick, holding down his management office in downtown Austin while they were on the road.”[57]
Patoski talks about the change of pace, “I quit writing for five years and went on a five year adventure. My girlfriend, Kris [Cummings] was in the band, and we eloped from the tour in Berlin. She got pregnant in 1985, and we came home.”[58]
He continued the management track for a while longer. “I had the True Believers, and their legacy speaks for itself.”[59] Indeed, the True Believers, Alejandro and Javier Escovedo and Jon Dee Graham, were pioneers of the new wave of punk rock and songwriting that morphed into alternative country. Graham went on to play with James McMurtry, Eliza Gilkyson, Kelly Willis, Patty Griffin, Calvin Russell and more.
Alejandro Escovedo recalls those True Believer years in Austin, “It was this place that was completely open. The community really supported the musicians. It was small enough that you knew everybody there. You could see Townes Van Zandt walking around, or go to some beer garden and hear Billy Joe Shaver, or catch the Vaughan brothers playing every night at some place. Everybody appreciated each different type of genre of music. The punks respected Townes and the Vaughans, and the Vaughans respected everybody else. Musicians sometimes isolate themselves in their respective scenes. So to be in this small town where everybody encouraged each other, there were great shows all the time, it was cheap to live there, the beer was great, the girls were pretty, the weather warm, there was a great swimming hole… It was just like paradise to me. Austin is an oasis in Texas, where all these kids from small farming and ranch towns and West Texas and the Panhandle, and down in the Valley, and East Texas, they all come to Austin because it’s freedom.”[60]
From “Service Writer” to “Senior Editor”
Patoski tells a short version of this transitional time, “Kris got pregnant, and we came home to Austin. I went to Texas Monthly and talked to Greg [Curtis] and said, ‘I need a gig.’ He tried to help me out. He said they were looking for a ‘service writer,’ a best-of, how-to, where-to-go writer. I proposed the “Ten Best Swimming Holes in Texas, and wound up with the “Nastiest Nine Holes in Miniature Golf,” too, and one day I flew out of Austin and landed in Midland and Odessa, and then got on a plane and went to El Paso and played miniature golf all over the state and flew home. Those two stories got me hired [at Texas Monthly] fulltime.”[61]
From 1985 to 2003, at Texas Monthly was a great period in Patoski’s career, taking him down roads that he would travel time and again. During this time, he was also writing for other magazines as mentioned earlier. But he was never more at home than when writing about Texas culture and Texas music.
Among the hundreds of stories he wrote during this period, Patoski talks about some of the stories that have been recurring subjects throughout his career, and grew into best-selling biographies: Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire (with Bill Crawford); Selena: Como la Flor; and Willie Nelson: An Epic Life.
Stevie Ray Vaughan: In August of 1990, when Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash, at the age of 35, he was well on his way to defining New Texas Blues. He was leading the lists of greatest guitar players of all time, and his 1990 In Step album, won six Grammy Awards. He had played Carnegie Hall and opened the baseball season at the Astrodome. He was sober, and at the top of his game.
Patoski talks about the biography he co-wrote with Bill Crawford (a writer and radio producer who also co-authored Border Radio): “I knew Stevie. I had written a lot about him. When Stevie died, Bill Crawford egged me on. I would not have done it if he had not done it. It was an important story, and he kept saying, ‘You know it and I know we can tell it.’ I’d been hanging out at Antone’s a lot and I knew everyone, and we could do it. Bill and I had just done a book proposal on the Bass brothers of Fort Worth, but we quickly learned that friends of rich people don’t want to talk about other rich people, so that died. But Little, Brown thought this Stevie book proposal was a good enough so we started working on it. And then all of a sudden, we find out that Jimmie [Vaughan, Stevie’s brother] has handpicked someone else to write the ‘authorized’ biography. Jimmie wouldn’t cooperate. Lou Ann [Barton], Double Trouble wouldn’t talk to us. A lot of people close to Stevie, and Jimmie, were saying, ‘I can’t talk, but I know you are going to tell a good story.’ So we kept going. We wrote the story we knew. It was published. And it was fair. And looking back, I am glad to have never written an authorized biography. It was a stroke of good fortune. Every other project has been unauthorized too. I think I can write better, and tell a better story, without having to answer to someone that close to the subject.”[62]
Note: The biography of Stevie Ray Vaughan that Jimmie Vaughan had authorized Dan Forte to write has never been published.
Selena: When 23-year old, Grammy Award-winning, Tejano star Selena was shot by her fan club president on the last day of March in 1995, Joe Nick Patoski got the phone call from a reporter friend at the San Antonio Express-News, shortly after lunch. It was the day before April Fool’s and he thought it a joke. His friend, David Bennett, called back a few moments later. “She’s dead. She passed away at 1:05 p.m. at Memorial Medical Center,” Bennett said.[63]
Patoski jumped in the car and drove to Corpus Christi, to the scene of the shooting. Within a month of her death, Patoski had written a broadbased cover story, “The Queen Is Dead,” for Texas Monthly, but it was not the first story he had written about Selena. He had followed her career as the most successful Tejano breakout artist on record. He had talked with Selena and her family on her tour bus only the year before, for a Texas Monthly story. The story of her death and the aftermath filled the pages of Texas Monthly, as fans lined the streets of south Texas, holding vigils and memorial services in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, and Patoski told the story of a family, a community, a culture, mourning the loss of their superstar.
Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, agreed to co-write the biography with Patoski. It started out as a 50/50 partnership, and then he wanted 60% and then 70%, and then he wanted complete control, Patoski recalls. “I couldn’t do that. I was going to write the whole story. Abe was a bully. I got death threats at book signings. They said they would stop me at every turn. He was a megalomaniac. But it was a good learning experience.”[64]
In the authorized vs. unauthorized conversation, Steve Davis says, “This is one of the really fascinating things about Joe Nick’s papers and biographies. Here he was, working on the Selena book. It was going to be authorized, co-written with her dad. Then he and Selena’s father begin arguing about who has the final cut. Joe Nick wouldn’t – couldn’t - let him have the final cut. So Abraham [Quintanilla] says, ‘You cannot talk to any of these people. They won’t talk to you.’ So what does Joe Nick do? You ask a crowd of published writers what we would do. Most of us would be screwed. But that’s what’s so great about Joe Nick. He was so experienced in writing about that subject, so immersed in the culture. He had so many contacts. He worked his ass off, and talked to everyone he knew, and made it work. A lot of great material that didn’t wind up in the book is in the archives. Look at the Laura Canales interview about women artists in a male-dominated world – the rest of that interview is here. People he knew trusted him. They were opening doors for him, which made this a much broader story. And it worked, because Joe Nick didn’t just write. He built relationships with people, and it worked because he worked his ass off.”[65]
Willie Nelson: Patoski leans back and smiles, as he talks about the most recent of the unauthorized biographies, his first major project with a living subject. “I’d been writing about Willie for thirty years. With Willie, I knew him well enough to know that Willie likes to be talked about. And I knew I wasn’t going to ask permission for it to be authorized. But I wanted them to know I was doing it. About six months into it, I talked to his manager, Mark Rothbaum, who told me that Willie needed this. He said, ‘The book [Bud] Shrake did was not enough.’ And sometime after that, I ran into Willie at Saxon Pub, when his daughter, Paula, was playing. I went back to the booth he was sitting in and sat down. I said, ‘Hey, I’ve been obsessing about you for six months.’ He grinned and said, ‘I’m glad it’s you doing the book.’ He was really happy.”[66]
Patoski tells stories about Willie finally seeing the book when it came out. “Rothbaum had told me not to give him the whole book, just a couple of chapters. I don’t think he read the whole thing, but he liked it. Right after it came out, he talked to Bill Mack on “Willie Wednesday” on Sirius XM, and Willie said, “Yeah, there were things in that book that I’d forgotten, and things in there that I wish [Patoski] had forgotten.”[67]
Football: Early on at Texas Monthly, I did profiles of ten high school football coaches, big schools and small schools, geographic and race representation, and I did a pretty good job. It wasn’t just service journalism. It was good.”[68]
That football story grew into his most recent book, Texas High School Football: More Than the Game. Patoski explains, “The last two years I have spent looking at football – sports in general – but football as culture. I used to say, ‘You want to understand Texas? Talk about cattle or horses. Get people from Dalhart and the Great Plains up north and the Rio Grande valley and the Texas tropics, and you can talk horses or cattle.’ But today, that’s old Texas. It doesn’t really exist anymore – mythic Texas. Real Texas? High school football. You want to understand Texas and Texans? Go to a high school football game - six man or 5A; head to surburbia Allen, with a six million dollar stadium, or out in Lohn, L-O-H-N, home of the Eagles, where you’ve got pickups and cars lined up around the field, and when your team scores a touchdown, you honk the horn and flash your lights. That is such an entrée to Texas culture. And it speaks to our competitive nature more so than music.” [69]
In addition to the high school football book published by the University of Texas Press, his most extensive work to date will be released by Little, Brown and Company in October. At eight hundred-plus pages, The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team In America, is described by Patoski as, “this phenemonon that occurred in my lifetime.”
