Steven Fromholz 1945-2014
Onetime Poet Laureate of Texas dies in a hunting accident
By Raoul Hernandez, 12:22PM, Mon. Jan. 20, 2014
Stunned Friday by Larry Monroe’s death – and guitarist Will Indian before that – locals woke today to mourn Steven Fromholz.
According to wire reports, the famed Texas singer-songwriter, 68, was killed Sunday in a hunting accident, when a rifle he was loading into a truck fell out of its case, hit the ground, and discharged – striking him. He died at a nearby hospital in Eldorado.
If Austin’s revered for helping birth the country outlaw movement, it remains equally responsible for an attendant generation of raconteurs like Fromholz, whose craft and catalog might not arrive as celebrated as those of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Townes Van Zandt, but which carved out the compositional mythology of Texas same as Willie Nelson and Billy Joe Shaver.
In 1998, Lyle Lovett paid tribute to that legacy with Step Inside This House, a 2-CD opus celebrating Fromholz, Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Michael Martin Murphey, Willis Alan Ramsey, and more. In our cover story, we interviewed Fromholz and Lovett side by side, while Chronicle Editor Louis Black riffed on Fromholz’s duo Frummox.
Three years later, “Page Two” circled back on Frummox when Andy Langer caught up with the raconteur.
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Kevin Curtin, Jan. 24, 2014
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Steven Fromholz, Frummox, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, Guy Clark, Michael Martin Murphey, Willis Alan Ramsey