By Clay Coppedge
Anybody who walked into a Texas honky tonk or music hall in the '70s probably danced to The Lost Gonzo Band at one time or another, whether they knew it or not. Chances are the Gonzos were backing Michael Murphy or Jerry Jeff Walker or, later in the decade, playing solo acts. But no one in Texas or anywhere else has been hearing much of them lately. Reason? The band broke up in 1979 and only gets together now for truly "special occasions."
One of those special occasions is coming up Sunday, Sept. 6, at the Austin Opry House -- a benefit for the C.E.E., Citizens for Economical Energy. Helping to make it a genuine, good-ole kind of Gonzo evening that everybody will probably want to remember on into the next decade will be long-time Gonzo confederate, Jerry Jeff Walker.
Some otherwise perceptive people seem surprised that Jerry Jeff would be doing a "no-nuke" benefit. They shouldn't be; Walker has a fairly impressive track record in this regard, having played benefits for local organizations as diverse as The Zilker Park Posse and a local health food store.
Bob Livingston who, along with Gary P. Nunn formed the Gonzos way back when, was the one who got Jerry Jeff involved in this project to help round out the "Gonzo reunion" aspect. Because if there's one person who can get behind a special occasion it has to be Jerry Jeff Walker.
"I told him all he had to do was show up, plug in his guitar and play. Jerry Jeff's most always ready to do that," Livingston said. So were Ray Wylie Hubbard and a host of local country, rock, jazz and everything-in-between musicians who will be there.
"Our feeling is: once a Gonzo, always a Gonzo," Livingston said in reference to the long roster of musicians who have played with the band.
Gonzos were found in sometimes curious ways, as in the case of horn player Tomas Ramirez.
"Tomas is sort of a Gonzo by proxy," Livingston said. "He came along when we were recording Collectibles with Jerry Jeff. There was going to be some horns on this album, so we got about eight guys in the studio one evening, horn players. Every one of those guys was hot, too -- the very best horn players in Austin at that time. Tomas was in there with them."
What followed was as much an endurance test as it was a recording session. The Gonzos, Austin's first-string horn players and the irascible Jerry Jeff kicked it off sometime before midnight. They took a couple of short breaks and kept on playing. By 2 o'clock, the smokers had gone home. By 4 a.m., after six hours of almost constant playing, a couple more of the horn players packed up and walked away. By 6 a.m. there was but one horn player left -- you guessed it -- Tomas Ramirez.
Jerry Jeff said Ramirez was the kind of horn player he wanted in his band, as well he should, since Walker is given to telling people who are his seniors, "You may be older than me but I've been up more hours." When it was all over, Jerry Jeff had himself one more fine musician. It may not be the Gil Brandt school of talent recruiting, but it worked.
The symbiosis between Walker and the Gonzos worked well enough to keep them together six years, which may not seem so remarkable until you check the lifespan of other bands playing for a "name" star these days. That this star is a man who claims he is at his creative peak On he is "unconscious on stage" makes the long association nothing short of remarkable.
Late in 1975, the Gonzos split from Jerry Jeff to play and sing their own music. This was nothing new for the band; they had put out two albums before ever hooking up with Walker. Going solo again, they put out two more albums, the best known being Signs of Life, which was listed as Billboard's "Sleeper of the Month" when it was released.
In 1977, right after the Gonzos went out on their own again, friend and mentor John Davis wrote "The Lost Gonzo Band have seen enough broken marriages, broken heads, broke musicians and ego trip brokers to fill up a dozen dance hall juke boxes."
By 1979 they had seen a good deal more. Beset by debt and doubt, the band called it quits. However, the end of the band didn't mean retirement, not to a Gonzo.
Gary P. Nunn has his own band now, the Sons of the Bunkhouse. Paul Pearce, Livingston and John Inmon have been on.a tour of the East Coast with Ray Wylie Hubbard, playing to Yankees gone mad over Texas music.
Sunday night, hometown folks will have a chance to show how much they like good Texas music of all kinds. The $6 admission will go to the C.E.E. Livingston, the most dedicated no-nuke musician around, wants people to know the proximity of the concert to the bond elections is no coincidence.
"Everybody who is playing for this thing really believes in what we're doing. I want people in Austin to realize the terrific chance we have. We can make a strong statement like no town our size has ever made. We won't do away with STNP, but at least Austin will be out of it. If we turn this thing down, people in other parts of the country are going to wonder why the nuke got rejected flat out by our own voters."
For Livingston and the others, that makes the evening even more special. Livingston has thrown himself into this particular benefit with a zeal not usually found in musicians.
"I think we need a 'point man' in the music community who can go to the musicians with an idea and tell them what they want to know about it, somebody to say, 'We'll be here at such and such a time, plug in our guitars, and play.' People are forever coming up to musicians and saying, 'Hey, benefit. Do this, do that' and some of us get jaded towards it. A musician can go to the right people, the people who have to get it together and do it, and say, 'OK, let's do it' and it will get done."
The rest of us can be sure that when the Gonzos, Jerry Jeff, Ray Wylie, et al get it done at the Opry House on Sunday, a lot more than funds will get raised.