Be aware that anyone living within a 100 mile radius of Alpine would be considered a neighbor to its denizens. That would include the citizens of Marfa, Fort Davis, and Marathon. The closeness of the region’s people and the interdependence that result, leave very little room for dissention. Issues of race, political persuasion, and lifestyle choice, dim in the light of appreciating the contributions of other local residents. These are the folks that visitors to this remote area of Texas share “The Viva Big Bend Festival” with.

Eddie Ferranti and Rose, our friends, James and Ellen, and Barbara and I rented an SUV for the 10 hour drive to Alpine on Wednesday so that we could stop and see a few area landmarks and have a day to acclimate to our environment before the festival started. Alpine (at just under 6,000 residents) is the largest of the 4 hosting townships and centrally located to the other three, so we stayed in one of the hotels on the edge of town for very reasonable rates.

Very reasonably priced food was available from several local eateries that, while not gourmet, qualified as comfort food. I suggest leaning toward the beef and grilled vegetables. The Tex-Mex was a little heavier on the chili powder, which is fine with me but sensitive palates should beware. Bar drinks are priced below the prices of the urban establishments and the Typsy Taxi is available on call to take a couple almost any place in town for five bucks.

The festival kicked off in the courtyard of the Holland Hotel in downtown Alpine. It featured Alpine native, Phillip Q. Morrow and the Fort Davis based trio, Border Blues, providing some original music and cover tunes of local color. It didn’t take long to realize our mistake of not packing wide brimmed hats and sunscreen for the outdoor shows. The breezeless courtyard heated up quickly and we retreated to the room.

We decided to spend Thursday night in Marfa, starting with Quiet Company at Padre’s. Quiet Company exhibited an eclectic musicianship with two keyboards, a trombone, and various devices that I’m not all together familiar with in addition to the usual guitars, drums and bass. Unfortunately they chose to squelch the brilliantly written quasi-religious lyrics with instrumental volume, through most of the set. The mix came through well with the song “On Modern Man”, with the lyrics standing slightly above the slide guitar, trombone, keyboards and distant distortion.

West Coasters, Camper Van Beethoven, followed next on the ticket. Band leader, David Lowery, announced that they had just celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band and then started the set with a cover of the 1968 Status Quo hit, “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” The eclectic set ranged from the psychedelic “Too High for the Love In”, to the classically influenced instrumental, “L’Aguardiente”, to the gentle ballad, “All Her Favorite Fruit”, to the punk rocking “Take the Skinheads Bowling”. Jonathan Segel laid down some very cool effects with his electric violin and tweaking the whammy bar on his guitar. The band even performed a regional tribute with the instrumental, “The Poppies of Balmorhea”. The band then left the stage to make way for the Cracker performance.

Cracker is a different David Lowery band made up of the members of CVB, without Greg Lisher and Jonathan Segel, and adding Johnny Hickman for a more rocking presentation. The band started out by covering the Garcia/Hunter song, “Loser” and followed with the country rock, “Mr. Wrong”. Cracker really rocked the stage with the ear plug begging hit, “Low”. They followed that with “Teen Angst”, which featured the line, “Think I’ll drive to a place to be surly”. Inspired by that line, Ellen, Barbara and I decided to join Eddie and the others, who had left earlier to catch Mike Stinson across town at the Lost Horse Saloon.

Mike Stinson’s set had been delayed by the addition of an unscheduled local performer and Stinson, Smith and company were in full swing, honky-tonking this authentic West Texas watering hole. The Lost Horse is long and narrow and the band was playing some Stinson originals for a crowd that included ladies in tight jeans, some grizzly cowboys, pool players, bottle-clanking barkeeps, a few children and one rangy looking dog. The band played a steamy set until the hands on the clock approached midnight.

We loaded our well watered crew back into the SUV for the trip past the Marfa Lights (a local spooky phenomenon) viewing station back to Alpine. We dropped James and Ellen off at the Railroad Blues as we passed through town to catch the last of Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights, before the rest of us headed to the hotel. They reported the next morning that we had missed a high energy rocking show that was specially blessed to have the soulful back-up vocals of Emotion Brown.

