Morgan, Butch 2012-11-28
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General Interview Information
Interviewee Name: Butch Morgan
Additional Parties Recorded:
Date: November 28, 2012
Location: Divine, Texas
Interviewer: Andy Wilkinson
Length: 02:36:23
Abstract
History, Town started by man who lived in San Antonio and visited often, He liked the look of the place and so started a town, Life, Moved there in 1962, Lived in Hondo before that and Seguin before that, Father worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone, He was a construction foreman, They would stay in a town until the board was fully hooked up and operator hired, By the time he started school he had lived in 26 different towns, Brother was born when he was 6 years old, He would get a best friend immediately because he knew they would move, He always thought all friendships were temporary, Harder for him to learn it later in life, He is a great story teller because of it, Born 4/2/1947, Born in Beaumont, TX, Once his father was promoted he was located in central office more, In Hondo from 2nd grade until 6th grade, He stayed there until he graduated, He had a brother, His brother was 6 years younger than him and died in a motorcycle accident at 16, He bought an outhouse that had an old school desk in it with his brother’s initials, Learned how to play guitar from listening and repeating, He cannot read music, He learned from listening to people play and repeat, He plays mostly trumpet, Wants to write a song about his brother’s death but isn’t ready, Father keeps everything clean and, Keeps everything and doesn’t throw anything away, He failed the 1st grade, 9th grade and 12th grade, He was 21 when he graduated, He got a GED while he was in the Army, Decided to play in his band one summer instead of summer school, He was told if he didn’t go to summer school he would go to draft, Principle was on the Draft board, He was in a talent show and learned his song in 2 weeks but got second, He was playing one of the harder guitar solos when he learned, Lost to a little girl that twirled baton, Met a drummer soon after that, He had an electric guitar at the time, Luscio Gonzales, Mexican bands would have non ethnic names, Part II, They didn’t have very many black people around at the time, A lot of the bands back then were about showmanship, They had lots of dancers in the band and maybe on one singer, A lot of the Mexicans took advantage of that, A lot of the older generations listened to R&B growing up because that was hip, A lot of the influences were from Chicago and Memphis, He was the only white guy in his band, Randy, One of those people who knows every song by everyone, He had a band called the Illusions, They were together for 3 or 4 years, Started playing his own songs when he played with the Shannon’s, He always thought that you write your own music, He learned that you play songs other people write, They played at the High school prom and dances, Everyone one in the Shannon’s had some sort of connection, The Baptist preacher’s son playing rhythm guitar, The Mayors son playing bass, The town electrician/ photographer son playing drums, The town phone company man was his father, They pretty much got to play whenever and wherever they wanted because of it, They also had the approval of the church because of it, They would close off the street and have a street dance, Mayors son would tell his father and his father would shut it all down, He also learned to listen to a band first before letting them open for you, The Spidells opened for them and blew them out, Their club didn’t last very long, They went into debt pretty quick, Army, The Army cut short his band career, He was stationed in Germany, It was in his record that he could play guitar, A sergeant heard him playing a really liked it, Started to show him special treatment, He got off of work early one day and started playing parties for them, He wasn’t allowed to tell anyone anything and was to play for them every Friday, He also passed the GED because of his guitar playing, He took a three day test in 1 hour, They told him no matter what he put he would pass, This was when he was stationed at Fort Poke, Louisiana, His MOS was fire direction control while in the Army, Everyone put that he should play guitar, When he got to his new place they gave him a whole room to practice, They also gave him new equipment, Told to put a band together, They had a singer in there band that sang like Elvis Presley, Went to basic training in San Antonio and met someone he knew, They had a guitarist, bass player, drummer and singer in their band, Their drummer was a black man with 1 eye, Larry and he first set of orders was to go to Vietnam, 2 days later he was switched to Germany, Larry was switched to Hawaii, Larry was only there for about a week then was stationed in Germany, They were bunk mates, Jeremy and he both had their first kids in Germany, Guard duty was 16 hours on 8 hours off, They would do country songs in country clothes, Then go back out in pop clothes and do pop songs, He was in the Army for 2 years, He got out in 1969, Post Army life, He put a band together, He tried working with his father in law after and he hated it, He worked for a airplane manufacturing company and quit after a few weeks, First band after service was called ox, They had a recording contract, He wanted to stick with country rock, Browder was one of his favorite guitar players, Debbie Hindershot, Dave Knabe, Tommy Conser, They opened for Beautiful day, Jim Perkins played 12 string guitars, Charlie Gorman, Sherry Hoffman, They were a house band, Music took over, They were having battle of the bands with 4 or 5 bands at a time, It was still happening when he got drafted, It stopped in about 1967, They were house band, Everyone liked the downstairs because they could look up the girl’s dresses, They had a lot of people there every night, The theatre didn’t take off well but everyone listened to music, Had lots of things for the battle of the bands there, The place was called The Shaft, Name carved on the wall there, He and Charlie Gorman were both song writers, He played all the covers that