Serendipity- and Bob Livingston Returns

If you hung out around Navasota a few years ago, you will remember a little place called Serendipity’s. Later Phil Heibeler, the owner sold the business and then got it back, and re-invented it and renamed it The Corner Café. Phil’s new vision was a café with Live music, and he featured about two years of excellent Friday evening mini-concerts he called a singer-songwriter series. I actually began this blog to try to help him promote the music scene here in Navasota, the “Blues Capital of Texas.” Every Friday night I was there at the Corner Café photographing and staying up very late writing the blogs while they were fresh on my mind.

In the process some of the musicians enjoyed my comments and used them on their websites. My photos went all over the Internet, and Phil had me blow some up and put them on his café walls. They looked good there, and I felt real cool coming in the place and feeling the art and the fun and the live music even when it was not there. Then Phil went out of business again, and left for greener pastures. He sold me the big enlarged photos I had made for his cafe, and suddenly I had these huge cumbersome things all over my studio. I’m talking 30” x 40” canvases of George Ensle, David Lutes, Susan Herndon, Bob Livingston and Brian Ashley Jones.

These folks are not exactly huge stars, but they are in my universe. Still, I was not sure what needed to happen to them, I just did not want them to leave Navasota, like the rest of our music history.

Anyway, all that to say that one of the big plans was to have each of the artists back some day and they could sign their canvases. You know, with one of those big gold pens. Of course other than one of them, that never happened. Now fast-forward a couple of years.

Sunday I was keeping the store at Blues Alley, something I rarely do any more, and had an average day and was about to close when two dudes strolled in. They arrived all smiles and commenting what a great town Navasota seemed to be… one of the prettiest towns in “East Texas” one of them offered. This identified them as Austinites. Everyone around here knows we are in CENTRAL TEXAS.  OK, we are on the edge... of three distinct geographical regions... Still, I had to agree that Navasota is one of the prettiest towns around... I bragged a little and tried to sell them a cheap guitar...

One of them asked about the Corner Café.  I shared the tragic loss of the wonderful little music venue we enjoyed for several years. And then one of them said, almost under his breath that he had performed there. I pondered that, for I had seen most of the shows. 

Bob Livingston

The only one of the performers he could have been was Bob Livingston, but Bob is taller, younger and clean shaven.

Bob Livingston is sort of a living piece of Texas music history, a Texas songwriter, once a member of the Lost Gonzo Band and running the roads with Michael Martin Murphy, Gary P. Nunn and other Texas Music Legends. This guy was no Bob Livingston. “You say you played at the Corner Café? What is your name?”

“Bob Livingston.”

Well you can imagine that, after insulting him mercilessly, I adapted quickly and invited Bob Livingston up to my studio to see my collection of Texas musicians… and he graciously offered to sign my canvas of his former countenance. It was a great mini-moment… One of the long Lost Gonzos had been found, right in my studio! Felt kinda like Neil Armstrong when he first stepped on the Moon. He even posed for a picture.

Songwriter and world traveler Bob Livingston poses with his obsolete portrait. I urged him to keep the beard. I was hoping he would give me the hat. I'm pretty sure he is thinking... "What a moron!"

And I had not been scheduled to keep the store like that, in YEARS. So Phil, that’s two down… three to go. Thanks to... your serendipity. 

This might take a while, but I‘m thinkin’ we gotta GO FOR IT!

Danny Everitt: It was too good to be true.

I couldn't really enjoy the last Friday night of music, thinking about all the great music we have had during the "Summer Songwriter's Series," and how it has hit the cold north wind and will all finally come to an end. This was the last in a long line of excellent intimate concerts, by outstanding performers, all under the gentle and winsome guidance of Danny Everitt, who has become the ultimate talent scout, mentor, mother hen and agent for some great Texas songwriters and musicians.