He tells the story of the book better than any book jacket/advance would, “When I was a kid there was no pro football in Texas. When I was nine years old, two teams were started in my market, in Dallas-Fort Worth - The Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Texans. They were started by the sons of two of the richest men on earth, H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison, Sr. It’s a big book, but basically my question is why is the most valuable franchise in American sports in Dallas, Texas? For me, growing up in Fort Worth - it’s like Oakland or Odessa. It’s a second city. No matter what you do, no matter how good something is in Fort Worth, there’s always Dallas. Dallas has always been newer and shinier and has always had this real arrogant attitude that I never could figure out. So what I’ve done is I’ve gotten Little, Brown to pay me money to figure out this lifelong riddle, ‘What’s the dang deal with Dallas?’”[70]
He adds, “There is no better way to understand Dallas than through that football team. These are the stories of Dallas – more so than with Willie – I am trying to tell the history of Dallas through a football franchise. Using the Cowboys as a thread, a prop to talk about the story of Dallas.”[71]
And so, forty some-odd years into a career, Joe Nick Patoski is just hitting his stride. On writing, Patoski doesn’t hold fast to any secrets to success. He whittles the craft down to a sharp pencil and simply asks, “What’s the story? As a writer, the key is to find a witness that will carry me through the period till another witness will pick it up and tell me where it goes next. With Willie, it started with genealogy in Arkansas. I was flattered when I gave the book to Bobbie [Nelson], and Freddie [Fletcher, her son] said, ‘This guy knows more about our family than we do.’”[72]
So, what was the question?
So what of this thing called Texas music? Is it real? Or are we Texas chauvinists who think too highly of our region, and is it simply music made in Texas? Who better than Joe Nick Patoski to offer the definitive answer? After all, he has been writing about the subject for nearly a half century.
Patoski says, “ Texas music is a sense of sound that represents a lot of things. The key to understanding Texas music is to understand a sense of place. Yes, it can be made by outsiders, but you can tell when it isn’t real. That is not to say that a non-native born Texan can’t do it. This state is full of immigrants. They help define Texas music. There is a sound. There is a scattering of radio stations with formats that play what they call Texas music. But, to me, Texas music is more diverse and broader. I think the point with Texas music is to prove how crazy and un-alike we are – and unlike everybody else. It’s tri-ethnic, based on the Big Three heritages: African-, Mexican-, and Anglo-American. Say it’s organic or independent or not made in the traditional business center. It is contrarian and individualistic, and it welds a lot of different things together at odd angles to make a cohesive sound. It’s stealing from the Germans and the Mexicans. A lot of people say it’s crazy. And some people don’t like it. But it works here. And it is always evolving. No state has the kind of region with the distinctive sounds we have in Texas. It’s Texas music.”[73]
In agreement with Gregg Andrews, Patoski looks to the songwriter. He says, “Texas music may be louder and more extreme, but it is definitely based on the singer-songwriter. It all goes back to the campfire. We tell stories real good in Texas, and we always have. We stick out. We talk the way we tell stories, and the way we sing, and the way we set things to music. We are different. And that is the essence of Texas music. It’s telling the story.” [74]
As so describes the essence of a Texas music biographer: it is all about telling the story. With insight, humor, and a true love for the subject matter, Joe Nick Patoski is a storyteller. And, true to his Texas upbringing, he tells stories real good.
[1] Gary Hartman, The History of Texas Music (College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 2008).
[2] Gary Hartman, (founder, Center for Texas Music History) in discussion with author, April 21, 2012
[3] Gregg Andrews, (founder, Center for Texas Music History) personal interview, April 22, 2012
[4] Andrews, interview,
[5] Andrews, interview.
[6] Ed Ward, (music critic, rock historian), email correspondence with author, May 1, 2012.
[7] Jason Mellard, “Home With The Armadillo,” Journal of Texas Music History, Vol. 10 No. 1, (2010), 11.
[8] Eddie Wilson, personal interview with author, April 22, 2012
[9] “Texas Music Office,” accessed April 21, 2012, http://governor.state.tx.us/music/about/texasmusic/
[10] Jesse Sublett, as quoted by Eddie Wilson, in personal interview, April 22, 2012.
[11] Joe Nick Patoski, personal interview, April 13, 2012.
[12] The Southwestern Writers Collection (SWWC) at Texas State University-San Marcos, Joe Nick Patoski Papers, Collection 029.
[13] Steve Davis, personal interview, April 25, 2012
[14] Davis, interview.
[15] Wilson, interview.
[16] Davis, interview.
[17] Southwestern Writers Collection, SWWC No. 029 (Joe Nick Patoski), SWWC No. 049 (JNP Selena) and SWWC No. 028 (Bill Crawford and Joe Nick Patoski: Crossfire).
[18] SWWC, 029.
[19] Note: Informal discussion – Lucky Tomlin Band Show, Jovita’s. Austin, Texas May 2, 2012.
[20] Joe Nick Patoski, lecture, Texas State University, San Marcos, April 14, 2012).
[21] Note: Electric Fetus, http://www.electricfetus.com/Home
[22] Patoski, interview.
[23] Note: Lester Bangs, Main Lines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste, Random House, New York, 2002
[24] Patoski, interview.
[25] Patoski, interview.
[26] Patoski, interview.
[27] Patoski, lecture.
[28] Patoski, lecture.
[29] Patoski,interview.
[30] Patoski, lecture.
[31] Patoski, lecture.
[32] JNP Interview
[33] Joe Nick Patoski, introduction to Conjunto, by John Dyer (Austin, TX University of Texas Press 2005) 7.
[34] Patoski, introduction, 7.
[35] Patoski, interview.
[36] Patoski, interview.
[37] Note: Antone’s Records Shop, 2928 Guadalupe, Austin, Texas 78705, specializes in historic recordings, significant sounds from across the spectrum of genres, as well as books, magazines, DVDs and tshirts.
[38] Patoski, interview.
[39] Mike Buck (co-owner, Antone’s Records Shop) in discussion with author, May 3, 2012
[40] Buck, discussion.
[41] Buck, discussion.
[42] Joe Nick Patoski, “Sixth Street tenants “progress” victims,” Austin American-Statesman, May 16, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[43] Joe Nick Patoski, “Fargo Puts On A Happy Show,” Austin American-Statesman, May 17, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1.
[44] Patoski, “Fargo,”Statesman.
[45]Joe Nick Patoski, “New Wave Rockers,” Austin American-Statesman, May 25, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[46] Joe Nick Patoski, “Milsap show pleasing entertainment blend” Austin American-Statesman, May 25, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[47] Patoski, interview.
[48] Ed Ward bio - http://www.npr.org/people/2101617/ed-ward
[49] Ed Ward, personal interview with author, May 4, 2012
[50] Ward, interview.
[51] Ward, interview.
[52] Roland Swenson, personal interview with author, April 30, 2012.
[53] Patoski, interview.
[54] Patoski, interview.
[55] Patoski, interview.
[56] Swenson, interview.
[57] Swenson, interview.
[58] Patoski, lecture.
[59] Patoski, interview.
[60] Alejandro Escovedo, interview with Lenny Kaye, “Biography:Street Songs of Love” (http://www.alejandroescovedo.com/?page_id=4)
[61] Patoski, interview.
[62] Patoski, lecture.
[63] Patoski, “The Queen Is Dead,” Texas Monthly, May 1995, Southwestern Writers Collection No 49, Box 3, Folder 2
[64] Patoski, interview.
[65] Davis, interview.
[66] Patoski, lecture.
[67] Patoski, interview.
[68] Patoski, lecture.
[69] Patoski, lecture.
[70] Patoski, lecture.
[71] Patoski, lecture.
[72] Patoski, interview.
[73] Patoski, interview.
[74] Patoski, interview.
A
Joe Nick Patoski surely does define Texas Music well. I almost feel as if I should assign these last paragraphs alongside Hartman’s book in the future. There are still questions over how we define the music, of course, but, if there weren’t, we wouldn’t have much of anything to talk about all semester. Your research is impressive and your prose imminently readable. The flow, ease, and humor act as a testament of sorts to your subject himself and make for a compelling account of Patoski’s career and significance in the chronicling of modern Texas culture. If you were to take this further, one suggestion might be to offer a paragraph or two or three throughout of historical context. You have an implicit history here of music criticism from the 60s to the 80s in the interview subjects you’ve chosen and the world of Rolling Stone and Creem in the middle portions of the paper. Were these drawn out a bit more to show how Lester Bangs, for example, revolutionized how we think about writing on popular music (crafting a prose that embodies the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll) or to discuss rock criticism’s relationship to the 60s-70s New Journalism of the Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Hunter Thompson crowd, I think it might better situate Joe Nick not simply as an important Texas or regional writer, but as being a regionally-accented American writer whose style speaks to a broader moment. He may not necessarily see it that way, but the social networks (Bangs-Ward-Flippo-etc.) and publications you outline here help to define his voice just as his Texas setting does. This is just a small suggestion, though. In all, this is a dazzling project, and the interviews you conducted in this short time especially impressive. I’m sure the exercise of writing thirty pages may have seemed like a lot, but, by the end, I would wager that you thought there was much left to be said. I’m looking forward to carrying on this conversation in the fall.
Afterward:
This project hardly does justice to the life-work of Joe Nick Patoski, as it barely scratches
the surface of twentieth century Texas culture and the evolution of Texas music.
Great stories beget more great stories, but time and space are at a premium.
One source would lead to another, and in some cases, people were contacting me,
having heard about the project and wanting to include their “two cents worth,”
about the subject. Invariably, stories of Joe Nick led to stories about Texas music
at the time: the Austin Music Task Force, the early days of South By Southwest,
recording sessions and barbecues, accordion shootouts and after parties,
opening nights and closing time. And before you know it, it’s last call.
No space here to tell about the most difficult story he ever wrote, or his favorite topic.
No time for stories about Texas mountains and the Texas coast.
And no room for that fascination with the JFK and the assassination conspiracy theorists.
But here are a few more words about Patoski, that tell a little more of the story.
The Buzz about Joe Nick
Casey Monahan, the director of the Texas Music Office, says, “Joe Nick Patoski's love of Texas music, his keen eye for the "real" vs. the ersatz, his attention to detail and his ability to convey context, make him the preeminent authority on our state's music. No matter the strain under his microscope, he manages to tell the story behind it while gauging its importance and describing its history. His work is a gift to music lovers, and a textbook for those who seek understanding.”
