HemisFair Arena, San Antonio, May 10, 1970: Five months before his death, Jimi Hendrix reshapes “The Star-Spangled Banner” with limitless imagination and a voluminous Marshall amp stack. Among the minds blown was Watt Casey, scion of North Texas cattlemen who founded Lambshead Ranch in the late 1800s. As dumbstruck by the lack of photographers present as by the music, Casey soon borrowed a Pentax, enrolled in photojournalism at UT, and documented the music he enthusiastically pursued around Austin and the state. Born of loud nights at the Armadillo and nascent Antone’s, clear-eyed Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan images eventually illustrated box sets and museum exhibits. Chasing the Stones and Dylan across Texas, this thin hardback collects the hits, annotated by Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Bentley, with a foreword by Steve Miller.

My Guitar Is a Camera

by Watt M. Casey Jr.
Texas A&M University Press, 144 pp., $35

This article appears in December 15 • 2017.

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Tim Stegall contributed to The Austin Chronicle 1991-1995, and was a staff writer 1995-1997. He returned as a contributor in 2013. He has also freelanced for publications ranging from Flipside to Alternative Press to Guitar World. He plays punk rock guitar and sings in the Hormones.