Freda and the Firedogs

Marcia Ball - piano and vocalsJohn X Reed - guitar and harmony vocalsBobby Earl Smith - bass and vocalsSteve McDaniels - drumsDavid Cook - steel guitar and rhythm guitar

I don’t know about you but for me this strange thing called Texas music didn’t begin with Willie, with “Goin’ home with the Armadillo,” with progressive country, cosmic cowboys, outlaws, or redneck rock.

It began long before all that in a low-ceilinged beer joint in near South Austin called the Split Rail where every Sunday night the faithful would gather to fill every seat, line the walls, and occupy every square inch of available space to witness Freda and the Firedogs, four young guys from Texas and a long-legged gal from Louisiana, who happened to be C&W and rhythm and blues purists, who also happened to be unabashed bohemians smarter and hipper than honky-tonkers were supposed to be.

It was all young, so fresh, so totally cool. The band and the crowd both were aware that something new and completely different was starting to happen in Austin. Soon, the band bridged the cultural gap between the long haired hippies and the traditional country crowd by “integrating” the legendary Broken Spoke, “the greatest honky tonk of all time,” with hippies and rednecks two-stepping in harmony around the dance floor.

Then a real player showed up. Jerry Wexler was and is a music business legend, having discovered Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Professor Longhair, and a slew of soulful million-selling acts. He was already on to Austin, having signed Willie Nelson and Doug Sahm to Atlantic Records. But Freda and the Firedogs intrigued him like no other band.

So he made them a proposition: come up to Robin Hood Brians' funky egg-crate rigged little 12 track studio up in Tyler, Texas, the Rose Capital of America, and cut some tracks. So they did, hunkering down for three days in August of 1972 (the same year another little old band from Texas called ZZ Top made their first recordings at the very same studio). It was a laid-back, straight-ahead recording session all things considered. Wexler brought his Immaculate Funk style of production—let the band find the groove and let the tape roll. Robin Hood's mom would cruise through dressed in her bathrobe, checking on the scene (she lived in the house the studio was built behind). Everyone went out and ate Chinese.

Atlantic liked what Wexler sent them. A go-ahead was given to release the demo “as is.” A contract was sent in the mail. But the band hemmed and hawed. They wanted artistic control. They wanted more money, more points--all the things bands were supposed to want. The misgivings and doubts lingered so long that by the time Freda and the Firedogs finally did decide to go ahead and jump off the cliff and sign the deal, it was too late. Atlantic soon deemed Jerry Wexler's Texas experiment a bust.

The band continued for almost another two years. There were regular out-of-town gigs in Lubbock, Dallas, and Houston, and memorable concerts like the “Tribute to the Cosmic Cowboy,” at Hofheinz Arena in Houston, shows when the band backed Doug Sahm, gigs when Willie showed up to sit in. It all ended in a flaming blaze of glory at Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic in 1974, at the Texas World Speedway in Bryan-College Station, Texas, with two guys parachuting into the crowd and cars literally on fire as Marcia waved her cowboy hat and yodeled "Cowboy Sweetheart."

Marcia Ball has gone on to carve out a stellar career as a rhythm and blues solo artist and bandleader, recording more than a dozen albums, touring relentlessly, and winning W.C. Handy Blues Awards and earning Grammy nominations in the process. John X Reed has performed and recorded with Alvin Crow & the Pleasant Valley Boys, Doug Sahm, Roky Erickson, Jesse Taylor, Tommy Hancock & the Supernatural Family Band, the Texana Dames, and the Nortons, and has burnished a rep as the city's finest guitarslinger. He played for seven years with the Denny Freeman Band and is lead singer in his own John X Reed Band with residencies at the Continental Club and C-Boy’s Heart & Soul in Austin. Bobby Earl Smith, post Freda, played with Alvin Crow, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Kimmie Rhodes and the Jackalope Brothers, and the John X Reed band. Smith has released three albums. Steve McDaniels is pursuing an interest in the Latin sound. David Cook is making and teaching music in Florida.

"You really fucked up by not signing the contract, " Jerry Wexler told Bobby Earl over the phone when he called to inquire about obtaining the tape Wexler produced. The original Freda and the Firedogs tapes had long ago burned up in a fire in Atlantic's vaults. The only existing copy was in Jerry Wexler's library, which he happily offered, even though he couldn't help reminding Smith what could've been.

Who knows what would have, could have been? I sure don't. But what I do know is that this recording captures a band, a producer, a place and a time like nothing else could.

The Firedogs had another invitation to the big dance with yet another legendary producer--Huey Meaux, the Crazy Cajun. The sessions at Sugar Hill Studios in Houston in early 1974 yielded stellar cuts but once again the band dithered and walked away without an album release. Three bonus tracks from that session are included on this vinyl record.

Close your eyes, let your mind wander back fifty years and listen to what we all missed.

Joe Nick Patoski,Author