Informed Speculation

Not since the passing of Stevie Ray has Austin, collectively, felt a loss as keenly as that of Clifford Antone.  I posted my thoughts yesterday on the sad news, and I just wanted to bring you some updates: viewing of the body will be tomorrow and Friday at Cook Walden on Lamar, and Antone’s the club remembers Antone, the man, tonight with Stevie Ray’s rhythm section, Double Trouble, the great Charlie Sexton, and Guy Forsyth (and you can bet there will be special guests galore).

June 3rd, a week from Saturday, there will be a public memorial at the Palmer Events Center called “A Celebration of Clifford’s Life” – I take the long delay as a good sign – that means many blues greats from around the world will be making their way to pay tribute to the man who did so much to keep the flame burning.

I close with a reminder of the man and what he meant to the Austin music scene and to blues musicians nationwide:

“We opened July 15, 1975, with Clifton Chenier,” he said not long ago, reciting an oft-repeated history. “The second week we had Sunnyland Slim and Big Walter Horton. Sunnyland became the godfather of the club and got every blues guy in Chicago to call me.

“Then Hubert Sumlin came and lived with us for many years on and off. Sumlin and Luther Tucker taught a lot of Austin’s young musicians about the blues. We had Texas blues artists like Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Copeland, Albert Collins. Acts like Ray Charles, James Brown, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, B.B. King, Sam and Dave. Country acts like George Jones, Willie Nelson and Ray Price.”

When Clifford ran out of marquee names — it seemed he could remember every bill for the past 31 years — he switched gears to talk about the stars-to-be his club helped nurture. About how the Fabulous Thunderbirds became the Antone’s house band. About the night a young Stevie Ray Vaughan cut it up and held his own onstage with the fearsome Albert King. About the time hometown blues belter Lou Ann Barton curled up on Muddy Waters’ lap like a kitten. About the young kids — Eve Monsees, the Keller Brothers, Gary Clark Jr. — who make up Antone’s third generation of home-grown talent.

Although he would have been the first to tell you it’s all about the musicians, the story of Antone’s is the story of Clifford Antone: one man, one joint, one unquenchable passion. Even though the man himself has passed, that passion and its intertwined legacy is still as pure a thing as exists in this dirty old world.