My Hometown: Not as Lame as We Thought

Things are better in Abelene.

I’m home sick today, beaten down by the clouds of oak pollen lumbering about in the air outside, and being thus disconnected from the local scene here in my convalescence (and not a little prone to narcissism when under the weather), I’m going to talk about myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been cited.

Not by the police, no, but by another writer, one Joe Specht, the greatest living record collector and local historian in my hometown of Abilene, Texas. Joe was my musical guide while I was in college. Weekly, he would mail me photocopies of cool articles from music mags I’d never heard of and send me cassette tapes full of outre free jazz. (You can’t imagine what Sun Ra, playing at full blast on a car stereo on a boiling summer day, can do to the heat-addled brain.) Joe has recently published a book called The Women There Don’t Treat You Mean: Abilene in Song. In folksy (but not too folksy), intelligent prose, Joe, who is the director of a university library, documents half a century’s worth of songs that mention or deal directly with “the Key City” of West Texas. In a particularly good part, Joe talks to the great Dave Alvin, whose song “Abilene,” which is actually about a real-life stripper Dave knew, is available on the jukebox at Harry’s Country Club, last time I checked.

(Aside: We are aware there is an Abilene in Kansas, which evidently was founded before the one in Texas, but is far less, well…. Anyway, all the songs in Joe’s book are about the town in Texas, and I won’t infuriate any of you Kansans by explaining, in a necessarily curt tone, why that is.)

West Texas’ good George.

The most well-known of the songs is George Hamilton IV’s “Abilene,” with its chorus: Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town I’ve ever seen/The women there don’t treat you mean in Abilene. On iTunes, you can find recordings of this song by George H IV himself, Waylon Jennings, Uncle Fucker, The Moody Brothers, Brian Gale, Sonny James, Po’ Girl, Bill Rhyne and the Coronados, The Highwaymen, Robin O’Herin, the Taylor Grocery Band and a bunch of other original songs titled “Abilene,” most of which are discussed in Joe’s book. Plus, you can get Waylon’s album Abilene, but it doesn’t have “Abilene” on it. I could go on about the other Abilenes on iTunes, but you get the idea.

You’re eager to hear about my citation, I’m sure, so here it is. In the chapter Beyond the Red and Rio Grande, Joe writes:

England’s Humble Pie, formed by Peter Frampton and Steve Marriot in the late 1960s, offers its own brand of Texas six-gun logic in “The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake.” This song is on the Pie’s 1969 album Town and Country (which also includes a multi-voiced, rollicking cover of Buddy Holly’s “Heartbeat”), and writer Steve Marriott doesn’t waste any time placing things in a West Texas setting.

“When I was a kid in Abilene . . . I shot a man down when I was eighteen.” The Texas Rangers quickly appear on the scene: “Shaky Jake, boy, what you gonna do/Texas Rangers coming after you.” His fate sealed, it seems only a matter of time before Jake will end up in a grave of his own making.

This passage has an affectionate endnote, which reads: Jason Harper, also a connoisseur of Brit beat music, clued me in to the Abilene presence on “The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake.” And how can one not be taken with a song described by young Mr. Harper “as a southern boogie singalong that evokes a primitive American version of the theme song from COPS.” (e-mail from Harper to Specht, November 14, 2003)

Thanks, Joe!

The best part about the book, however, is the CD that comes with it, featuring six specially recorded songs for the book. Slim Chance and the Survivors — now that’s a band name you could easily imagine seeing on a flyer at Knuckleheads — perform a classy, lilting version of the GHIV original. Victoria Moore, who sounds a hell of a lot like Neko Case, sings “The Road to Abilene,” by Jeff & Vida, and a hero of mine from my adolescence, a blues guitarist named Happy Fat wails “Way Out in Abilene” by the legendary Lightnin’ Hopkins, who don’t need no goddamn hyperlink stuck on his name. Track 4, “The Jewel of Abilene” by Grey DeLisle, is definitely the purdiest on the disc. It’s sung by JamisonPriest, who also sang at my friend’s wedding (Brandon Carr of UK/Texas band the Earlies). This CD fuckin’ made me cry. Beautiful.

If you’re interested in owning this great piece of Texas music history, go here.