New Series: Dal Segno

Cody Canada & The Departed 2011 at Gruene Hall

I'm starting a new series where I go back to a particular point in the history of us covering and promoting the live music culture of our area. We will re-release ancient (and hopefully improved) content. Music of New Braunfels started in August 2012, but it was born out of my love for music that was instilled in me by a few specific people's love of music.

First of all, my sister always had interesting music around, and she taught me when I was about 8 that I can listen to music at night when I sleep if I keep the volume low enough that it didn't rouse attention from outside my bedroom, so most of my childhood from that point on included some FM radio playing through my sleep cycles. Of course being in the 70's and 80's I would at times wake up in a panic wondering WHAT THE HECK that noise was, only to find out is was some weird, psychadelic keyboard or guitar riff or something. My sister also introduced me to a few 8 tracks. El Loco by ZZ Top and the Xanadu soundtrack among others.

My dad had quite a few records and a few 8 tracks and even some music on reel to reel laying around, so I would listen to his music, including Herb Alpert, Roger Whitaker, Arlo Guthrie and more.

By the time my grandfather retired, his obsession with music such as Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe (among others) had gone into full force, and he would record certain times of day from the radio onto casette tape so he could go back and listen to songs he loved. I would also frequently watch shows like Nashville Now, Crooke and Chase and The Grand Ole Opry on TV with my grandparents. Oh, and Heehaw which I sort of didn't count as a music show at the time, but looking back, DANG it had some great music on it.

In roughly 2009, I began to listen to KNBT, our amazing, local Americana radio station more often, and my love and appreciation for Americana, Texas Country and Red Dirt music got added to my already highly eclectic musical taste. I also began to develop a love and appreciation for our local music scene, espcially live music.

I would occasionally step out to venues like Billy's Ice, Freiheit, Tavern in the Gruene and others to catch people like Allan Goodman, Wes Nickson, Zack Walther, Jason Allen and others, and I also went to several Roots and Branches of Americana live broadcasts back when it was at Tavern in the Gruene. Tavern in the Gruene is now Gruene Homestead Inn which is basically a Bed and Breakfast and bookable event venue (I think) at the edge of Gruene on Gruene Road.

All of that combined made me want to start posting pictures and videos from these events to let more people know about this greats music scene, because I figured if I'd been living in a hole and didn't know about it, so there had to be others who also needed an education.

So anyway, that brings us to today, and I decided I'm going to bring you this new (old) series call Dal Segno (or DS) which in music notation tells you to go back to a symbol or "sign" earlier in the song. We're going back to random points in time and re-releasing "cleaned up" versions of old videos and photos. The first installment will be out soon!