Friday we loaded up for the noon show at the Gage Hotel in Marathon (locally pronounced mer-then and not mare-a-thon). We found a shady spot toward the back of the courtyard from which to watch a guitar/ banjo duo called The O’s. They performed original songs including, “Dallas”, “We’ll Go Walking” and “Found the One”, interspersed with a witty banter that brought to mind the guitar/banjo duo in the Geiko commercials. They were followed by Quiet Company doing an acoustic set. The lyrics came through clearer and the instrumental play was just as impressive as the full on electric set from the night before. A few unplugged shows might be good for Quiet Company’s resume. A blustery rainstorm blew in to shut down the venue before Graham Wilkinson and Mike and the Moonpies got to the stage, sending the soundmen to the courtyard with tarps to cover up the equipment. We headed back to Alpine to prepare for the Friday evening shows.

Eddie and Rose were lined up for the VIP event and the Joe Ely show at the Granada Theatre, Friday night. The rest of us went down to Railroad Blues to get good seats for Butch Hancock (the other Flatlander in town this evening) and The Bluebonnets. The first act was to be a showcase of the new label Big Bend Records’ artists. Before they started though, an announcer stated that there had been a big multi-vehicle accident on US67 on the way in to Alpine and that The Bluebonnets had been involved. No further information was available at that time.

The Big Bend showcase started with Emile Millar and a full band that included the expressive Derek Morris on keyboards. Millar is a transplant from Southern California, playing an original offering of folk rock. Breting Engel treated us to some of his original music that brought to mind some of the things that Ryan Bingham has been doing lately. He was followed by the pop rock band, The Reynolds Number.

Butch Hancock came up on the stage and announced that he would be doing the show solo this evening as his wife and son (who was to accompany him) had broken down in Fort Stockton. Hancock performed a bevy of his originals, including “One Road More”, “If You Were a Bluebird”, “Firewater Seeks Its Own Level” and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”. I have never seen a folksinger get the people up to two-step like Butch did that evening, but calling Terlingua home gives Butch a little insight into what a West Texas crowd expects. After Butch’s show we noticed that Derek Morris was setting his keyboards up again, so we deduced that there would be no “Bluebonnets” show on Friday evening and decided to take the drive to Marfa to catch Emily Bell at Padre’s.

When we walked in to Padre’s, the show had already started. Emily was finishing up one of her numbers and announced that John Evans (playing lead guitar in her band) would do one of his tunes, “Polyester”. Emily Bell layered a saucy bluesy style on to the rockabilly leads that flow from John Evans. She danced suggestively in her slinky skin tight dress as she took control of the stage back from Evans, singing “Give Me Your Heart”. Her band took the soft ballads in step with the heavy rocking and the juke-joint blues. I’ve listened to her CD and it doesn’t give justice to an Emily Bell live show.

On the way back from Marfa, we noticed Eddie and Rose standing out in front of Railroad Blues. They regaled on how great the Derailers / Joe Ely show had been and what wonderful hospitality was provided at the VIP happy hour by the Viva Big Bend production team. Eddie will cover his evening in detail under another review.

On Saturday morning, James, Ellen, Barbara and I hopped into the SUV for a trek up to the higher altitudes of Fort Davis. There was a show scheduled in the town’s Memorial Square that was to start off with The Bluebonnets that had missed the Railroad Blues show the evening before. The drive was exceptionally scenic and we had some time to traipse around the old Buffalo Soldier outpost that the town was named for before the show. When the show started it was not The Bluebonnets, but a pleasantly surprising acoustic show by Shelley King and Matt Skinner.

They announced that The Bluebonnets had been in an accident, but that everyone that had been injured had been treated and released from the hospital. The trailer that carried their equipment however had not fared well and the girls were too shaken to perform at this point. Shelley and Matt performed a number of her best known songs, like “Starting to Rain” and “Texas Blue Moon”. Matt Skinner provided a killer guitar solo on “Walk in the Woods”. Memorial Square is an asphalt paved area with very little shade and aluminum picnic tables for seating. It felt like a frying pan, so we shuffled back to Alpine after Shelley and Matt’s show.

