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Here's Entertainment Editor Tom Gasson's interview with Ponty Bone, the legendary Austin musician who started with Joe Ely in Lubbock way back in 1964 and since has made a name for himself and his Zydeco style:
Ponty Bone: Well Cajun means the people that populated Southern Louisiana that came from the Northeast, from up around Nova Scotia, the Acadian people, and more specifically to their food and music and culture down there.
TG: Is it also an attitude?
PB: Yeah, Yeah, it is. A kind of a free-to-live-off-the-land type of attitude.
TG: How does somebody know when they hear Cajun music? I know when I hear it I say, "Wow that's Cajun!", and it makes me want to dance. Is there anything in particular about the music that makes it Cajun?
PB: It is identified by certain little indexes, like it generally has a fiddle or a rub-board in it, or a triangle perhaps, kind of country instruments. It is characterized by certain beats they pretty much invented like the Cajun two-step ... Well, I don't guess I can credit them with inventing the waltz, but they do have a lot of waltz's in their traditional musical literature. The Cajun two-step is different, you know, it's different from the Texas two-step.
TG: How long have you been playing music?
PB: I've been playing music all my life. My father started me out before I was is school. But only since about 1965 or 1966 have I been doing it as a carreer. Of course that's long enough, I guess that's 30 years.
TG: Well that's about as long as we've been listening to the Beatles.
PB: Yeah ... I just didn't start (professionally) as young as most people do. I didn't really get into the business until I had been out of high school a couple of three years, you know.
TG: What made you start? What made you wake up one day and say,"Ah! This is what I'm going to do?
PB: Well (long drawn out, 3-second "Waaaal"), a variety of things really. First of all I met a variety of a number of good musicians. I had moved up to Lubbock to go to college and met Jimmy Gilmore, who introduced me to Joe Ely and Jesse Taylor and all the people that I am still working with to this day.
TG: Wow, that's a neat group of people together at one time, when was this?
PB: 1964. So the day my wife and I brought them home from the hospital this friend of mine came over and he says, "Oh yeah they're real cute but listen -- I met this guy who plays guitar and he knows a lot of songs," and it was Jimmy Gilmore. So we went over and met him over at the to the local drug store. He was just getting out of high school and I had been out for a few years and we hit it off and started playing together almost every day then. We were always moving a lot and travelling a lot sitting around playing music a lot. Jesse Taylor was a big part of that.
TG: So you've got a young Jimmy Gilmore and Ponty Bone and Jesse Taylor toghether. What kind of music did you all play in a club in Lubbock in the early 60's?
PB: Well, we didn't have much going in the way of a club scene then in Lubbock. We played a coffee house or two and uh, oh, I remember one of our friends opened up a dance hall, and we got to play there because in that case we knew the owner so well. What kind of music? I would say a lot of folk music. I was pretty much the blues guy.
TG: And you were playing the accordion.
PB: I was playing accordion, yeah. I always noticed from the very beginning despite the fact that a lot of people have preconceptions about the it that I could get rid of the preconceptions pretty fast with blues and stuff. I never did get out the accordian to play Lady of Spain.
TG: Do you think that you were playing something different just from the fact that you were playing with these guys, playing a "blues accordion", did it make people sit up and take notice in Lubbock in 1965?
PB: Yeah, absolutely.
TG: Austin is the kind of place where you've got a lot of names, like the guys you've been talking about, such as Jimmy Dale Gilmore. There is an air in Austin today that there is something great going on musically. I think though there are a lot of musicians who would give their eye teeth to have been in Lubbock at that time. Did you guys have any sense or feeling that this is something special.
PB: I think we all had a feeling that it was something special. It seemed like we thought it a long time before anyone else. We all started making money at it pretty early.
TG: That must have been special.
PB: Yeah, but I remember when playing, like the Kerrville Folk Festival, or playing out of town at all was a big deal. All of our early things were limited to partys, lots of partys and weddings and goat roasts and stuff like that. I have been quoted as saying I knew that Joe Carrol was going to do something but never dreamed it would be in music. Joe Carrol was not doing music at the time, and she is probably out on the road even as we speak.
TG: So you like being out on the road?
PB: Do I personally? Yeah. I really do like it pretty well. I travel pretty easily. I don't have a lot of the typical bad habits of a lot of travelling musicians like overeating, overdrinking and all that.
TG: I have seen you on occasion with a glass of red wine, Ponty.
PB: (laughs) I love my red wine, that's for sure.
Glenn Pieper (Austin Axis publisher): Would you rather record or perform. Performing hasn't lost that thrill for you?
PB: Performing-wise has not lost the thrill for me. As far as recording, when I first started out it it was something that was kind of alien to me. It wasn't like playing live, and it took a certain amount of getting used to. The more I do it the more I like it. Recording is kind of a means to an end. To get work, you record. But it is is own reward. I really enjoy it. Right now I'm getting into a lot of session work for other singers. For instance I'll be on Joe (Ely)'s new album that will be out pretty soon. I'm on Perry Keys' latest album, Jerry Jeff Walker's last couple of albums.
