Day Drinking Fun -- Attended By The Press And The Law

Upon reaching a certain “high profile” plateau in the music business one’s life gets a lot more interesting. There’s them that loves you, them that hates you and them that just resent the hell out of you – and those facts often make it very hard to remain totally in charge of your day-to-day living. On top of all that there’s the press!

A good example of a musician minding his own business and still attracting trouble is Texas singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver. I met Billy Joe when he was a young man (haven't seen him since he came to the hospital when Steven had the stroke in 2003). As youngsters all the "Outlaws" partied hard and as often as they had a chance -- and none of them would deny that. In fact, the "Outlaw" musicians penchant for fun is probably partly responsible for that name being attached to them -- they all lived every day, back then, like it was gonna be their last.

A few years back Billy Joe and his wife went out to a club near Waco, Texas – just for a night out and certainly minding their own business. They were at the club as patrons – Billy Joe was not performing -- and attracted a heckler. (This is not unusual for musicians -- lots of guys are jealous of them for whatever reason). Seems this guy made a few disparaging remarks about Billy Joe, his wife, family, etc. and finally put the whole thing on a “I’m callin’ you out" basis. Billy Joe, after being unable to dissuade the guy, finally went outside to the parking lot with the heckler whereupon the guy pulled a knife on him. Big mistake -- Billy Joe shot him in self-defense. The guy didn’t die but obviously, the whole mess went to trial and Billy Joe was acquitted.

Seems to me this scenario went back to idiocy -- like taking a knife to a gunfight but whatever the reason – if you’re in the public eye whatever you do becomes big news and immediately. One of the biggest jokes – still told among musicians to this day – is one of their number getting ticketed for nothing except being stopped by the side of the road. Seems a new and relatively inexperienced lawman was making his rounds not too far from Abbott, Texas. The new guy saw a big Mercedes parked by the side of the road – legally, no laws broken – but decided to check it out.

When he shined his flashlight in the car he saw this bearded, long-haired dude asleep in the front seat – and back then bearded and long haired was cause for great suspicion. He tapped on the window, woke the man up and demanded to see some identification. The sleeper – still being half asleep – pulled out his wallet and by mistake (and in the dark) offered a credit card rather than his driver’s license. The officer let supposition overcome his common sense and issued the man a ticket and drove off.

Seems all hell broke loose when the ticket saw the light of day. The officer had ticketed Willie Nelson, Abbott, Texas’ favorite son, for absolutely nothing at all. Bottom line – the incident made practically every paper in the U.S. and the patrolman made the ranks of the unemployed! I've always wondered what planet the patrolman came from as Willie had just released his "Stardust" album and his career was hottern'n a pistol -- everybody on earth knew who he was.

People in show business -- whether music or anything else -- once a certain level of public profile is reached, are fair game for the long arm of the law – and the press -- no matter where they’re located or what they’re doing. Not to say all are innocent but they damned sure get more attention than Joe Average just by virtue of being who they are. Many years ago, being in the middle of a personal crisis, I called my brother and asked to spend the Christmas holidays at his house in the country (outside of Austin, Texas) although he and his wife would be in Colorado. He said sure, take the back bedroom and also advised me he had two friends staying at the house that worked for Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus (the circus was in Austin at the time). That didn’t surprise me as his friends were often strange and delightful characters so I packed a bag and headed out.

When I arrived I found the two guys at the house were both very famous clowns with Ringling Bros. and more fun than a barrel of monkeys. They had a million circus stories and road tales and we had a marvelous time. They didn’t have to go back to work until the next night so we spent a pleasant evening and retired. I fixed breakfast the next morning and about mid-afternoon they headed out to work. They advised me they were going to make the Austin club scene when they finished their show so would probably be home in the wee hours of the morning. I spent the rest of the evening on paperwork and retired around 11:00 o’clock.

The phone rang next to my bed around 2:00 o’clock and when I answered it one of the clowns, John, was on the other end of the line. “Sis, we’re in the Austin City Jail and need some help – can you come down here?” I dressed, got in the truck and went to the jail. Seems the clowns had been sitting with some folks they’d met in a club when everyone decided to move the party to someone’s house. On the way to that house (they were passengers in the host’s vehicle) they were stopped by the police and the host was arrested for drunk driving. Seems everyone else was released except the two clowns and they were held for the most ridiculous charges ever.

When questioned about who they were and what they did for a living the answer “I’m a clown” didn’t go over all that well. The officer thought they were giving smart-ass answers and thereupon loaded them up for a trip to jail. It’s not hard to see how that happened. If I was a cop and asked someone who they were and they said “a clown” I might think I was being jerked around, too! I called my lawyer friend (we’d used his services in the past) and the clowns were quickly released. Come to think of it; it’s hard proving one’s really a clown.