The gang got back together again for another music filled night in Marfa. We started the evening out at Planet Marfa with Shelley King and Matt Skinner at a really fantastic courtyard stage. Most of the set was the same as the one that they had played standing in for The Bluebonnets in Fort Davis, but it was good enough to hear twice in one day. “Talking About the Weather” and “I’m Building a Fire” were additions to the set and Matt Skinner played the set out superbly on “It’s the Things You Do”.

Graham Wilkinson was up next, sporting blond dreadlocks and singing in a collection of styles that would make your head spin. His song “Let it Go” featured the line “Laugh until the world makes sense”. That line featured on T-shirts and bumper stickers has brought him more income than all of his musical endeavors put together. A lot of his music falls into a kind of hip-hop/reggae sound, but “The Drinking Song” features his voice sounding a bit like Leon Redbone and he was quite proud of his country presentation of “I Keep Forgetting to Remember”. He ended his set with a country tune that bordered on a Grateful Dead sound, that I believe was called “One More Time”.

Eddie and James walked the two blocks to Padre’s to catch a bit of Patrice Pike’s show before Wild Child came on at Planet Marfa. Unfortunately, by the time that Wild Child took the stage, the audience was too revved up to take in the subtle eclectic fare of this string and vocal based band. They might have fared better earlier in the evening, but the conversations in the club completely overwhelmed the sound that the band was putting out. The ladies and I chose to join Eddie and James at Padre’s. We got there in time to enjoy Patrice’s last few numbers, which included “Babylon” and “Chico.”

Austin based blues vocalist, Nakia, was ending the night’s ticket at Padre’s and we weren’t quite sure what to expect. It turned out to be a soulful blues show with Nakia’s voice hauling it in on “Tell Me Why I Should Care”. Throughout his set he was accompanied by the rocking blues guitar of Eric Jarvis and the extraordinary keyboard skills of Derek Morris. Nakia called up Graham Wilkinson to play harmonica on “Tight”. He was also accompanied by Colin Gilmore on the song that they co-wrote, “Crows in Black”. The set ended up with Nakia doing some low down traditional blues with the band in full support. We drove back to the hotel after the show and slowed down as we passed Railroad Blues to hear Soul Track Mind putting it down and watched listeners dancing out the doors.

On Sunday, most of the out-of-towners headed home. The hotel parking lot was empty after having been full for several days. We laid low most of the day waiting for the last night of shows. Railroad Blues was advertising an unscheduled afternoon show by Mike and the Moonpies.

In spite of the very suspect name of the band, they turned out to be one of the most entertaining groups of the week. Mike’s voice had been strained by several shows during the festival, but they laid it down one more time with some genuine original outlaw country and a list of cover songs that came from Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels, Marshal Tucker, Doctor Hook and Jerry Reed. The band was tight and the pedal steel player could sing like Charlie Daniels and Toy Caldwell better than anyone else that I’ve heard.

They’ll be playing around the Houston area over August and September and I would recommend taking in one of their shows. You should probably bring your own Moonpie as they were not being passed out at the show.

Sunday finished up for us with “Folk Family Reunion” and “Thieving Birds” at Railroad Blues playing the festival out in a loud country rock fashion. The venue was far from crowded and the locals were spinning around the dance floor with some fantastic moves like it was the last dance.

The Viva Big Bend Festival is a celebration that is gaining popularity. This year was comfortable in that the venues were full, but not crowded. The area’s service personnel were pressed by the increase in the number of customers, but not overwhelmed. The remote location has kept some folks from attending, but may not for long.  I can’t count the number of music festivals that I have become a big fanatic for that were eventually commercialized and crowded beyond my tolerance levels. I’m hoping that this one remains a sanctuary for serious music fans and the Big Bend local folk. Have fun ya’ll. We do.