From the mailbag:
As I write this, I’m listening to a CD given to my husband and I in October 2000 by Dan Del Santo. He called it a wedding gift. It’s a homemade CD with his scrawl across it in black ink. His voice is very deep, the music a mellow mix of blues and jazz.
We were hanging out in the Zocalo the first morning we arrived in Oaxaca City, when a lanky, bearded man walked up and asked us where we were from. Upon hearing the answer, he grinned and said, “I used to live in Austin.” He looked, excuse the term, rather devilish. He pulled up a chair and we chatted for awhile. He seemed easy-going, satisfied, and enamoured with his adopted city. Little did we know we were in the presence of an Austin music legend and an outlaw.
Dan just told us he had moved to Oaxaca because he loved it so much. We told him about how much Austin had changed, and he was nostalgic when he said that it could never be the same as when he came here. He talked to us about some things to see outside Oaxaca City, recommended some restaurants, and invited us to come watch him play that night.
We did, and he was good, playing a guitar and singing some blues. I’m not a huge fan of world beat, although I can appreciate the talent that is involved with playing it. Nor am a huge fan of guys who abandon their families, but I gotta say, he seemed like a pretty cool cat. May he rest in peace. — Lara Talkington
This article appears in November 23 • 2001.