ustxtxb_obs_1972_10_20_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

time to serve Him before He comes with flaming fire on Judgement Day.” ** * “Jesus saved me June, 1965 at 3:13 ** * ” ‘Science is the exploring and unfolding Of God’s work,’ someone said. Thank God for His science and His television. It is bringing His message into our homes.” ** * “Do you ever listen to Billy Graham? Doesn’t he kindle any form of Christian love within you?” ** * “It is natural for women to hate God the whole human race was plunged into the valley of sin, death and separation from God by woman.. Hell is jam packed with *God hating women they belong to the devil and they rule over man with the desire to destroy him and win victory over God. Woman is a baby factory for to bring more devil workers into the world.” ** * “You want to see a decent world with people being, nice and good. But who wants to be good for nothing? Not me.” ** * “I’m going to write my Congressman about you.” ** * “Humble yourself before it’s too late and get on the band wagon for God.” ** * “Reading the Bible without Holy Spirit is like trying to read. a sundial by moonlight.” *, * * “Who was this Charles Darwin \(but the Moses and Abraham and Noah and Adam and Eve are pictured as humans, not apes.” ** * “I think you are one of them people that thinks they came from a Tad pole or a Frog Egge.” ** * “Madame Atheist: If you are so damned smart, tell me why the wind blows.” ** ” * “Deep down in your mind somewhere, don’t you ever suspect that God’s lightning will strike your evil person for corrupting us? It will, and God and Jesus won’t even give you the pleasure of a high voltage volt.” ** * “I don’t know why my Lord has spared your life, but someday perhaps we will know.” ** * “I saw you on TV and you acted just like a big pig and very uncouth, I don’t think that you will last long preaching what you think, cause it stinks and that goes for you also. You are a real hog!” 16 The Texas Observer “If you’re going to try to win over people to your way of thinking why not act like a LADY not a SLUT.” ** * “Now hear this, the blood of Jesus is against you, Miss Madeline.” ** * “Why God doesn’t strike you dead is beyond me. If someone doesn’t bomb that By Roger Friedman Nashville The billboards scream the good news like it’s the gospel: “COME TO OPRYLAND USA, the New 30 Million Dollar Home of Country Music.” And the original Grande Ole Opry House is coming down to provide more parking space for the Country Music Wax Museum. The most twisted addition to the Grayline Tours of Nashville is the Music City Auto-Rama, a half-block-long-storefront that prominently displays, the door on the driver’s side hinged open, the interior vacuumed like a Holiday Inn, the baby blue ’51 Cadillac Hank Williams died in. To see it all strung out down Broadway, you are knocked out with an overwhelming sadness. Even though Nashville has always drawn gawkers and has been merchandising dreams forever, people still believe the tired old fan magazine ad, “Come on in, big boy, we’ll send you back to Lubbock a star.” The pick-up-to-Cadillac riff is funky, and it still happens occasionally. There is an element of truth in some up-tempo, well-oiled country imaginations, but the fact of the business is that the authentic country star image, no matter how it’s made up, touched up and repackaged, is getting too disoriented to believe. The price paid for the changing tide of country-western is being rung up on the washed-out pickers, writers, singers who blither from cafe to cafe mumbling endless monologues about pitching this song to Johnny Cash or getting that tape into Webb Pierce’s secretary. Faded, jaded fallin’ cowboy star Pawn shop’s itchin’ for your ol’ guitar Where you goin’ ain’t nobody knows The sequins have fallen from your clothes Roger Friedman is the brother of Kinky, the chief Texas Jewboy \(the number two Roger used to be a juvenile probation officer, but recently he’s been commuting between Rio Duckworth, his family’s ranch near Kerville, and Nashville. blasted atheist library I hope something else happens to it.” * * * “One they sent me a bird wing,” O’Hair told the Observer, laughing dryly, “and I could just see them twisting it off and saying, ‘This won’t hurt you, it’s for Jesus.’ ” And everything’s been Sold American No place to go and Brother, no place to stay, Everyone’s been Sold American Just let that golden Greyhound roll your soul away. from “Sold American” by Kinky Friedman THE NEW York Photographer catches the country boy putting on airs. The Music Row hoomey laughs in his string tie and Tom Jones shirt all the way to the bank. The raw creativity of the old time country music scene is slowly fading, fading, it’s dead. But amidst the suffocating Hollywood morass of Nashville, some creative, independent artists have been able to survive and flourish. So much of the new talent has come from Texas that Nashville locals refer to the present era as the Texas Boom. The Texas-Nashville circuit is nothing new, of course. Many of the greats in the Country Music Hall of Fame Bob Wills, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Tex Ritter, James Dean, Jeanie C. Riley, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson came ready rolled from Texas. The first of the new Texas talent, Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury, arrived in the middle sixties. In the past few months Danny Epps, Benny Whitehead and Jimmy Gilmore and the Texas Flatlanders have released albums. Two of the most recent Texans to find attentive ears in Nashville are Billy Joe . Shaver from Waco and Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys from Kerrville. The fact that Shaver is recording in Nashville shows that the music moguls are still in the market for some good, country tunes.. Friedman’s acceptance shows something very else. Shaver, who played at the first Dripping Springs Reunion, is a quiet but big old Texas boy. His poetry is raw and simple. The pictures he paints are so real and visual they will dance in your brain for a long while. The wagons was a rollin’ with a cobble colored sound when me and little David T for Texas T for Tennessee