JULIE BURRELL 1964-2006
Local singer Julie Burrell, who won the 1994 Austin Music Award for Best Jazz Artist, passed away last Tuesday. The cause of death was undetermined, but friend Steve Craddock says Burrell, 42, was on an extended Central Texas visit from Southern California to try and recover from two recent bouts of pneumonia. Born in Houston, Burrell attended junior and senior high school in Manor and left home briefly at 17, moving to New York to audit classes at the Julliard School. Burrell studied classical piano, wrote the music for Episcopal hymn “Let Him Reign” at age 12, and later toured with the Stray Cats, Gregg Allman, and Johnny Winter. She ultimately found her true calling as a torch singer. “My brain grew,” she told Austin Blues Monthly in 1995. “I got bored with 12-bar, 1-4-5 progressions and power chords.” After winning another Austin Music Award in 1997, Burrell relocated to Long Beach, where she released the CD Juliejazz in 1998 and later worked with Quincy Jones. “Not only was Julie a beautiful woman with an amazing voice,” says Craddock, “but she also possessed one of the keenest intellects and sharpest wits I ever encountered.”
COUNTRY BITS
Close friends say Don Walser‘s health is fading fast, but the legendary Austin singer is at home, alert, and eager to receive visitors. Contact the family at www.donwalser.com… Congratulations to Waterloo Records owner John Kunz and longtime girlfriend Kathy Marcus, married in a surprise ceremony at the Broken Spoke Sunday, and serenaded by the Joe Ely Band, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Ponty Bone… The hilarious video for Willie Nelson‘s “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other),” featuring Burt Reynolds and a whole lotta line-dancing cowpokes, is available at iTunes… Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis, Billy Joe Shaver, and the Dixie Chicks urge Texas voters to “Save Yourself for Kinky” at www.kinkyfriedman.com/multimedia/_video/kinkytoon_03. One of your final chances to sign Friedman’s ballot petition is today (Thursday) at the Continental Club.This article appears in May 5 • 2006.