Because he died when Erbie Bowser did, the passing of Ural DeWitty, Sr.,
57, on August 13 went unnoticed. Almost. Like Bowser, DeWitty had been a
mainstay in East Austin’s blues pantheon at places like Charlie’s Playhouse. As
drummer for Blues Boy Hubbard & the Jets, the Austin native had an earthy,
soulful beat that was laconic but never missed a note, a style much admired by
drummers like George Rains.
I didn’t know DeWitty, other than having shaken hands with him at a 1987
reunion show, where he played with Hubbard and other Eastside blues bands, so I
have no great insight to the man. But I can tell you what it was like in the
early Seventies to spend the evening at Alexander’s watching Angela and W.C. in
Southern Feeling or Jimmie Vaughan in Storm, then head to Ernie’s Chicken Shack
out on Webberville Road. There, well into the wee, wee hours, the Jets would
crank late-night blues, the kind that led to no good or the parking lot. You
could sneak in a bottle and get after-hours set-ups, which was, of course,
illegal, but no one cared. The Jets played ’til dawn, like some old roadhouse
in a movie, and sometimes hotshot white boys like Stevie Vaughan or Bill
Campbell might be allowed to sit in. And there would be Ural DeWitty, beating a
blue tattoo on skins.
Several years later, as an upstart music writer annoying the established
ones at The Austin Sun, I informed music editor (now Warner Bros.
Records veep) Bill Bentley that I had gone to Ernie’s and had seen the Jets.
Bentley, who then had little use or patience with my unchecked enthusiasm, said
off-handedly, “If you saw the Jets, you saw Ural DeWitty. And if you saw Ural
DeWitty, you saw the blues.”
I’m as proud of having seen Ural DeWitty play as I am of having seenthe
Stones or Muddy Waters. DeWitty left a legacy for Austin music that’s as pure
as its sound. Bentley was right: It was the blues.
– Margaret Moser
This article appears in August 25 • 1995 and August 25 • 1995 (Cover).