Nancy Coplin, the music coordinator at Austin Bergstrom International Airport, was the first Chair of the Austin Music Commission, and helped to establish the official slogan for Austin, “Live Music Capital of the World.” The recipient of the Texas Music Association’s “Hardest Working Person in Show Business,” Coplin has a great deal of boots-on-the-ground experience in the industry. She says that a good music critic/biographer must be factual, an insider of sorts and have a good sense of humor. “I have been reading Joe Nick since he was writing for Texas Monthly. The old phrase, ‘he has a way with words,’ really holds true to him. His knowledge and research about his subject matter makes his writing indisputable, and his humor and style are the building blocks of his fan base. I think that the books that he has written, because they were about musicians of national prominence, has brought a lot of interest from outside Texas to the Texas music scene. He has had a very positive impact on the national perception of Texas music.”
Janice Williams has worked in Texas radio for close to thirty years in many formats and with many roles. She was the music director and afternoon drive dj of Austin's KVET when it was the city's number one radio station, and she has been closely tied to the Texas music scene. I hosted over 100 live concert broadcasts and interviewed just about every Texas country musician. In addition to radio, she writes about Texas country music and culture.
Williams says, “Joe Nick’s writing about Texas music in Texas Monthly created an appreciation for Texas music by Texans that may have never even heard the artists play. I would venture to guess that the great majority of Texans have never heard a Selena song, yet because of his writing, they know of her. Her case is unique because of her death, but I believe Joe Nick created a lot of the mystique of the Redneck Rock era with his boots-on-the-ground writing. I expect that fifty years from now his Willie bio will still be the definitive book about Willie Nelson. By then he'll have added final chapters, I expect, and though Willie and Joe Nick will be long gone, the book will still be read.”
Roland Swenson, co-founder and executive director of South By Southwest, has known Patoski professionally and personally since early in both of their careers. He believes the key to Patoski’s success as a music writer is simple, “Joe Nick is an unabashed music fan, and his writing about music grew out of his love for Texas artists, which developed while he was a teenager growing up in Ft Worth. Acts like Buddy Holly, Roy Head, Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids, the Bobby Fuller Four and, perhaps most importantly, the Sir Douglas Quintet were foundations for his tastes in music. Joe Nick's knowledge and understanding of Texas music is also deeply rooted in his knowledge of the blues, country music, latin music and gospel music artists from around the US who influenced these early Texas rockers.” Unlike some critics, Joe Nick has an inclusive stance toward Texas music. While some critics pride themselves on being purists who want to define what is and what isn't ‘Texas Music,’ Joe Nick has always welcomed innovators. He was one of the first established Texas music critics to embrace the new music coming out of the punk and new wave scenes in Austin and other Texas cities, while many of his contemporaries were quick to dismiss these acts as less than worthy of consideration.”
Steve Davis, Curator, Southwestern Writers Collection, Wittliff Gallery, Texas State University, says, “Joe Nick’s intellectual chops are unparalleled. He is a great interviewer. He draws people out to tell their stories, and has a really compelling style. He writes in the cadences of his native land, and people enjoy reading about it, whether they are from here, or just wish they were. Here [in the Southwestern Writers Collection] there is a certain insular nature with acid free boxes and locked exhibit cases – a museum environment. A whole lot of academic scholars will maintain that their thought process is so complex that it can’t be portrayed in clear language, and I think that is bullshit. Being a good writer is writing to make your ideas understood, to go after ideas, and not just sharing your thoughts with eighteen other scholarly people in your discipline. That is basically nothing more than a circle jerk – and we have a lot of that going on in higher education. But when Joe Nick comes in, it is like a strong dose of reality that comes in. He has a different mindset. He has been out in the real world talking to real people in the sunshine, while we have been in here, under fluorescent lights.”
Diana Finlay Hendricks
How does one become a definitive Texas music biographer? Joe Nick Patoski started his career as a music fan. He has been a radio broadcaster, managed rock bands, written for the Austin American Statesman and Rolling Stone. He rose to a coveted senior editor position at Texas Monthly as Texas music peaked in the late 1980s and 1990s. Connections he made along the way earned him a front row seat and backstage pass to some of the most influential artists in Texas music history.
For this segment of my thesis, I plan to focus on four tracks of Patoski’s career: music promoter, music critic, feature writer and biographer. While his writing career has a much broader span than music, I will narrowly track his career path with an emphasis on his music-related writing career. Through personal interviews, archival research in the Southwestern Writers Collection, a critical study of his biographies of Selena, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Willie Nelson, his Texas Monthly features, and personal correspondence/ telephone conversations, I hope to identify the qualities of a successful music biographer.
This research project will be significant to me as a music historian, writer and photographer, as I seek to learn trade secrets from a master. This project is potentially significant to the Center for Texas Music History and the Southwestern Writers Collection as a study of one of the most prolific contemporary donors to the collection, with primary and secondary source material useful to both programs at Texas State University. And this project should prove to be of both scholarly and popular interest to the Journal of Texas Music History.
Sing Me A Story: The Making of Texas Music Biographer Joe Nick Patoski
The Chicken or the Egg: “Texas Music” or music made in Texas?
To begin this process, I will attempt to define Texas music. Is it a historical sound? Is it a definitive rhythm or style? Is it static or fluid? Through this process, I will also ask Patoski, and others knowledgeable in this field of study, the “chicken and egg” question that we regularly pose in the study of Texas music history. Has Texas music become world renowned because of the volumes of writing devoted to Texas musicians, or have volumes of writing been devoted to Texas music because it is world-renowned? Alternately, is there such thing as "Texas Music," or are we talking about "Music Made In Texas?"
Gary Hartman, Director of the Center for Texas Music History, has written the book on Texas music history, so he was a logical first stop in this study.[1] Hartman believes the "uniqueness" of Texas music is a result of ethnic cross-pollination, geographic diversity, the sheer size and population of Texas, its brief history as an independent nation, and the mythology and mystique that have been promoted by a variety of people inside and outside of Texas over the years.[2]
Gregg Andrews, professor emeritus at Texas State University, and founder of the Center for Texas Music History, speaks to the fluidity of Texas music in his description. "It's important to remember that what we call 'Texas music' is not static. It's dynamic and constantly being reshaped, redefined, and cross-fertilized across ethnic, class, and generational, as well as geographical lines.”[3]
Andrews looks to songwriters as an example of what makes “Texas music,” as opposed to simply music that is made in Texas. He explains, “As a mecca for songwriters looking to draw inspiration from its diverse cultural influences and historic dance halls, honkytonks, and other numerous venues, Texas attracts many from outside its borders who are drawn to the spirit of independence, anti-slickness, and insistence on creative control among musicians. Newcomers in turn are influenced by the music they hear. Soon their own music is reshaped by Texas songwriting traditions and cultural institutions, but the music that emerges is a fusion of elements from within and from outside the state.”[4]
He explains further, “In other words, songwriters who come to Texas are not empty cultural vessels when they arrive. They bring with them certain traditions and influences, which then get added and stirred into the mix of Texas music. For those who then make Texas their home, audiences begin to identify them with what we call 'Texas music,' even though their songs represent a fusion or blending of Texas elements and outside influences.”[5]
Is it Texas music or simply music made in Texas? Ed Ward, co-founder of South By Southwest Music Festival, and rock and roll historian for NPR’s Fresh Air, has written for Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Creem. He coauthored Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll. The former Austin American Statesman and Austin Chronicle music reporter currently lives in Montpellier, France. Geographically and philosophically, he brings a worldly view to the argument when he says, “Ridiculous question! The mix of cultures anywhere gives a regional quality to the popular music which is made there, and Texas is one of the most blatant examples of that. To cite just one example, the mixture of black rhythm and blues, traditional Mexican forms, and rock and roll which emerged from San Antonio's West Side in the '60s couldn't possibly have happened anywhere else. Same for the western swing of Milton Brown and Bob Wills. Same for the mixture of Tex-Mex, country, and rock and roll which produced Buddy Holly.” [6]
How can we pose this question without asking Eddie Wilson for his opinion? In 1970, Austin native and band manager Eddie Wilson leased an old armory building on Barton Springs Road, just south of the river. He named it the Armadillo World Headquarters, and according to a definitive feature article in the Journal of Texas Music History, it would become “the epicenter of Austin’s bourgeoning music scene for most of the 1970s.”[7]
Wilson believes it is Texas music, with a distinct flavor. “Nowhere else has the ethnic musical stew been so blessed with ingredients. I have a large collection of southern cookbooks and in most of them that predate the depression, Vegetable Soup recipes begin with ‘two pounds of beef.’” [8]
Like vegetable soup, Eddie Wilson believes that Texas music derives its unique flavor from that sense of place that tastes like – or sounds like – home.
A litany of similar comments come from other experts from all walks of the Texas music industry. And yes, it is an industry. The Office of the Governor has created the Texas Music Office to serve as the information clearinghouse and promotion office for the Texas music industry. Casey Monahan, Director of the Texas Music Office, directs newcomers to their website, which states, “Trying to define [Texas music] is like reviewing a dictionary. There is way too much detail to try to pin it down. However, this much is clear: Texans have given American music its distinctive voice, and that's no brag, just fact.” [9]
Had these questions been posed to a less biased, more scientific, academic group of individuals, perhaps the results would differ, but a study of one of the most popular Texas culturalists and premier music biographers of all time cannot help but draw the spirit of Texas Chauvinism to the table.