he could, Didn’t think about the bigger picture, He went to Kerrville in 2003, In 1979 the band broke up, Tom Wright came on board with is band, Jake Riviero, Went out to California to leave all his troubles behind here, Wrote 14 or 15 songs while he was gone, He recorded all of them when he got back to Austin, He recorded them at Wink Tyler’s studio, The name of his new band was The Blast, They would play for 4 hours at a time during marathon gigs, That’s what they were known for, That’s how he met his wife, They played in Steam Boat Springs, They played mostly in San Antonio, Robert Adams played bass and has since 1980, Steve Go-Go Howell played drums, They added a keyboard player later on, They did 195 original tunes on their own, In 1986 on New Year’s they had a gig booked in which they played 87 songs, He was on meth at the time, Drugs don’t stop what you’re good at naturally, Downward life spiral, After that band broke up he did a lot of soul searching, He was 42 when the band broke up, He knew if he didn’t do something different he would die, He lived off of Woodlawn in a house with no water and electricity, Found a paper that said “Jesus is the answer”, After that he saved it and kept it on his wall, A couple of months later he realized that he needed to get it together, He turned to religion in order to get his life in order, Rudy Hurst, He didn’t have a car or drivers license, He rode a bike, He went to Rudy’s and Rudy challenged him to not say anything for 30 minutes, He couldn’t do it, He realized he hadn’t been alone by himself with nothing to do for forever, A couple of nights later Bill Campbell had a show the Power of Men, It helped him get encouraged, He started sitting in a chair in silence to work on himself, He burned his furniture to stay warm in the winter, He had a dog but it was hard to feed him, Drank down at the local bar for free because he knew the owner, Life, Barbara, Friend got him electricity somehow for free, He was working with a friend making a little of money, He tried to pay some of his electric bill but they wouldn’t accept partial payment, They took him off fully and he wasn’t allowed anymore, Barbara let him use her house to take showers and stay warm, Started dating Barbara after she moved into his house, Her family was Christian and they were extremely nice to him, That upset him, Because Barbara loved him her family did too, They wind up getting married, Her mother gives them $6000 for a wedding present, They go up to Washington D.C. to visit her brother, He stayed with Gary Payton in Nashville, They visited a friend named Walter Bird who lived in Washington D.C., Walt worked late so one day he stayed up late to talk to him, He was confused from what he saw at the Smithsonian, He wanted something to hang his hat on, No way to communicate yet doing the same thing all the way around the world, Something clicked in his head that night, He cried for the first time in his life in front of another man, He felt that he had finally seen the love of god the next morning, It changed him forever, After that everything got better for him, Walter gave him a bible that next morning before they left, It took them 6 weeks to get back home after they left, He realized he couldn’t go back home, On the way back they stopped at Larry’s house, Jerry Wardell, Larry lived in Chesnutt Mountain, He knew that he wanted to live there, They decided to move there so that he could get away from San Antonio, They moved in 1990 within 2 weeks of leaving Nashville, They lived there for 9 years, He discovered himself while he was there as a person, He had no reputation there so he had a clean slate, He met his neighbor Jean Whitaker, A month later he gave him some work painting, He started painting working his own hours making $5 an hour, He worked for him for 4 years, When he was a kid he always wanted to be a sign painter, He started working for Martin Signing Company under Steve Martin, He became a sign painter for 3 years and started off making $9 an hour, He was living in Bloomington Springs at this time, Moved back to Texas after that, When they were first moving there his friend Doug helped him to fix up the house, They lived on a dead end street on a gravel road, Met a person named Bug Rogers, He was a really good guy, His father was famous for moonshine there in Bloomington Springs, Next night they tried it out and forgot the entire night, He woke up without any clothes on in one of the rooms, There were no lights and he couldn’t find Doug, He finally found Doug in a tobacco field sleep, They only drank one shot of it each, He was still writing songs while he was there, Wrote some of his better songs there, Started playing music with a church that he found, 7th day advent church, He was playing at a golf club with Larry Paton and his wife Pam, His mother became ill which is why he came back here, They only meant to stay 5 years and then come back, His parents had a travel trailer and traveled a lot, His mother had ovarian cancer and they got rid of it, It came back 5 years later and it was worse, They came back to Yancy first, He was still playing a lot of music, Father hurt himself after he fell and hit his head, He is no longer able to take care of himself, He was at the National Folk Alliance when his father fell, Stopped playing so much when he was hurt, In 2003 Rachael Bisicks died of breast cancer but she won a new folk Challenge, She came in to do a guest slot one morning and she was impressed, She invited him to play there and he was paid, She introduces him to a lot of people there, They sit there and listen to great music at about 1 or 2 in the morning, It finally comes to his turn and he plays a song in front of them, He really enjoyed it and now he plays at that little festival, Just had an album out produced by Jonathan Bird, He hasn’t written anything in a while, Has a bunch of songs that have never been recorded, He wants to do vinyl, New vinyl is almost as good as CD quality now, He wants to put out a CD and Vinyl combo, Only wants to do about 1000 copies of vinyl, Can’t decide if he wants to do it himself or not
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