TG: That's real cool! Do you have any plans for a Ponty Bone or even a Zydeco Loco album in the near future?
TG: When was the album?
PB: I've only got two. Well, actually, I made an album back in the 60's but it's not available. In the mid-80's I did two albums for amazing records -- "Easy as Pie" and "My, my ... look at this!" that came out in 1987 if I'm not mistaken. I haven't done anything since then except just the odd this or that, and about three compilations that I'm on.
TG: Let's go from Lubbock to Austin. When did you come to Austin and what brought you here?
PB: The whole Joe Ely band moved down here in 1980. We had been playing together since, well ... you know from '64, when I met Jimmy, until '76. It was pretty much all the same:. We were all travelling, we were all partying, and we were all playing our music in one way or another. In '76, Joe was the first one to get any attention from out of town. Joe got a deal with MCA, the biggest (music) company in the world at the time. We recorded several albums. Our agent at the time just told us we'd have to move to Austin.
TG: So when did you start the Squeezetones?
PB: The Squeezetones started in '82. It was just kind of a whim, just kind of a little deviance from the Joe Ely Band, with whom we were all making our living and traveling a lot. The Joe Ely band went to Europe a lot and did a lot of tours with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Linda Rondstadt. We did a number of tours with Linda Rondstadt.
TG: Back when she still looked good?
PB: Yeah, and back when she was still touring. It made her look good and made us look good. We made a lot of friends that way. We played a lot the outdoor, hilltop theatre type things in the Northeast, where so many of those things are. So in '83 all that came to a screeching halt and the Squeezetones became numero uno. When I started Zydeco Loco with Don Leady, we both wanted to keep the Tailgators and the Squeezetones going. We had both invested years in it and figured,"Well if someone wants that that's what we'll give them." You know, last night I played with two other bands, the Keepers and the Spencer Jarmon Band, and the night before that Don (Leady) and I were playing. So it's a good little community here, full of musicians. If someone can't make a gig it's easy to replace them at the last minute.
TG: We have what I call an embarassment of riches in Austin.
PB: It's true! So many of them I've worked with and know my material. Last night Spencer got a musician just hours before the gig, but it was a guy we had played with for years, and it's no problem. You just tell them, "It goes like this."
TG: Let's talk about Don Leady a little bit. For our readers he was a founding member of the Leroy Brothers, and after leaving that band went on for many enjoyable years with the Tailgators.
PB: Well I ran into him after I first moved here in 1980, when he and the Leroi Brothers first moved here. He and I met and found that we had a mutual fascination with the accordion and have been friends ever since. It was about early '92 he and I and his bass player J.J. Bererra decided to start a little group specializing in Zydeco, Cajun and Mexican. Also doing some stuff that kind of falls through the cracks. For instance we do Cajun music with a bajo sexto instead of the rythym guitar.
TG: What the heck is that?
PB: A bajo sexto is a Mexican twelve string. It has a unique sound and is used in all the conjunto music. It's similiar to a twelve string guitar, but a little different. They are hand made, they're unique to this area, to the valley and all that. The best makers are in San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Brownsville.
TG: Did Don pick that up?
PB: No that's J.J.'s instrument. He switches between that an bass. Don at the time we started Zydeco Loco was playing primarily fiddle. But over the years he has become a really good button accordion player.
TG: Yes, I noticed you've corrupted him.
PB: Exactly.
PB: Never quite this versatile. From the very first time I knew him, he had a couple of accordions a steel guitar and a fiddles and stuff, but in the last few years it has really come into it's own.
TG: Do you have this effect on people?
PB: Well (laughs) hopefully. I was also going to say we are also maybe getting close to a record. There is a guy who is interested anyway and has had some meetings with Don, and I don't know exactly where we stand on that, but I think we, maybe, are fixing to have a Zydeco Loco project in the studio soon.
TG: That would be great I'd love to ...
PB: Yeah people love Zydeco Loco, it's a great little idea for a band. It goes over real well at places like your place (referring to Hill Country Cellars winery), restaurants and that sort of thing.
TG: Not to take anything away from the Squeezetones.
PB: Of course, the Squeezetones continues to be my best musical gig. Zydeco Loco doesn't quite satisfy the same little spot in my brain, but I can do that with either one of them now.
TG: Particularly with Zydeco Loco, since everyone in that band are doing so many different things, do you guys, since you been playing together so long, do you just get out on stage and kind of go with the flow and play whatever feels good, or do you have your set gig down.
PB: No, I would say with Zydeco Loco we do pretty frequently get pretty loose with call 'em songs and different instruments. The Squeezetones are a little bit more programmed, a little bit more predictable. I'm in control and my brain is kinda a little more visible in that one. In the other one it's like we're passing it back and forth. I'll ask Don then he'll ask me and sometimes it gets pretty out there. It's a band that can do that.
TG: I think you're having too much fun with this, I don't know ...
PB: Well, then I'll have to start paying a bigger fun tax. There is this guy down the way from me who says he invented fun and that he wants a tax from everybody who has fun.
TG: What is your favorite place to play right now?
