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Dear Garrison: I wish you

April 26, 2004 |

Dear Garrison:
I wish you would quit enticing our Austin, Texas, performers out of town to perform at the other end of I-35. Leave them in Austin and YOU come back here and do a show. As for your version of "Dixie." It was as heartfelt as the one I used to hear as a kid, under the bed covers, on a crystal set as the radio station in my hometown in East Texas signed off at 10 p.m. in the 1950's.

I only hope my 19-year-old Marine, who listened over and over to my APHC tapes in the car, is able to hear you on AFR at his post in Iraq.

Warmest thanks,
Jim Dougherty

Jim,
The latest bunch was the Flatlanders, originally from Lubbock but they escaped there and found refuge in Austin, and after they sang on the show, I got to sit and have dinner with them in the St. Paul Hotel and listen to Joe Ely and Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore talk about Lubbock and Buddy Holly and the Sixties and Vietnam and their entire lives, and I’m not sure this would’ve happened if we’d been in Austin. These fellows need to get out of Texas in order to talk about Texas, which is true about home states and hometowns in general, and I really loved their company. They’re great musicians and songwriters and gentlemen and they have a gift for friendship. We need them up here.

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