LUCKENBACH, TEXAS – Sometimes we travel writers research a destination too much. Then we get there and find it’s nice. But not as great as we had hoped.
That wasn’t the case on my recent visit to Luckenbach, Texas. Hell, I didn’t know the place was a legend. I don’t have any Willie Nelson records, but I did buy a Waylon Jennings album long ago and I’m a big fan of Dwight Yoakam and cross-over country/rock artists like CCR and Linda Ronstadt. And I love the soothing soulful sound of a slide guitar.
Still, I didn’t quite know what Luckenbach, Texas was until I got there. I knew it had something to do with Waylon and Willie and that they sometimes have live music, but the rest of the story was waiting to be told as far as I was concerned. And tell it they did. I had perhaps an hour or maybe 90 minutes in this small collection of buildings outside Fredericksburg (about an hour north of San Antonio). But I could’ve spent an entire weekend if I’d had a choice.
Luckenbach was built sometime in the 1880’s and was the centre of a community of several hundred folks before it fell on hard times. The story goes that a newspaper ad in 1970 contained the following: “Town – population 3 – for sale.” A fellow named Hondo Crouch (of course), who was a rancher, bought the ranch for $30,000 along with Kathy Morgan and an actor named, wait for it, Guich Koock.
Hayden Whittington and Berta Kendrick at the bar in Luckenbach, Texas. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Three years later one of those magical events happened that transforms the ordinary into something special. Country star Jerry Jeff Walker and his band plugged their instruments and mikes into the electrical sockets of the dance hall and recorded a live album called Viva Terlingua, which became a classic. (I’m listening to the song “Gettin’ By” from the LP as I type this, picking up the pieces wherever they fall.)
The legend grew, so much so that none other than Waylon himself wrote the number one song “Luckenbach, Texas” in 1977. Willie Nelson, who played on the recording, held some of his Fourth of July picnics at Luckenbach in the late 1990s.
Today it’s as much of a shrine to country music fans as Liverpool is to admirers of The Beatles.
“When I came here it was like a pilgrimage, like looking for the holy land,” said Hayden Whittington. “I came here 44 years ago and asked if they needed any yodelling bartenders. They said, ‘No, but you can cut the grass.’”
Whittington, who likes to say he’s employed at Luckenbach but doesn’t actually, you know, work there, loves to have fun with customers who roll through the old post office building, which is also a general store and, in the back, a tiny packed bar that’s covered with country and western bric a brac; rusty license plates, an “I Love NY” pin with a red heart, weathered postcards, fading photos of Waylon and Willie and even a shoulder patch from the Peterborough-Lakefield Ontario police force.
When I come in he’s talking to a couple from Michigan.
“They’ve still got that restraining order out on me in Michigan,” he tells them in a hushed voice.
Later, someone introduces themselves as being from Nevada.
“I can’t go there on account of that restraining order,” he says.
Hey, it’s a good line. I can’t blame him for using it.
Luckenbach, Texas; a joyous, wondrous and slightly goofy spot in central Texas. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Most days, they tell me, there’s a pickers’ circle out beneath a giant live oak tree, with musicians from all over huddling together to make music off the cuff. The day I’m in “town” it’s uncharacteristically cool, so folks are huddled inside in the back bar, standing at the bar next to a very efficient wood stove.
A young man named Brent Ryan is playing a guitar soft and gentle-like. Later, an old-timer who plays a mean and oh-so-soulful harmonica joins in for a brief jam session. At this stage, Rusty the Rooster – apparently not happy with the weather outside – comes in and struts his way across the floor, his steps keeping time to the music. Well, kind of.
Over at the bar I chat with a woman with a cowboy hat festooned with dozens of silver beer tabs and eight rings; one on each finger on both hands.
Hayden Whittington with Rusty the Rooster at Luckenbach, Texas. JIM BYERS PHOTO
There are mines in Arizona with less turquoise than she’s wearing.
“I meet people from all over the world in here,” says Berta Kendrick, whose mother worked at Luckenbach for 33 years. “I don’t have to go any where and I get to learn about the world.”
“A young lady came in today from Rotterdam,” Whittington tells me. “She said she’s been wanting to come here almost her whole life.”
He doesn’t say it, but I sense a smile of pride under that massive sheaf of grey facial hair.
“George Strait started his career here,” he tells me. “Ryan Bingham used to come. But now he’s won an Academy Award and a Grammy I think he’s out of our price range.”
An array of license plates on display in Luckenbach, Texas. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Whittington says the casual jam sessions are a truck load of fun.
“Some of the people who come to play are pretty incredible. Some can’t hardly play at all, but it’s just as much fun.”
My new friend (I think Whittington has this effect on everyone) shows me the dance hall, which is a thing of casual beauty. I wish to hell I was here on a warm Saturday night with some friends, a good band with a fiddle or a mandolin and a metal tub full of Lone Stars.
As I’m getting ready to go, Whittington shows me a little of the general store, including a stuffed critter in a glass case.
“That’s a Himalayan possum,” he tells me.
I raise an eyebrow, waiting for the punch line I know is coming.
“We found him a layin’ in the road.”
With that, I bid Whittington a sad adieu. Or maybe it was “see y’all later.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.visitfredericksburgtx.com/ and also https://www.traveltexas.com/
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