The Making of A Music Biographer
Generations of literary scholars have studied word-for-word, minute details of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in effort to determine why the Prince of Denmark took so long to get his revenge. A less academic examination might reveal that Shakespeare needed to write a long enough play so his audience would get their money’s worth at the Globe Theatre. In that spirit, if this project did not have a suggested twenty-five to thirty page length, Austin musician and author Jesse Sublett could summarize the making of a music biographer and the secret to Joe Nick Patoski’s success in seven words, “He knows everything and says it funny.”[10]
Joe Nick Patoski is almost, but not quite, a native Texan. That may help. His mother was a Greek National and his father was a Lithuanian, first generation American. He tells the story of his earliest memory - moving from his birthplace in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Fort Worth, as a toddler. “I wasn’t quite three when we moved to Fort Worth. My dad picked us up at the airport to take us to our new home. We stopped off on the north side of Fort Worth, and I had my first barbecue meal. My first taste of smoked beef brisket covered in sauce was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was familiar and strange and exotic all at once - a vivid memory of horror and fascination. It had this intense heat, but you wanted more. I’ve been trying to figure out Texas and Texans ever since.”[11]
Patoski’s fascination with Texas led to a career as a writer and consultant in the music business that has spanned almost a half-century, and he is nowhere near slowing down. From his days as a writer for the Daily Texan, the University of Texas at Austin student newspaper, he became a stringer for Rolling Stone and wrote for them from 1974-1980, wrote for the Austin American Statesman, and was a regular feature writer and contributing editor for Texas Monthly for more than a quarter-century. He is currently a freelance writer, with articles published in Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, No Depression, Austin Sun, Austin Chronicle, and Dallas Morning-News, as well as Rolling Stone, Spin, and Country Music Magazine. His work has also appeared in Garden and Gun, Mother Jones, Village Voice, Westways, and Conde Nast Traveler.[12]
Along the way, he has written for many other pop culture, travel and music magazines, driven taxi cabs, managed rock and roll bands, and has become a leading authority on Texas culture, including and beyond music.
Steve Davis, Wittliff Collections Curator for the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos, believes that Patoski is one of Texas’ great natural resources. Davis said, “Joe Nick understands Texas music as well as anybody ever could. A lot of times, people get hooked into particular genres, but he is familiar and comfortable with everything from zydeco to cowboy poetry.” Davis spoke to Patoski’s access to the music, “He’s not someone up in an ivory tower just studying it and talking about it. He is as great of an expert in Texas music as we have in anyone in the world.” [13]
Musicologists may argue that the Manuel Penas and Alan Govenars of the world might be more knowledgeable about specific genres, but, as Davis says, “They are narrow specialists, while Joe Nick hears it all.”[14]
Eddie Wilson says, “Joe Nick has genius level IQ, plus lots of bells and whistles; memory, good ears and good taste, personality and manners that make him stand out from much of the backstage crowd.”[15]
The Southwestern Writers Collection in the Wittliff Gallery at Texas State University-San Marcos houses Joe Nick Patoski’s materials, which Davis says is one of the largest and most diverse collections in the archive. Davis, who began his career in the archive as a graduate research assistant in 1994, says, “Joe Nick began donating before I began working here. And it’s wonderful. As he completes a project, he continues to add to the collection. He gives us everything. I went down to the parking garage to help him bring the Selena papers in. He popped his trunk and it was full of papers and notes and phone numbers, and one of those plastic hot dog baskets from Dairy Queen. Everything that had anything to do with the Selena project had all been piled in there.”[16]
Dairy Queen baskets and all, the Southwestern Writers Collection is a good place to begin to nail down the corners of Patoski’s career. The Southwestern Writers Collection currently holds more than seventy-five boxes and thirty-nine linear feet of cataloged materials donated by Patoski.[17] These numbers do not include his Texas Monthly editorial files (most of which are listed under the Texas Monthly catalog), the Willie Nelson book research materials (which are in the possession of, but have not yet been catalogued by the Southwestern Writers Collection), or current works in progress.
The Southwestern Writers Collection has arranged Patoski’s personal correspondence, clippings, photographs, and artifacts into nine categories: Writing, Correspondence, Promotional Material, Research Material, Artist Development, Personal, Photographic, Ephemera and Printed Material, and Sound Recordings. While Texas and southwestern music is arguably his major area of interest, he has written about topics ranging from miniature golf and mountain ranges to cornydogs and swimming pigs. Many of these topics are well represented in the writing and research sections of his collection.[18]
The Ground Work
Secrets to his success? In a room full of veterans of the Austin/Texas Music industry, the answers are as varied as the personalities in the room. One word answers range from hard work, talent, and pure luck to sense of humor, good memory and Joe Who? (Just joking, though - there is a smart alec in every crowd). Ultimately, there is much be said for being at the right place at the right time in the history of the Texas music.[19]
Taxi driving aside, a Cliff Notes- version of Patoski’s multifaceted career includes promoter/publicist; newspaper writer, feature writer and editor, freelancer, and biographer.
Texas music writing has developed, transformed, and changed dramatically in the forty years since Patoski began his storied career. While some might argue that Patoski is an “untrained” journalist, (he started college in political science and drifted toward anthropology), he reads a lot of good columnists and a lot of good sports writers.
“I took a journalism class in high school, and my English teachers encouraged me to keep writing,” he says. “But there was really no one I wanted to be. I wanted to write for the Texas Observer. And I wanted to write about music. I have written about a million things. I’ve done all that, but I think the music press made me.” [20]
It was a niche into which he settled comfortably. Patoski sold his first story for twenty-five dollars, to Buddy magazine, which billed itself as “The Original Texas Music Magazine,” based out of Dallas/Fort Worth. From that first paid story, he took the long way to get to where he is today, with side trips to Minnesota, El Paso, and few cross-country bus trips, and even a couple of rock-star tours of Europe.
“The Austin music thing really started when I was in Minneapolis. I was working at an independent music store called the Electric Fetus.[21] It was a lot like Oat Willies [in Austin]. I was reading Chet Flippo, and what he was saying about Doug Sahm and Soap Creek Saloon, and Austin was happening,” Patoski recalls. “I had done a few pieces for Buddy Magazine, and had even already gotten some hate mail. I sent a review to Creem, and got a letter from Lester Bangs encouraging me to do more, and a thirty dollar check. This is what I wanted to do. He thought I could do it. So I came home to Austin.”[22]
Encouragement from Lester Bangs was high praise for this Fort Worth kid. A legendary American music journalist, Bangs was the editor of Creem at that time, but he also wrote for Penthouse, Playboy, The Village Voice. Music genealogists reading this will remember that Bangs was fired from Rolling Stone, by another music journalism giant, Jann Wenner, after a negative review of Canned Heat. [23]
“One of the first things I did when I came to Austin and started writing in the ‘70s, was work out a deal so I could get into Soap Creek [Saloon] free,” Patoski admits with a laugh. The Majeskis, who owned Soap Creek hired him to write about Clifton Chenier. He liked the media pass, and started writing about music for the Daily Texan. “But that didn’t last long. Most of my early writing there was for pearl, a monthly magazine supplement to the Daily Texan,” he recalls. [24]
pearl magazine was named after Janis Joplin, and the feature style of writing focused on Texas culture and music, which was a good place for Patoski to hone his writing skills and develop a style that would work well for him for the next forty years.
“I went on a Texas brewery tour –Pearl, Lone Star and Shiner, and that was back in the day when you didn’t just get a token and a cup of beer to taste. They would let you sit around the breweries and do nothing but drink all day if you wanted to,” he says. He learned how to write about everything, and even what appeared to be nothing at all. “I learned to write publicity and reviews. I even did one review on ‘Albums to Sniff Glue By’ It was the 1970s, you know.”[25]
Patoski clearly recalls those not-so-romantic salad days of his writing career. “I drove cabs, I worked at Discount Records, a really bad chain record store out of San Antonio. It was so uncool after being in a so cool, real record store in Minneapolis. But pearl became a pretty good soapbox. Enough so that one night at about two in the morning at Soap Creek, after listening to Doug [Sahm], I was drunk on my ass and high as a kite, and I met Richard West, from Texas Monthly. He had read me in pearl, and asked me to write for him.” [26]
West, one of the first writers for Texas Monthly, created the popular Bum Steers awards, the Best and Worst Legislators lists, and set style and standards that continue in the magazine today. He was a good mentor for Patoski.
Another of Patoski’s writing mentors was Chet Flippo. Chet was writing for the Statesman, writing about Doug Sahm and Soap Creek, and things that were starting to happen in Austin. “He left sometime after I got to Austin, to open the New York office of Rolling Stone. Austin was still pretty wild. I happened to be at the Opry House when Tim O’Conner pulled out a gun, and pointed it at Leon Russell, and Ray Benson almost got winged. That got me my first byline in Rolling Stone.”[27]
He recalls, “My first interview with Willie [Nelson] was in Zoo World magazine, in 1973. I do a lot of talks, and tell people that after writing about Willie and many others, I can safely say that no single public person living in the twentieth century defines Texas or Texans better than Willie Hugh Nelson.”[28]
Music was happening. And Patoski had a seat on the bus. “For Zoo World, I went on the road with Barry White to write about his Christmas message to the word. It was all about love. Zoo World put Barry on the cover dressed as Santa. We were getting all these freebees from Barry’s people, and they were all L.A. mob,” he remembers.
