Riffs, Roams and Raves: A Weekly Column

Riff: Dale Watson

When Dale Watson took to the stage at Susanna’s Kitchen last week, he got right down to the business of tickling our funny bones. Armed with sound effects on his phone, a bottle of Lone Star beer, songs from his acoustic album “Starvation Box” released in July, and his million dollar baritone, he had the audience in the palm of his hand by the second song. He joked and mugged, told stories, spread rumors and copped to foibles so earnestly that, to a person, each of us was thoroughly disarmed. All of it provided the burlap to support the songs he sang for us along the way.

One of his complaints was how much he hated change which was echoed in “Whatever happened to the Cadillac?” He recounted with horror renting a new Cadillac only to discover that it had bucket seats, instead of the bench seat in his beloved 1966 Cadillac. He told us how that bench seat repaired relationships headed for the rocks. “When we’d have a fight and things stayed frosty, I’d Armour All that bench seat, get out on the road and make a hard right turn.”

He followed that with “Billy Strawn,” a song that lauded the integrity of Elvis’ mechanic who attained the King’s loyalty by returning a $100 bill left in one of his cars. Years later, it would be Strawn who repaired Watson’s Dial-a-Matic transmission in his ‘57 Edsel that no one else would tackle.

Each story led to another. He talked of the Llano Estacado area of Northern Texas, where he now lives, that is so flat, you can see for a hundred miles. “But stand on a dime, and you can see 200 miles.”

With his thoroughly engaging theater honed to perfection, it could be easy to miss the fact that Watson plays a mean guitar and has released an astonishing 40 albums. It seems this creative Vesuvius, who has been performing since the age of 12, has plenty of material.

After two hours, it was time to go. The SK crowd bid an appreciative goodbye with applause that took several minutes to die down. After nearly fifty years of Dale Watson magic we all wanted that much more.

Roam: Ukraine by way of San Marcos “Light from the East” This week, my roam took me to the capital city of Kyiv, Ukraine, through the portal of a moving documentary by Amy Grappel called, “Light from the East.” As part of the First Tuesday San Marcos Film Series shown at the Price Center, it was introduced by host Jeffrey Brown. Brown, of Big Day Pictures, is the producer of more than thirty narrative feature films and documentaries shot in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. He co-produced “Battle for the Heart of Texas” that premiered in 2022 and “Honky Tonk Heaven: The Legend of The Broken Spoke” recently screened at the Wimberley StoryFest in October.

In his introductory remarks, Brown, who lived in the Czech republic for more than a decade, said he felt a deep connection to the film’s subject matter.

“Light from the East’’ is the story of an American theater troupe that inadvertently witnessed the fall of Communism. Grappel, who attended the screening, was one of the New York actors who traveled to Kyiv in 1991 as part of a cultural exchange program, the first U.S. - Ukrainian theater project in Soviet history. The play that the two groups were to perform was about a visionary Ukrainian director named Les Kubas, who was murdered in one of Stalin’s purges in the 1930’s.

After tsar Nicholas II was deposed in 1917, Stalin became Russia’s dictator in 1930 and ruled until 1953. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell; Gorbachev and President Bush declared the end of the Cold War.

In August 1991, Gorbachev was kidnapped as part of a coup attempt at the very time Grappel and her fellow American actors were there. Performers from both groups struggled with the enormity of such an event. The young Ukrainians were stunned but took a long, philosophical view while the Americans could not conceive of such a disruption of power.

In December 1991, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved. Although it ceased to exist, Yeltsin retained power and the U.S. recognized the independence of Ukraine from Russia.

In the next decade, Ukraine, known for its creative, independent and free-thinking people, created a path for a democratic and market economy to emerge. But corruption, voter intimidation and electoral fraud followed, and Ukrainians launched the Orange Revolution in 2004 and 2005 to protest. Kyiv was ground zero for the movement’s campaign of civil resistance.

Grappel returned to the country in 2005 and reconnected with her Ukrainian theater team who emerged from the Orange Revolution uplifted and optimistic about the country’s ability to maintain their independence from Russia. But the economy was extremely strained.

In 2014, pro-West Poroshenko was elected and promised to fix the economy by aligning Ukraine with Europe, and in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, a television comedian and political newcomer became president.

In 2021, a hundred thousand troops, under Russian President Putin, amassed near Ukrainian borders and on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded, just months before Ukraine was accepted into the European Union in June. It was the largest attack on a European country since WWII. By April 2023, more than 8.2 million people fled Ukraine, creating Europe’s largest refugee crisis since WWII.

Grappel reconnected with her fellow artists through video streaming, and we see a changed people, battered by war, who possess a resolute stoicism gained only by a population under siege.

“Light from the East” is a timely, moving and enlightening window into Ukraine’s struggle to survive the spiritual, psychological, and cultural blows of war. Gauging from the remarks by the audience afterwards, Grappel’s work triggered lasting concern for Ukrainians who dearly want to attain what we easily take for granted.

Rave: Walt Stewart’s Music Video for Ukraine “We are watching you, Stay Strong” is Wimberley’s love letter to the people of Ukraine. Moved by the physical, spiritual, and psychological damage that war levels on soldiers and their families, Walt Stewart wrote it a week after Russia invaded the independent country in February 2022.

As a Vietnam-era Navy veteran, Stewart knows something about war. Not only is he a singer, songwriter and fine artist, he has worked since the mid-1980’s to guide and heal people through their traumas through organizations like ManKind Project, Vets Journey Home, Return With Honor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Guard, Boys To Men Mentoring, and others.

“I became emotionally upset watching the evacuation of children and elders and those who were able to leave and identified with those soldiers and people left behind. I wanted to let Ukraine know that we are watching and sending energy and will continue to do so for the long haul.” The energy from his intention kept building and before long, singers like Adam and Chris Carroll came onboard as did videographer Mark Kadell and audiographer Tom Steager. Members of his men’s group, the Wimberley Sandbox, stood with the project and joined him for the music video he would shepherd into existence.

Jeffrey Brown, of Big Day Pictures, attended one of the video shoots and became involved, steering the video to air before Grappel’s “Light from the East’’ documentary in San Marcos last week. The surge of interest led to Stewart’s pledge to raise $5 million dollars to reinforce the work of RazomForUkraine. org that has actively supported humanitarian efforts in Ukraine since 2014. “Razom,” in Ukraine means “together.” To learn more and join the groundswell of support for this remarkable effort, go to waltstewart. com.