Hilltop Cafe patriarch Johnny Nicholas boasts his own stage, but that didn’t level the pandemic playing field when releasing Mistaken Identity, a leather-warm platter of Southern blues traditionalism. Glowing Nicholas’ primal voice, stripped-n-steely instrumental intimacy, and downhome truth, LPs like this launched the Austin tourism industry.
Austin Chronicle: Where are you sheltering and under what circumstances? Who else is there and how’s that going?
Johnny Nicholas: Been posted up here in Cherry Springs out in the Hill Country north of Fredericksburg. Katie Shore and her husband Mike live out this way as well. Katie and I teamed up back on May 1 when the governor opened things back up. Been playing music [at Hilltop] every weekend since and on Sundays for the gospel brunch show.
As Austin musicians go, and I will always consider myself such, I have been very fortunate in having the opportunity and the venue to do this, and I’m glad I made the choice to do so. This was the most liberating and essential feature for my emotional and physical survival: making a choice on how I wanted to live and conduct myself. Katie and I, and all of the Hilltop family bonded together, worked together, and – with the help of the PPP program – made it through.
“We are collectively working on establishing the Cherry Springs Creative Arts Alliance. Our goal is to protect and preserve, and nurture all aspects of our humanity and the freedoms that enable us to create and nourish an environment and a community where art and creativity can flourish.”
I guess you’d say we consider ourselves to be essential workers in two important ways: we provide nourishment for the body and music for the soul, as well as doing our part to help keep the economy afloat. [Hilltop Cafe] also produces many outside events that provide opportunities for a lot of our musician brothers and sisters to get out and play music for a real audience, and make some $$$.
I’m sorry Gates, Zuckerberg, and the rest of you tech billionaires (or is it now trillionaires?), maybe you can afford to live life virtually hunkered down in your mansions, but it ain’t working for the tribe.
It has been very rewarding to provide music and fellowship to people who are starving for that kind of human and musical connection in the midst of this COVID darkness. We are collectively working on establishing the Cherry Springs Creative Arts Alliance. Our goal is to protect and preserve, and nurture all aspects of our humanity and the freedoms that enable us to create and nourish an environment and a community where art and creativity can flourish.
In that respect, it’s going very well. My mother always said, “Life’s what you make it.”
AC: At what point did C-19 shut down operations for you, and what went down with the ship, so to speak, both personally & professionally?
JN: On March 13, the dominos started to fall as one by one all of my gigs and several tours, including Europe, multiple festival appearances, private events, and regional appearances were all cancelled. At the same time, we had to shut down Hilltop completely. What went down with the ship was all of my income as it has for so many during this difficult time.
AC: As a global culture, people employ music for every purpose imaginable, obviously spanning religion to entertainment and everything in between. What happens to communities like ours when people can no longer access it in person?
“It is as dark and foreboding as anything I’ve ever heard, but also has that devil-may-care, fiddlin’-while-Rome-burns quality that is so essential to survival.”
JN: They shrivel up and die.
AC: Everyone’s had to shift or drastically alter their work situation. What does that look like for you?
JN: See answer to question No. 1.
AC: What’s your soundtrack for the apocalypse and what role does music play for you as a fan and scholar of it in times of hardship?
JN: My soundtrack for the apocalypse is Howlin’ Wolf’s Moanin’ in the Moonlight album on Chess Records. It is as dark and foreboding as anything I’ve ever heard, but also has that devil-may-care, fiddlin’-while-Rome-burns quality that is so essential to survival. As for the second half of this question, see No. 1 above.
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This article appears in The Halloween Issue.