In those early days, it was all about being in the right place and having the inside track, Patoski admits. “The first night Freddy Fender came to Soap Creek, and Doug brought in those West Side guys. They were the coolest cats. I was writing about Augie [Meyers], and Freddy [Fender] was breaking out, and I was getting these Rolling Stone bylines because I had the inside track.”[29]
Patoski had found himself in the loop. Willie Nelson’s 1975 concept album, “Red-Headed Stranger” debuted at a drive-in theatre in Houston. No one knows that this innovative concept album is about to break out, but Patoski is there. He says, “These people in New York were saying, ‘What the fuck is going on in Texas?’”[30]
Patoski wasn’t always on the front lines. “I didn’t go to Willie’s Picnic till 1974, in College Station,” he admits, missing the precursor, 1972 Dripping Springs Reunion, and the first Picnic in 1973.[31]
In 1974, he started as a semi-regular, defacto, rock critic for Rolling Stone, paid by the story, and generally writing outside the ordinary opinion. “I didn’t love ZZ Top – I had a permanent dislike for [Texas music promoter] Bill Hamm. I tried to prove I was tough.”[32]
Beyond the toughness, a major factor in his success could have been that Patoski was not stuck in one genre. Learning the family trees and genealogy of uniquely Texas musical sounds, and chronicling music from all corners of the state, Patoski found himself writing about conjunto, the Jimenez family, and accordion shootouts at the Rockin M, a popular conjunto dance hall between Austin and Lockhart.
“Knowledge of Spanish and an understanding of the culture were missing when conjunto first entered the ears of a bored North Texas teenager aimlessly flipping around the radio dial forty years ago,” Patoski writes. He says that he didn't have a clue what the vocalists were saying, but couldn’t help but get hooked on the passionate lyrics and vocals, and solid beat, and “amazingly tight” ensemble. [33]
“As I was sitting, listening, watching, drinking, and dancing among four generations of families, conjunto revealed itself as a community glue that held together people who were Mexican in heritage, Texan in outlook, and wholly original. Nowhere but Texas. This was authentic folk music—one of the last places left in America where real folks were making real music, performing in front of folks just like themselves.”[34]
Patoski’s fascination for conjunto music, introduced in part by his friend, San Antonio native Doug Sahm, and the knowledge base he developed about the genre is yet another illustration of what makes Joe Nick Patoski a definitive music biographer. His friendships with these roots musicians, along with his passion for this musical style and its offspring, tejano music, would lead to an in-depth, unauthorized biography of one of tejano’s greatest stars, Selena.
But that story will have to come later. “Along about the mid-1970s, Esquire asked me to be a rock music critic for them. I remember that they asked me to write about Emmylou Harris. I had seen her, I liked her, but there wasn’t much to say about her. But I wrote about her – and a lot of other people. It was a good time for music writing, and I was in a good place. I was cherry picking.” [35]
Patoski spent most of the 1970s cherry picking through the Austin music scene, going to cojunto and zydeco dances around the state, from San Antonio to Port Arthur, and even heading down to clubs in ten acre fields in Louisiana, developing a broad, baseline understanding, and amassing an extensive contact list of the who’s who of Texas music.
He attributes some of his insatiable curiosity about music in all forms to his longtime Fort Worth friend, Mike Buck, who Patoski describes as “the keeper of all things hip” turned him on to the black blues clubs of Cowtown. “Mike expanded my horizons and my curiosity, and without curiosity, this is nothing,” Patoski says. [36]
Another Cowtown transplant, Buck came to Austin as the drummer for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Today, Buck and his wife, Eve Monsees, along with Forrest Coppock, co-own the historic Antone’s Records in Austin.[37] And according to Patoski, his lifelong friend, “Mike knows that what is ‘hep’ is different from what is ‘hip.’” [38]
Buck kicks back in Antone’s Records and remembers, “I met Nick in 1970 or 1971. I ran this little record store, Syble’s Golden Oldies, in South Fort Worth, and was playing with Robert Ealey and the Five Careless Lovers. Robert had been around since the 1950s, playing that chitlin’ circuit with Frankie Lee Sims, U. P. Wilson, the Boogie Chillun Boys. Robert played drums and U.P played guitar. Robert was the real deal. He was a great drummer. He’d play that crazy jungle beat. We learned a lot from him. We were this crazy mixed race band playing the blues. Sometimes Nick would play harmonica with us. Sometimes he’d just come along. One night, we’d play rock and roll at the black clubs, like Mable’s Eat Shop or Chicken In The Basket, or Helen’s Sugar Hill, those little ghetto joints on the south side [of Fort Worth] one night. Then we’d play country in those rough clubs on Exchange Avenue up on the north side of Fort Worth the next night. And the Bluebird, every Monday afternoon. It was a good education for all of us.” [39]
He recalls the late 1970s as the days of Austin blues really taking off, “Nick went to Minneapolis and I lost track of time, but all of a sudden he was back, and we all wound up back together in Austin when I came down to play with the Thunderbirds in about 1977. He was always real supportive. We’d rehearse at his house. He always helped with publicity. We [Fabulous Thunderbirds] played a lot at the Rome Inn. And we were Antone’s house band. We’d back up Clifford [Antone]. And he’d bring in all his blues heroes: Luther Tucker and Jimmy Rogers, Big Walter Horton. And we’d back them up. And then he bring in someone big like Clifton Chenier, and we’d play with them. And Nick was always there, listening, and learning and writing about it.”[40]
Buck nails the secret to Joe Nick Patoski’s success from a unique viewpoint, “To me, first and foremost, Nick’s a music fan and a music lover. And it just shows in his writing. It’s been there all along. He’s very witty and intelligent. Smart and humorous are an unbeatable combination. But his love of music is the driving force behind it all.”[41]
The Archives
As mentioned earlier, in addition to the Joe Nick Patoski Collection, (Collection 029), the Southwestern Writers Collection in the Wittliff Gallery at Texas State University also houses three other repositories of his papers (The Crawford/Patoski Stevie Ray Vaughan Biography Papers; the Patoski Selena: Como La Flor Papers; and the Patoski Willie Nelson: An Epic Life Papers, which contain specific research related materials to the production of the aforementioned books. For this project, Collection 029 is a good place to dig down to the roots of a music writer.
By 1978, Patoski had become a regular fixture on the Texas music scene. Artists knew him. His name was on the guest lists at most of the clubs in Austin, and he was writing regularly for Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly. Patoski had started writing features and music reviews for the Austin American Statesman. This would afford him early freedom to write about Texas culture as well as music and develop a sense of place and pride in all that is Texas. “My first feature story for the Statesman was about D. E. Crumley’s old grocery store and gas station, and I gave it a headline, ‘Objets d’junk decorate store,’ and they went with it,” he recalls.
The Patoski collection, housed in the Southwestern Writers Collection, begins with his first two weeks of Statesman clips, and marks a pivotal time in Texas music history.
The D.E. Crumley feature is published on May 13. In that same issue, Patoski covers a breaking story, “Nelson signs 5 new acts to recording label.” Ray Wylie Hubbard, Steve Fromholz, Don Bowman, Cooder Browne, the Geezinslaws all signed to Willie’s Lone Star label. On May 16, he writes a news story about Sixth Street tenants being “victims of progress,” regarding the new Littlefield parking garage construction project and other downtown revitalization projects. True words speak to the future, as he quotes Jim Casey, one of the developers as saying, “The rent will change. The face of downtown will change.” [42]
On May 17, Patoski covers a Donna Fargo concert, leading the story with, “Norman Vincent Peale’s power of positive thinking pays off as [Fargo] aptly demonstrated to a full house of believers at the Country Dinner Playhouse… Six musicians appropriately competent and anonymous, smiled a lot and seemed happy too. Two backup singers swang in subdued imitation of The Temptations and in keeping the crowd up, up, up, appeared to love every minute of it as well. As did the predominantly middle American sedentary variety of country fan who prefers listening to dancing (and who probably can’t do either very often if Don Williams or Debbie Boone costs $11 at the door, too).”[43]
Patoski’s ear, and the sounds of Austin were changing. The slick Nashville arrangements were swept to the curb by a more ragged, “outlaw” sound that was growing into the progressive country scene. He alludes to that in this early comment about Fargo’s happy concert at the conservative Country Dinner Playhouse, “Fargo matched vegas price with a vegas show that was both smooth and slick. Fargo obliged with the polish that befits a country pop singer who has worked the road for seven years. That kind of consistency though, often replaces emotional spark, which was the one ingredient missing from a happy night.” [44]
True to Patoski’s eclectic taste, the May 25 issue of the Statesman boasts, “New Wave Rockers Put On A Good Show,” reviewed the Elvis Costello, Mink DeVille and Nick Lowe’s Rockpile, which Patoski described as a great show with a sparse but fanatical group of people at the Municipal Audiorium. He describes Elvis Costello as projecting “the aura of a demented high school science teacher taking a pack of juvenile deliquents on a field trip down the low road of life.” [45]
And that same day, the Statesman ran another review of a Ronnie Milsap show held earlier that week, where “the Instamatics outnumbered the Nikons and fans outnumbered the curious as Milsap demonstrated what’s good about Nashville music.”[46]
And the times, they were a’changing. At that time, the Statesman had an old-school, weekly music columnist in Townsend Miller, a part-time volunteer who was a stockbroker by trade. Miller covered mostly country and a little “cosmic cowboy” rock, but tended to stay away from any music that was much more exuberant than twin fiddles.