PB: The Old Alligator Grille, there is no cover charge , we can play there as much as we want , we can invite people to come and see us. The decor and the menu and everything is right in with us, it looks like a movie set made for us to perform in.
TG: Really!
PB: You've not been there yet.
TG: I'm ashamed to say I haven't.
PB: They've gone all out to make it like a small Pappadeaux, with all the trinkets around and their own little twist on everything. The menu of course is, oh you know, such stuff as crawfish enchiladas and all kind of bizarre things.
TG: Sort of a southern, Tex-mex, Cajun ...
PB: Yep, an only in Austin kind of thing. There are plenty of excuses to go down there, they have a late night menu too. The people who own it seem to like us a lot.
TG: Do you have anything big and exciting coming up, travel to any exotic places?
PB: Well, one of my bands called the Keepers, we have a CD out in Europe that we made here in Austin.
TG: Oh really. How is it doing?
PB: It's doing pretty good and they're threatening us with a European tour. I say threatening because you know I have so much going on that its' going to be kind of hard to pull away from it to spend maybe a month with just one band. You know I playing in so many bands if I go off with one for a month three of them suffer.
TG: That's what you get for being so versatile.
TG: Who are the Keepers?
PB: Well one of them is my old friend Jesse Taylor from Lubbock, who was with me in the Joe Ely band all those years; the bass player and drummer are a couple of brothers from South Carolina named David and Leland Waddel. David and Leland had been with Calvin Russell for the last few years and had toured in Europe. Calvin is an Austin folk singer kind of guy who is big in Europe, especially France. Then there is a fifth guy name Brad Brodisky. Brad is the singer-songwriter, kind of leader of the band. As a matter of fact it is kind of all his idea. (laughs) Although Jesse and I are contributing songs, we are going to record some songs on the next album that will be by Jesse and I, so it's going to be kind of a democratic thing. But the first CD is all Brad's songs. That band really started out as a recording project. We started having so much fun together in the studio we decided to rehearse and perform on stage and there again, people like it.
TG: One thing leads to another.
PB: Yep, who'd of known, who'd of guessed.
TG: Anything else you want to say?
P:Oh not really, just the regular thing. I'm a regular at Terlingua now for the Chili Cook-Off in November. I hope to keep travelling and continue to be an ambassador for Texas music, and Texas wine.
TG: Sure! You're the official Grape Stomp Band for Hill Country Cellars every year.
PB: Oh yeah! I wouldn't miss that for nothing.
TG: You have played at other Texas wine events, do you look at yourself as an ambassador of Texas wine?
PB: Well, I do, in that I go out of may way to kind of speak for a little different approach to Rock & Roll and music in general and the party life -- that being maybe, have some good food, have your family there instead of just a bunch of your scuzzy friends, you know what I mean? Stand up for a certain kind of thing. And it's a party all right, but it's where the grandparents are, the babies are, and it's just more of a good, clean wholesome fun.
TG: Having fun as a lifestyle?
PB: That's more of a wine kind of a thing. You know beer kinda says overindulge, wine doesn't. Wine kind of monitors itself. You have a glass sitting there in front of you, you don't just drink it as fast as you can and order another.
TG: Well, it is something that goes with food and makes both of them better and makes you a little happier.
PB: At my own expense, so to speak I have carried Texas wines to Canada.
TG: Ah!
PB: A friend of mine that I used to work with who is still a good friend of mine used to have a catering company that specialized in crawfish boils. We'd put on these big crawfish parties for companies, you know, right at the peak of it when there was a big fad going on. I was going to Canada occasionally, I had a liitle circuit going on in Alberta province where I could play Edmonton, Calgary, and a bunch of small markets, and you know make a little money. I decided to take live crawfish from Texas, and Texas wine and herbs and stuff to Canada, and we did it!
TG: So you're like a cultural ambassador. You turned some of those fortunate Canadians on to what a slice Austin can be like.
PB: There wasn't anybody there who had ever seen anything like that and man, they dug into those crawfish instantly; you just had to show them how and get back. He used all of our own Texas stuff that he grew, all of our own spices he grew himself in his own garden. We took all that up there, you know, and it was a little piece of something you can't hardly get even in this town.
TG: That's great! This is making me want to go out and get some crawfish, and some wine and listen to Zydeco.
PB: That's a hard act not to like. What about it would you not like, you know what I mean? The music the food, all that stuff. I think I'm in a job I'm going to be able to stand, you know what I mean?
TG: After all these years, do you ever get tired of it. Do you drag some nights or isit just still all fun.
PB: Well, you know, when I'm dragging some nights I just think about the years of day jobs. I've had a couple of families and always, except for the six years when I was with Joe and a few little spots before that when I had something going, I would think, ah, finally I quit that day job! And then you know it wouldn't last over a year and I'd be back at it. Now days whenever anything gets near to depressing I just remember all of those mornings I was going over there, working for the other guy -- his deal, his profit, his dream ...
TG: Ok, ok, you're rubbing it in now, and in regards to that, can you teach me how to play the accordion.
PB: Ha, ha, ha, ha , ha, ha. I teach alright.
TG: I'll have to start with the button.
PB: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
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