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This year’s SXSW music festival was the 23nd of its kind and my fourth. Being there for the third time in a row really made me feel like coming home again. I made so many friends over the years and was happy to meet practically every one of them again this year. And of course, I made many new friends again, most of them singer-songwriters, the artists I fancy a lot. Talking about their music with artists helps you to understand their songs a whole lot better
This time I started differently from the other years. I flew to Atlanta a full week before the start of SXSW. I stayed with my good friend singer-songwriter Jeff Talmadge (watch for his upcoming new CD, ‘Kind of everything’ later this year – it’s a great CD!!!) and on Saturday drove up to Austin with him. We used two days to cover the 1000 miles and had great fun on the way listening to new CD’s and discussing them.
On the second day of our trip Jeff took me to Holland, Texas, a small (1100 inhabitants) town some 50 miles northeast of Austin. “Because you must be feeling homesick by now’, he told me. Jeff photographed me next to the welcome sign with a clog and the Texas Bluebonnet! Half way down the afternoon we arrived in Austin where the traffic is jammed all over due to both an important basketball tournament and a kite-flying contest.
The weather is nice, of course, we are in Texas! So I have my first Lone Star in the garden of my host Marvin Dykhuis (well known singer-songwriter, sideman (Tish Hinojosa o.a.) and producer) in Southwest Austin. That same evening Marvin has a gig in Jovita’s, playing with Karen Abrahams in a fundraising series of concerts to raise money for the erection of a blog for the (surviving) contributors of the former underground magazine ‘The Rag’ (active in the seventies of the 20th century). My first Austin concerts are by Elisabeth Wills, Karen Abrahams/Marvin Dykhuis/Glen Kawamoto and Barbara K. (K. Happens to be short for Kooyman, a true Dutch name that is hard to pronounce correctly for Americans).
All the shows have wonderful fiddle accompaniment by my favourite fiddler Richard Bowden, a true wizard on his instrument. On Monday I did some shopping day and I took a nap in the warm sun in the afternoon. Tuesday brought a lot of rain, I took the opportunity to pick up my badge. They have a new pick up location, in one of the large halls of the Austin Convention Center. Again I experience the smooth and friendly volunteers of SXSW. The organisation is doing a wonderful job all the way!
At 5pm Becky and I visit Eunice Koontz, Paul Jonker’s host for over 20 years, who is having a tea party to celebrate her 80th birthday. After enjoying some of Eunice’s great cakes we carry on to Threadgill’s Riverside, the restaurant I remember so well from my first visit to Austin in 2001 when I saw the late Don Walser performing there. This Tuesday night Threadgill’s is the domain of the Austin Songwriter’s Group with fine performances by Kim Miller/Marvin Dykhuis/David Carroll (bass), Greg Whitfield, Will Sexton/Stephen Doster/Bill Carter, Lee Duffy/Joe Manuel/Marvin/David and wonderful young Warren Hood (Champ’s son) with Marvin/David and guitarist Willie Pipkin (South Austin Jug Band). It was a great evening in a crowded Threadgill’s and SXSW hadn’t even started yet.
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