Music was bringing money to town, not to mention national interest. If Rolling Stone and other national publications were focusing on Austin, Stateman management figured there was something to all this noise. They decided to start investing in people writing predominantly about music. To this point, no one was doing it full time. “I shared a music beat with Patrick Taggart, for a long time, as the first two paid music writers. When I left, I recommended Ed Ward.” [47]
Another legacy of Austin music journalism, Ward spent several years honing his skills at the Statesman, before continuing with an impressive career. He went on to co-author Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll and has contributed to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and countless music magazines. Ward is currently the rock and roll historian on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.[48]
Ward says, “ I had moved to San Francisco, when Jan Wenner expanded the Rolling Stone editorial staff in March of 1970. He didn’t know how to run a magazine. That lasted until October of 1970, when Wenner fired the whole staff – or every one of us who had independent ideas. We were all out on our asses. There were about a million start-up magazines on the West Coast. San Francisco had given birth to the first great new magazine in years, and everyone wanted in on the game. Creem was one of them. I managed to land the title of “West Coast Editor” for a while – which basically just got me into shows out there through the ‘70s. But I hated San Francisco. I finally landed a job. I was working as a secretary at Levi-Strauss. I had been going to Texas a lot. The Commander Cody Band were all friends of mine. Those Asleep at the Wheel guys were, too. I wanted to meet Chet Flippo. He was on top of what was going on. Chet introduced me to Joe Nick, who was the other hot shit music journalist in town, about 1972 or 1973. So we get to be friends, and sometime later, Joe Nick calls and tells me there is an opening at the Statesman. I got the job.”[49]
I ask Ward, sitting in his flat in Montpellier, France, to describe Austin, Texas 1979 to me. A fantastic memory leads to colorful descriptions of all the live music clubs of 30-something years ago, as he recite a who’s who list of live music venues and clubs. What begins as a random list off the top of his head, quickly leads to nearly forgotten overgrown paths back to the 1970s, down in the weeds where both Ward and Patoski spent a lot of time chronicling the transformation of Texas music.
Ward recalls, “Steamboat was mainstream rock and white soul bands, Black Cat - blues, Raul’s, and of course, Antone’s was getting started. Soap Creek kept moving but it was a presence. Split Rail was closed but they opened a folk club at 6th and Guadalupe, the Alamo Hotel – which was only still standing because Sam Houston Johnson was drinking himself to death on the top floor of the Alamo Hotel. When that finally closed, they opened Emma Joe’s. Continental Club was a free for all on South Congress for singer-songwriters, punk and touring bands, and then there was Liberty Lunch and the Austex Lounge, a place for blues bands that couldn’t play anywhere else,” Ward shares, with near-perfect recall.[50]
“When I got there, Progressive Country was over. The people who were going to be stars were stars, and the ones left behind were trying to decide if they ought to just go to Nashville and be country. But music was still happening. When I came to town for the interview, Joe Nick picked me up at the airport and slid a cassette into the deck and said, ‘This is the band my girlfriend is playing keyboards with now – Joe King Carrasco.’ And then he gave me a tape of Standing Waves, and said, ‘This band is real good. You should meet their manager. He’s a real smart kid,’” remembers Ward.[51]
That “smart kid” was Roland Swenson. Ward, a premier story-teller in his own right, continues on that tangent, with a seamless, fascinating tale of music, money and exploitation, kickstarted by a woman who captured the attention of the Austin Chamber of Commerce and city fathers with a master’s thesis about the economic impact of live music in the capital city; how a bunch of friends pulled off the first South By Southwest Music Conference; and how Austin came to be the Live Music Capital of the World.
Patoski was on the front lines of that story, too, but it is a tale we will save for another time.
“…It’s Whore Work”
But speaking of that “smart kid,” Roland Swenson, co-founder and Executive Director of South By Southwest Music and Media Conference, picks up the Patoski story pointing to another facet of his career, “Joe Nick is more than just a critic and observer, he's been an active participant in the Texas music scene, having managed two seminal Texas acts of the modern era. Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns took traditional Texas latin sounds and married them to the energetic new wave scene in a fusion dubbed "Nuevo Wavo." He also managed The True Believers, the first band fronted by Alejandro Escovedo, whose take on big guitar rock sounds predated acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.”[52]
As with much of his career, music management involved a lot of on-the-job training. Patoski says, “When you start being a music writer, you discover that there is not a wall between the subject and the journalist. You get on an industry sweetheart list, and you get in with publicists and promoters, and eventually someone is going to ask you to write their bio or one-sheet. And that is when you step across the line. And you become an advertiser, a spokesperson. Basically, it’s whore work.”[53]
But the 1970s were almost over, and he was looking for adventure. Then, Patoski met Tex-Mex new-wave rocker Joe “King” Carrasco, when he opened a show for Doug Sahm. “I am a culture hopper,” Patoski admits, “an interloper. And Goddamned, why are my buddies in Austin into reggae? This is so much more exotic, and it’s in my own backyard. I’m digging it.” [54]
After three months of listening to Joe “King” Carrasco, Patoski crossed the line. “I said, ‘Hey, let me manage you.’ We went to New York in November of 1979, and by the summer of 1980, we had signed with Stiff Records and were on the European tour. It happened so fast. I was a smart ass and I thought I could do it.”[55]
Swenson recalls the early days of his thirty-year friendship with Patoski, “I first met Joe Nick backstage at the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1980, while he was the music critic for the American Statesman, and the band I managed, the Standing Waves, had just finished opening for John Cale. We chatted for a while, and he included a few sentences about my band in his review of the Cale show. I had no reason to think our lives would become intertwined in many ways over the next 30 years, but they did and he's been a friend and mentor to me ever since.”[56]
“I had gotten involved in the punk rock/new wave scene going on at Raul's Club, where the Standing Waves were among the top drawing acts. Around the same time, I worked with Brad Kiser and Lisa Marshall at a restaurant here in Austin. Lisa's boyfriend was Joe "King" Carrasco, and when he invited Brad Kiser to start a band with him, called The Crowns, they asked me for an opening slot for the Standing Waves. I booked them and then I found out the other member of The Crowns was Kris Cummings, who was Joe Nick's girlfriend. After that, the Standing Waves and Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns became fast friends and played shows together often. Eventually, Joe Nick began to manage the Crowns. With Joe Nick's guidance and connections, JKC and the Crowns became a phenomenon, landed a record deal with Stiff Records in England and began touring the world. Eventually, I ended up working for Joe Nick, holding down his management office in downtown Austin while they were on the road.”[57]
Patoski talks about the change of pace, “I quit writing for five years and went on a five year adventure. My girlfriend, Kris [Cummings] was in the band, and we eloped from the tour in Berlin. She got pregnant in 1985, and we came home.”[58]
He continued the management track for a while longer. “I had the True Believers, and their legacy speaks for itself.”[59] Indeed, the True Believers, Alejandro and Javier Escovedo and Jon Dee Graham, were pioneers of the new wave of punk rock and songwriting that morphed into alternative country. Graham went on to play with James McMurtry, Eliza Gilkyson, Kelly Willis, Patty Griffin, Calvin Russell and more.
Alejandro Escovedo recalls those True Believer years in Austin, “It was this place that was completely open. The community really supported the musicians. It was small enough that you knew everybody there. You could see Townes Van Zandt walking around, or go to some beer garden and hear Billy Joe Shaver, or catch the Vaughan brothers playing every night at some place. Everybody appreciated each different type of genre of music. The punks respected Townes and the Vaughans, and the Vaughans respected everybody else. Musicians sometimes isolate themselves in their respective scenes. So to be in this small town where everybody encouraged each other, there were great shows all the time, it was cheap to live there, the beer was great, the girls were pretty, the weather warm, there was a great swimming hole… It was just like paradise to me. Austin is an oasis in Texas, where all these kids from small farming and ranch towns and West Texas and the Panhandle, and down in the Valley, and East Texas, they all come to Austin because it’s freedom.”[60]
From “Service Writer” to “Senior Editor”
Patoski tells a short version of this transitional time, “Kris got pregnant, and we came home to Austin. I went to Texas Monthly and talked to Greg [Curtis] and said, ‘I need a gig.’ He tried to help me out. He said they were looking for a ‘service writer,’ a best-of, how-to, where-to-go writer. I proposed the “Ten Best Swimming Holes in Texas, and wound up with the “Nastiest Nine Holes in Miniature Golf,” too, and one day I flew out of Austin and landed in Midland and Odessa, and then got on a plane and went to El Paso and played miniature golf all over the state and flew home. Those two stories got me hired [at Texas Monthly] fulltime.”[61]
From 1985 to 2003, at Texas Monthly was a great period in Patoski’s career, taking him down roads that he would travel time and again. During this time, he was also writing for other magazines as mentioned earlier. But he was never more at home than when writing about Texas culture and Texas music.
Among the hundreds of stories he wrote during this period, Patoski talks about some of the stories that have been recurring subjects throughout his career, and grew into best-selling biographies: Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire (with Bill Crawford); Selena: Como la Flor; and Willie Nelson: An Epic Life.
Stevie Ray Vaughan: In August of 1990, when Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash, at the age of 35, he was well on his way to defining New Texas Blues. He was leading the lists of greatest guitar players of all time, and his 1990 In Step album, won six Grammy Awards. He had played Carnegie Hall and opened the baseball season at the Astrodome. He was sober, and at the top of his game.
Patoski talks about the biography he co-wrote with Bill Crawford (a writer and radio producer who also co-authored Border Radio): “I knew Stevie. I had written a lot about him. When Stevie died, Bill Crawford egged me on. I would not have done it if he had not done it. It was an important story, and he kept saying, ‘You know it and I know we can tell it.’ I’d been hanging out at Antone’s a lot and I knew everyone, and we could do it. Bill and I had just done a book proposal on the Bass brothers of Fort Worth, but we quickly learned that friends of rich people don’t want to talk about other rich people, so that died. But Little, Brown thought this Stevie book proposal was a good enough so we started working on it. And then all of a sudden, we find out that Jimmie [Vaughan, Stevie’s brother] has handpicked someone else to write the ‘authorized’ biography. Jimmie wouldn’t cooperate. Lou Ann [Barton], Double Trouble wouldn’t talk to us. A lot of people close to Stevie, and Jimmie, were saying, ‘I can’t talk, but I know you are going to tell a good story.’ So we kept going. We wrote the story we knew. It was published. And it was fair. And looking back, I am glad to have never written an authorized biography. It was a stroke of good fortune. Every other project has been unauthorized too. I think I can write better, and tell a better story, without having to answer to someone that close to the subject.”[62]
Note: The biography of Stevie Ray Vaughan that Jimmie Vaughan had authorized Dan Forte to write has never been published.
