Warm Country Heart Theatre in downtown Glen Rose really rocks on the weekends. The band takes popular standards and belts them out as jazzy, foot-tapping numbers. No matter what category the music is pigeonholed into, it is always a pleasure to listen to a group as tight as this one. Their enjoyment of the music is infectious from the first note.
“If you say ‘jazz’ then it turns some people off,” says Jack Greubel, the 70-year-old drummer in the group. “We play a combination of a lot things – classic country, Dixieland, Western swing, slow ballads – we do a little bit of everything.”
The Warm Country Heart Theatre is a jewel among the boarded-up buildings and strip malls of the Paluxy River Valley. Open since the fall of 2004, the theatre turned the upstairs storage room on the historic square of the Somervell County seat into a place where residents and visitors can enjoy an evening of professional entertainment.
For two hours on weekend evenings the band plays the songs they have practiced over long careers. John Walker, most often the frontman, and the youngest member, plays a Floyd Cramer style of piano that combines gospel and New Orleans jazz. D.C. Barlow has blown the sax for nearly three decades from Nashville to Austin to Branson with stops in between. Cecil White plays a smooth Chet Atkins style of guitar that soars with the best. The clown prince of the band, Michael Grace, lays down a solid, Western swing bassline and entertaining banter with the other band members.
“The drummer’s job is to be the glue that holds everybody together,” Greubel says. The 70-year-old Evanston, Ind., native has played the drums since he was 12. For 17 years he worked as a session drummer at Monument Records, where he worked with Roy Orbison, Roger Miller, Ray Stevens, Jim Reeves, and many others. His tenure in Nashville was the result of a friendship and professional relationship with “Yackety Sax” Boots Randolph.
For many years he toured with Randolph and worked in his nightclub in Nashville. When Randolph joined Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer to form the Master’s Festival of Music, Greubel was hired to keep the beat. Two critically acclaimed albums came out of the collaboration.
“Music is a really hard way to go” if you’re trying to make a living from it, Greubel says. “You don’t get off at five o’clock like everybody else. It got to the point where it wasn’t as stable as I wanted my life to be.” He eventually returned to Indiana and worked in a music store until he and his wife retired a few years ago to Granbury to be near his daughter in Dallas. An avid fisherman, Greubel enjoys the North Texas lakes.
Greubel really wasn’t looking to get back into playing professionally – although he does still give private lessons – when a friend invited him to fill in for a drummer at the Stephenville Opry. Greubel met Walker at the show. “He called a month later to ask me to play a concert with him. The next thing you know I was back into it,” Greubel says with a laugh.
While in college in Chicago, Greubel had studied under Roy Knapp, the same teacher who taught Buddy Rich. “Whatever I do, I want to do the best I can,” he says. “But I had to get back into condition to play.” Greubel practices two hours a day, exercises regularly, and maintains a healthy glow that hides his age.
When the band gets in a groove, the music can be as smooth as the buttermilk pie at Two Grannies Cafe down the street from the theatre. “We felt like we had a good combination, so we gave [the band] a try,” Greubel says. “Everybody enjoys it and works together. There are no stars in the band; everybody takes a turn.”
Warm Country Heart Theatre is at the northeast corner of the Glen Rose town square on Barnard Street (FM 144). The music begins at 7:30pm, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and also at 1pm on Saturday. Admission is $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, and $14 for students ages 11 through 18. For information, call 866/240-3053 or go to www.warmcountryhearttheatre.com.
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This article appears in “The AC” Gen Y Magazine Debuts.
