Margaret Moser Tribute: Joe Doerr
Pulling out a seat at Austin music’s banquet table
as told to Kevin Curtin, Fri., June 30, 2017
It was 1983 and I was the new kid in town – not really a member of the LeRoi Brothers at that point even though my brother Steve [Doerr] and Mike Buck were campaigning for me to be a permanent member. I wasn't sure I wanted to step into that world at all. Infamously, [guitarist] Don Leady had the same opinion. A lot of people in the scene had the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Margaret actually gave me my first ink as a LeRoi Brother – if not as a working musician.
She took notice of me and wrote something positive about a performance in her "In One Ear" column. Things changed after that. It gave me some credibility and put out some of those fires of skepticism that seemed to be burning all around me. It gave me confidence, really, to forge ahead, not just as Kid LeRoi, but to this day. I really have to credit Margaret with giving me a seat at the banquet table of Austin's music scene.
A few years after I came back from grad school in 2003, my brother asked me to become a permanent member in the LeRoi Brothers. We did a show at the Continental Club and Margaret had again written a review of her night on the town. She mentioned how cool my brother was, how unparalleled his singing was, and talked about the great songs like "Chain of Love." Then she gives me the kind of nod I remember from the early days: "It makes me feel better about feeling old because I remember when Joe Doerr was the young buck in the herd."
She's always had the economy and intuition of a master sonneteer.