Selena: When 23-year old, Grammy Award-winning, Tejano star Selena was shot by her fan club president on the last day of March in 1995, Joe Nick Patoski got the phone call from a reporter friend at the San Antonio Express-News, shortly after lunch. It was the day before April Fool’s and he thought it a joke. His friend, David Bennett, called back a few moments later. “She’s dead. She passed away at 1:05 p.m. at Memorial Medical Center,” Bennett said.[63]
Patoski jumped in the car and drove to Corpus Christi, to the scene of the shooting. Within a month of her death, Patoski had written a broadbased cover story, “The Queen Is Dead,” for Texas Monthly, but it was not the first story he had written about Selena. He had followed her career as the most successful Tejano breakout artist on record. He had talked with Selena and her family on her tour bus only the year before, for a Texas Monthly story. The story of her death and the aftermath filled the pages of Texas Monthly, as fans lined the streets of south Texas, holding vigils and memorial services in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, and Patoski told the story of a family, a community, a culture, mourning the loss of their superstar.
Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, agreed to co-write the biography with Patoski. It started out as a 50/50 partnership, and then he wanted 60% and then 70%, and then he wanted complete control, Patoski recalls. “I couldn’t do that. I was going to write the whole story. Abe was a bully. I got death threats at book signings. They said they would stop me at every turn. He was a megalomaniac. But it was a good learning experience.”[64]
In the authorized vs. unauthorized conversation, Steve Davis says, “This is one of the really fascinating things about Joe Nick’s papers and biographies. Here he was, working on the Selena book. It was going to be authorized, co-written with her dad. Then he and Selena’s father begin arguing about who has the final cut. Joe Nick wouldn’t – couldn’t - let him have the final cut. So Abraham [Quintanilla] says, ‘You cannot talk to any of these people. They won’t talk to you.’ So what does Joe Nick do? You ask a crowd of published writers what we would do. Most of us would be screwed. But that’s what’s so great about Joe Nick. He was so experienced in writing about that subject, so immersed in the culture. He had so many contacts. He worked his ass off, and talked to everyone he knew, and made it work. A lot of great material that didn’t wind up in the book is in the archives. Look at the Laura Canales interview about women artists in a male-dominated world – the rest of that interview is here. People he knew trusted him. They were opening doors for him, which made this a much broader story. And it worked, because Joe Nick didn’t just write. He built relationships with people, and it worked because he worked his ass off.”[65]
Willie Nelson: Patoski leans back and smiles, as he talks about the most recent of the unauthorized biographies, his first major project with a living subject. “I’d been writing about Willie for thirty years. With Willie, I knew him well enough to know that Willie likes to be talked about. And I knew I wasn’t going to ask permission for it to be authorized. But I wanted them to know I was doing it. About six months into it, I talked to his manager, Mark Rothbaum, who told me that Willie needed this. He said, ‘The book [Bud] Shrake did was not enough.’ And sometime after that, I ran into Willie at Saxon Pub, when his daughter, Paula, was playing. I went back to the booth he was sitting in and sat down. I said, ‘Hey, I’ve been obsessing about you for six months.’ He grinned and said, ‘I’m glad it’s you doing the book.’ He was really happy.”[66]
Patoski tells stories about Willie finally seeing the book when it came out. “Rothbaum had told me not to give him the whole book, just a couple of chapters. I don’t think he read the whole thing, but he liked it. Right after it came out, he talked to Bill Mack on “Willie Wednesday” on Sirius XM, and Willie said, “Yeah, there were things in that book that I’d forgotten, and things in there that I wish [Patoski] had forgotten.”[67]
Football: Early on at Texas Monthly, I did profiles of ten high school football coaches, big schools and small schools, geographic and race representation, and I did a pretty good job. It wasn’t just service journalism. It was good.”[68]
That football story grew into his most recent book, Texas High School Football: More Than the Game. Patoski explains, “The last two years I have spent looking at football – sports in general – but football as culture. I used to say, ‘You want to understand Texas? Talk about cattle or horses. Get people from Dalhart and the Great Plains up north and the Rio Grande valley and the Texas tropics, and you can talk horses or cattle.’ But today, that’s old Texas. It doesn’t really exist anymore – mythic Texas. Real Texas? High school football. You want to understand Texas and Texans? Go to a high school football game - six man or 5A; head to surburbia Allen, with a six million dollar stadium, or out in Lohn, L-O-H-N, home of the Eagles, where you’ve got pickups and cars lined up around the field, and when your team scores a touchdown, you honk the horn and flash your lights. That is such an entrée to Texas culture. And it speaks to our competitive nature more so than music.” [69]
In addition to the high school football book published by the University of Texas Press, his most extensive work to date will be released by Little, Brown and Company in October. At eight hundred-plus pages, The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team In America, is described by Patoski as, “this phenemonon that occurred in my lifetime.”
He tells the story of the book better than any book jacket/advance would, “When I was a kid there was no pro football in Texas. When I was nine years old, two teams were started in my market, in Dallas-Fort Worth - The Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Texans. They were started by the sons of two of the richest men on earth, H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison, Sr. It’s a big book, but basically my question is why is the most valuable franchise in American sports in Dallas, Texas? For me, growing up in Fort Worth - it’s like Oakland or Odessa. It’s a second city. No matter what you do, no matter how good something is in Fort Worth, there’s always Dallas. Dallas has always been newer and shinier and has always had this real arrogant attitude that I never could figure out. So what I’ve done is I’ve gotten Little, Brown to pay me money to figure out this lifelong riddle, ‘What’s the dang deal with Dallas?’”[70]
He adds, “There is no better way to understand Dallas than through that football team. These are the stories of Dallas – more so than with Willie – I am trying to tell the history of Dallas through a football franchise. Using the Cowboys as a thread, a prop to talk about the story of Dallas.”[71]
And so, forty some-odd years into a career, Joe Nick Patoski is just hitting his stride. On writing, Patoski doesn’t hold fast to any secrets to success. He whittles the craft down to a sharp pencil and simply asks, “What’s the story? As a writer, the key is to find a witness that will carry me through the period till another witness will pick it up and tell me where it goes next. With Willie, it started with genealogy in Arkansas. I was flattered when I gave the book to Bobbie [Nelson], and Freddie [Fletcher, her son] said, ‘This guy knows more about our family than we do.’”[72]
So, what was the question?
So what of this thing called Texas music? Is it real? Or are we Texas chauvinists who think too highly of our region, and is it simply music made in Texas? Who better than Joe Nick Patoski to offer the definitive answer? After all, he has been writing about the subject for nearly a half century.
Patoski says, “ Texas music is a sense of sound that represents a lot of things. The key to understanding Texas music is to understand a sense of place. Yes, it can be made by outsiders, but you can tell when it isn’t real. That is not to say that a non-native born Texan can’t do it. This state is full of immigrants. They help define Texas music. There is a sound. There is a scattering of radio stations with formats that play what they call Texas music. But, to me, Texas music is more diverse and broader. I think the point with Texas music is to prove how crazy and un-alike we are – and unlike everybody else. It’s tri-ethnic, based on the Big Three heritages: African-, Mexican-, and Anglo-American. Say it’s organic or independent or not made in the traditional business center. It is contrarian and individualistic, and it welds a lot of different things together at odd angles to make a cohesive sound. It’s stealing from the Germans and the Mexicans. A lot of people say it’s crazy. And some people don’t like it. But it works here. And it is always evolving. No state has the kind of region with the distinctive sounds we have in Texas. It’s Texas music.”[73]
In agreement with Gregg Andrews, Patoski looks to the songwriter. He says, “Texas music may be louder and more extreme, but it is definitely based on the singer-songwriter. It all goes back to the campfire. We tell stories real good in Texas, and we always have. We stick out. We talk the way we tell stories, and the way we sing, and the way we set things to music. We are different. And that is the essence of Texas music. It’s telling the story.” [74]
As so describes the essence of a Texas music biographer: it is all about telling the story. With insight, humor, and a true love for the subject matter, Joe Nick Patoski is a storyteller. And, true to his Texas upbringing, he tells stories real good.
[1] Gary Hartman, The History of Texas Music (College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 2008).
[2] Gary Hartman, (founder, Center for Texas Music History) in discussion with author, April 21, 2012
[3] Gregg Andrews, (founder, Center for Texas Music History) personal interview, April 22, 2012
[4] Andrews, interview,
[5] Andrews, interview.
[6] Ed Ward, (music critic, rock historian), email correspondence with author, May 1, 2012.
[7] Jason Mellard, “Home With The Armadillo,” Journal of Texas Music History, Vol. 10 No. 1, (2010), 11.
[8] Eddie Wilson, personal interview with author, April 22, 2012
[9] “Texas Music Office,” accessed April 21, 2012, http://governor.state.tx.us/music/about/texasmusic/
[10] Jesse Sublett, as quoted by Eddie Wilson, in personal interview, April 22, 2012.
[11] Joe Nick Patoski, personal interview, April 13, 2012.
[12] The Southwestern Writers Collection (SWWC) at Texas State University-San Marcos, Joe Nick Patoski Papers, Collection 029.
[13] Steve Davis, personal interview, April 25, 2012
[14] Davis, interview.
[15] Wilson, interview.
[16] Davis, interview.
[17] Southwestern Writers Collection, SWWC No. 029 (Joe Nick Patoski), SWWC No. 049 (JNP Selena) and SWWC No. 028 (Bill Crawford and Joe Nick Patoski: Crossfire).