On this night he was playing as well, and the singers took turns sharing their songs. Danny is so low key and unassuming, and such a giving performer, it was typical to see him sit on the fringe, as two others sat in the limelight. They seemed to really enjoy performing together, and played like friends would do, teasing, assisting, sometimes doing harmonies.

Danny Everitt has found an exceptional line-up of artists, and we wish him and them well. They have brought a great bit of joy to the Corner, and the memories will be swimming around there for years. Here are just a few sights we have shared... I just wish I could attach music to these shots, because that's what it was all about.

Thanks to Danny and Jeff Moreland, who conceived such a project here in Navasota, and in the process of doing it, made music history in the Blues Capital of Texas!

More shots of our bah itchin' music scene!

We have been so fortunate to see and hear great musicians right here in Navasota, in the past few months, and the images they create have been almost as memorable. True, some are a little "autistic" since I don't use a flash, but I'd rather capture the lighting and colors... sometimes thatsacrifices sharpness... But l@@k at what has been going on here! Look! And I got to see and hear every freaking bit of it, and I still can't believe it!

A New Navasota Tradition: Concert Hopping!

World famous entertainers have often been in our midst. If you want to know about some of them, visit the Navasota Public Library this month and check out the display in the back. You will be stunned and pleased to know who some of our neighbors have been. And here’s the point: Nobody ever knew or cared, and that was our loss.

But I want to tell you about the here and the now. Regardless of how people in the old days responded to rare talent that passed through small towns like ours, we can only benefit from our own choices. And let me tell you, we have some great choices these days. Friday, music enthusiasts were able to hear two excellent female vocalists at the Corner Café. Season Ammons very ably opened for Susan Herndon and they both charmed the crowd. Both very talented young women, I dare say Navasota has rarely seen this class of female vocalist performing live, much less a pair of them. Herndon had an impressive quiver of original songs, written and delivered with easy flair. At then end, the two joined into an impromptu version of a Fleetwood Mac song that made us realize we had only experienced the tip of the iceberg.

But that was not the end of it, and I ran over in the balmy night air to the Filling Station to catch Navasota’s favorite son Randy Pavlock. Randy was slicing the night air with his usual fare, Grimes blues-rock, and a nice crowd came out to see him. He is a popular opener for big time rock groups these days, and we are lucky to get him anymore. The recent rains had cooled things off and it was pleasant out. I walked up just in time to catch him using an old blues trick, playing slide on his guitar with a beer bottle, out on the streets. That’s sort of a Navasota tradition.

Blind Willie Johnson, credited as the progenitor of the slide guitar, used a sawed off bottleneck and taught Mance Lipscomb, who improvised and used his pocketknife. Blind Willie played for nickels at the intersection of Tenth and Washington Ave. Right here in Navasota. Who could have guessed that someday NASA would send one of his songs on the voyager space ship, along with a few others, on a golden CD of the most important songs of Western civilization.

Local restaurateurs Phil and Sarah Hiebeler have taken a daring leap. They built a stage, put in lights and sound, and scheduled an exciting line-up of Texas songwriters, who come and dazzle us every Friday night. The show comes with the meal. So far we have heard a treasury of song, delivered up by Texas songwriters, good ones who actually sell their songs. Bob Livingston is one the original Lost Gonzos, has written, played and recorded with Jerry Jeff Walker, Gary P. Nunn, and Michael Martin Murphy. He is a heavy hitter. He was right here in Navasota. He opened for Mance Lipscomb a long time ago and loved our Blues museum and was eager to reminisce.

Kevin Robinson, sure to be a force in Texas country music, played a few weeks ago. His day job is expediting for Hassell Construction. He has an unforgettable, mature voice, and writes the kind of songs you want to hear again. Right here in Navasota. So far the musicians are impressed with our charming little town, and want to come back. And there are more to come. It’s neat to say you just played in the “Blues Capital of Texas.” It’s even better to say you live here!

Note: The Navasota Examiner did not have room in their publication to include this article, so I offer it here. The musicians and restaurateurs deserve all the exposure they can get.