[18] SWWC, 029.
[19] Note: Informal discussion – Lucky Tomlin Band Show, Jovita’s. Austin, Texas May 2, 2012.
[20] Joe Nick Patoski, lecture, Texas State University, San Marcos, April 14, 2012).
[21] Note: Electric Fetus, http://www.electricfetus.com/Home
[22] Patoski, interview.
[23] Note: Lester Bangs, Main Lines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste, Random House, New York, 2002
[24] Patoski, interview.
[25] Patoski, interview.
[26] Patoski, interview.
[27] Patoski, lecture.
[28] Patoski, lecture.
[29] Patoski,interview.
[30] Patoski, lecture.
[31] Patoski, lecture.
[32] JNP Interview
[33] Joe Nick Patoski, introduction to Conjunto, by John Dyer (Austin, TX University of Texas Press 2005) 7.
[34] Patoski, introduction, 7.
[35] Patoski, interview.
[36] Patoski, interview.
[37] Note: Antone’s Records Shop, 2928 Guadalupe, Austin, Texas 78705, specializes in historic recordings, significant sounds from across the spectrum of genres, as well as books, magazines, DVDs and tshirts.
[38] Patoski, interview.
[39] Mike Buck (co-owner, Antone’s Records Shop) in discussion with author, May 3, 2012
[40] Buck, discussion.
[41] Buck, discussion.
[42] Joe Nick Patoski, “Sixth Street tenants “progress” victims,” Austin American-Statesman, May 16, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[43] Joe Nick Patoski, “Fargo Puts On A Happy Show,” Austin American-Statesman, May 17, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1.
[44] Patoski, “Fargo,”Statesman.
[45]Joe Nick Patoski, “New Wave Rockers,” Austin American-Statesman, May 25, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[46] Joe Nick Patoski, “Milsap show pleasing entertainment blend” Austin American-Statesman, May 25, 1978, Southwestern Writers Collection No 029, Box 1, Folder 1
[47] Patoski, interview.
[48] Ed Ward bio - http://www.npr.org/people/2101617/ed-ward
[49] Ed Ward, personal interview with author, May 4, 2012
[50] Ward, interview.
[51] Ward, interview.
[52] Roland Swenson, personal interview with author, April 30, 2012.
[53] Patoski, interview.
[54] Patoski, interview.
[55] Patoski, interview.
[56] Swenson, interview.
[57] Swenson, interview.
[58] Patoski, lecture.
[59] Patoski, interview.
[60] Alejandro Escovedo, interview with Lenny Kaye, “Biography:Street Songs of Love” (http://www.alejandroescovedo.com/?page_id=4)
[61] Patoski, interview.
[62] Patoski, lecture.
[63] Patoski, “The Queen Is Dead,” Texas Monthly, May 1995, Southwestern Writers Collection No 49, Box 3, Folder 2
[64] Patoski, interview.
[65] Davis, interview.
[66] Patoski, lecture.
[67] Patoski, interview.
[68] Patoski, lecture.
[69] Patoski, lecture.
[70] Patoski, lecture.
[71] Patoski, lecture.
[72] Patoski, interview.
[73] Patoski, interview.
[74] Patoski, interview.
A
Joe Nick Patoski surely does define Texas Music well. I almost feel as if I should assign these last paragraphs alongside Hartman’s book in the future. There are still questions over how we define the music, of course, but, if there weren’t, we wouldn’t have much of anything to talk about all semester. Your research is impressive and your prose imminently readable. The flow, ease, and humor act as a testament of sorts to your subject himself and make for a compelling account of Patoski’s career and significance in the chronicling of modern Texas culture. If you were to take this further, one suggestion might be to offer a paragraph or two or three throughout of historical context. You have an implicit history here of music criticism from the 60s to the 80s in the interview subjects you’ve chosen and the world of Rolling Stone and Creem in the middle portions of the paper. Were these drawn out a bit more to show how Lester Bangs, for example, revolutionized how we think about writing on popular music (crafting a prose that embodies the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll) or to discuss rock criticism’s relationship to the 60s-70s New Journalism of the Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Hunter Thompson crowd, I think it might better situate Joe Nick not simply as an important Texas or regional writer, but as being a regionally-accented American writer whose style speaks to a broader moment. He may not necessarily see it that way, but the social networks (Bangs-Ward-Flippo-etc.) and publications you outline here help to define his voice just as his Texas setting does. This is just a small suggestion, though. In all, this is a dazzling project, and the interviews you conducted in this short time especially impressive. I’m sure the exercise of writing thirty pages may have seemed like a lot, but, by the end, I would wager that you thought there was much left to be said. I’m looking forward to carrying on this conversation in the fall.
Afterward:
This project hardly does justice to the life-work of Joe Nick Patoski, as it barely scratches
the surface of twentieth century Texas culture and the evolution of Texas music.
Great stories beget more great stories, but time and space are at a premium.
One source would lead to another, and in some cases, people were contacting me,
having heard about the project and wanting to include their “two cents worth,”
about the subject. Invariably, stories of Joe Nick led to stories about Texas music
at the time: the Austin Music Task Force, the early days of South By Southwest,
recording sessions and barbecues, accordion shootouts and after parties,
opening nights and closing time. And before you know it, it’s last call.
No space here to tell about the most difficult story he ever wrote, or his favorite topic.
No time for stories about Texas mountains and the Texas coast.
And no room for that fascination with the JFK and the assassination conspiracy theorists.
But here are a few more words about Patoski, that tell a little more of the story.
The Buzz about Joe Nick
Casey Monahan, the director of the Texas Music Office, says, “Joe Nick Patoski's love of Texas music, his keen eye for the "real" vs. the ersatz, his attention to detail and his ability to convey context, make him the preeminent authority on our state's music. No matter the strain under his microscope, he manages to tell the story behind it while gauging its importance and describing its history. His work is a gift to music lovers, and a textbook for those who seek understanding.”
Nancy Coplin, the music coordinator at Austin Bergstrom International Airport, was the first Chair of the Austin Music Commission, and helped to establish the official slogan for Austin, “Live Music Capital of the World.” The recipient of the Texas Music Association’s “Hardest Working Person in Show Business,” Coplin has a great deal of boots-on-the-ground experience in the industry. She says that a good music critic/biographer must be factual, an insider of sorts and have a good sense of humor. “I have been reading Joe Nick since he was writing for Texas Monthly. The old phrase, ‘he has a way with words,’ really holds true to him. His knowledge and research about his subject matter makes his writing indisputable, and his humor and style are the building blocks of his fan base. I think that the books that he has written, because they were about musicians of national prominence, has brought a lot of interest from outside Texas to the Texas music scene. He has had a very positive impact on the national perception of Texas music.”
Janice Williams has worked in Texas radio for close to thirty years in many formats and with many roles. She was the music director and afternoon drive dj of Austin's KVET when it was the city's number one radio station, and she has been closely tied to the Texas music scene. I hosted over 100 live concert broadcasts and interviewed just about every Texas country musician. In addition to radio, she writes about Texas country music and culture.
Williams says, “Joe Nick’s writing about Texas music in Texas Monthly created an appreciation for Texas music by Texans that may have never even heard the artists play. I would venture to guess that the great majority of Texans have never heard a Selena song, yet because of his writing, they know of her. Her case is unique because of her death, but I believe Joe Nick created a lot of the mystique of the Redneck Rock era with his boots-on-the-ground writing. I expect that fifty years from now his Willie bio will still be the definitive book about Willie Nelson. By then he'll have added final chapters, I expect, and though Willie and Joe Nick will be long gone, the book will still be read.”
Roland Swenson, co-founder and executive director of South By Southwest, has known Patoski professionally and personally since early in both of their careers. He believes the key to Patoski’s success as a music writer is simple, “Joe Nick is an unabashed music fan, and his writing about music grew out of his love for Texas artists, which developed while he was a teenager growing up in Ft Worth. Acts like Buddy Holly, Roy Head, Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids, the Bobby Fuller Four and, perhaps most importantly, the Sir Douglas Quintet were foundations for his tastes in music. Joe Nick's knowledge and understanding of Texas music is also deeply rooted in his knowledge of the blues, country music, latin music and gospel music artists from around the US who influenced these early Texas rockers.” Unlike some critics, Joe Nick has an inclusive stance toward Texas music. While some critics pride themselves on being purists who want to define what is and what isn't ‘Texas Music,’ Joe Nick has always welcomed innovators. He was one of the first established Texas music critics to embrace the new music coming out of the punk and new wave scenes in Austin and other Texas cities, while many of his contemporaries were quick to dismiss these acts as less than worthy of consideration.”
Steve Davis, Curator, Southwestern Writers Collection, Wittliff Gallery, Texas State University, says, “Joe Nick’s intellectual chops are unparalleled. He is a great interviewer. He draws people out to tell their stories, and has a really compelling style. He writes in the cadences of his native land, and people enjoy reading about it, whether they are from here, or just wish they were. Here [in the Southwestern Writers Collection] there is a certain insular nature with acid free boxes and locked exhibit cases – a museum environment. A whole lot of academic scholars will maintain that their thought process is so complex that it can’t be portrayed in clear language, and I think that is bullshit. Being a good writer is writing to make your ideas understood, to go after ideas, and not just sharing your thoughts with eighteen other scholarly people in your discipline. That is basically nothing more than a circle jerk – and we have a lot of that going on in higher education. But when Joe Nick comes in, it is like a strong dose of reality that comes in. He has a different mindset. He has been out in the real world talking to real people in the sunshine, while we have been in here, under fluorescent lights.”
For more information about this project, presentations and speaking engagements, please contact Diana Hendricks.