As to my brother – well, he’s always been one of those folks that loves and enjoys life. When an old friend comes into town that’s cause for a celebration. That was the scenario when his friend, Beck, came to visit from Colorado. They hit downtown Austin early in the morning and by mid-afternoon had begun day-drinking and partying hearty. They hit several bars – topless and otherwise – and about dark-thirty were comfortably ensconced at a table in the front row of a topless bar and having a huge good time. Both were drunker than Cooter Brown and spending goodly sums of money.

At some point – and I don’t know until this day why – Steven decided it would be really entertaining to stand up on the table, jump and grab the glass ball suspended from the ceiling that went round-and-round and made little spots on the ceiling and walls – cling to it like a monkey -- and ride it – which he did! My brother has always been a big man and of course the glass ball wouldn’t support his weight and the ball, with Steven still attached to it, crashed to the floor. Club management was not happy and a burly bouncer was on top of the situation – and Steven – in a heartbeat.

Now, my brother is one of the most passive, non-aggressive, tender hearts around – but don’t accost him bodily either drunk or sober. Seems when the police got there he had the bouncer gathered up under his right arm and was bumping his little head into the wall. Demon rum (actually it wasn’t rum they were drinking) had him in its clutches as when the police tried to handcuff him he obviously viewed them as the enemy and “resisted arrest.” A one-way trip to jail was his immediate future.

It was probably 9:00 o’clock that evening when his little, gentle wife called saying, “Sister, Steven just called…and he’s in jail!” She was distressed to the max as this was totally out of character for my brother/her husband. “What jail is he in?” I inquired. Upon discovering Wifey didn’t know there was city, county, etc. jail; I hung up and began calling the jails to find my brother. Upon finding him in Austin City Jail I gathered up and headed in that direction. When I arrived I found that he was there for being drunk and disorderly (no mention of resisting arrest) and although they weren’t filing charges against him they wouldn’t release him until he sobered up.

The head-jailer-in-charge told me that both Steven and Beck were in the cooler, both mad as hell and raising hell, and until they sobered up and quieted down they’d stay there. I called Wifey back and explained the situation and she announced she was on her way. I wasn’t sure that was the best idea in the world as by this time I wasn’t worried about a couple of drunks; I was worried about the Austin press and what was gonna appear in the papers about this whole mess.

Steven was known for his humor, largesse and generally sunny disposition and it was a huge part of his career. He’d just released his first album for Capitol Records and was enjoying a very high profile not only locally but nationally. How was this incident going to not only affect his good reputation but his contract with Capitol? They’d recently had more of their stars IN trouble than OUT and weren’t in a really good mood. Would they still finance a tour to promote the album if they had any doubts at all about Steven for any reason? (That’s how music business managers think 24/7 – it’s not true that all press is good press!)

I was walking the floor and pondering the problem when Wifey came through the door, all 5’ of her and she had smoke coming out both ears. This usually gentle, calm, unassuming little woman was mad as hell and didn’t care who knew it. I attempted to calm her down but that wasn’t going to happen. She spoke to the jailer who told her “Ma’am, them boys is big hippies and they ain’t leaving here until they calm down and quit being mouthy!” Whereupon Wifey stated with great intent “You let me see my husband – I guarantee I’ll calm him down.” She and the jailer went back into the cell block. I waited out front and kept pacing the floor.

In nothing flat she reappeared with Steven and Beck. Beck was in pretty good shape but Steven looked like he’d gone five rounds with Mike Tyson. Both eyes were black, he had a huge knot on his forehead (which kinda looked like a little unicorn horn), both knees were horribly skinned (he had on walking shorts), his clothing was ripped and torn BUT – both guys were sober as judges! I’ll never know what Wifey said but whatever it was proved to be magic. We loaded up in the truck, dropped Beck off at his motel, and Steven and Wifey went home. I got back to my house and began loading up the truck as we were leaving for a six-week tour -- in four hours -- with a band, and at this point things just weren’t looking all that positive.

At 7:00 a.m. that morning Steven showed up ready to roll as did the band. My brother might be a novice as a defensive (or offensive as the case may be) drunk but when it came to business he was a professional – he was booked and he was gonna be there no matter what. Our first stop was Liberty Hall in Houston, Texas so we didn’t have a long trip ahead of us which was a good thing. With only a couple of hours sleep for Steven and none at all for me we were pooped. We went to the venue, got the equipment set up and I had a chance to talk to the guy in charge of lighting.

“Whatever you do, please avoid yellow spots tonight. Steven looks like hammered do-do and yellow will pick up on every knot and bruise on his body. Stick as much with pinks and rose as you can as he’s in bad shape. Use your own judgment on bright white,” and having said all I knew about the subject I went to the motel.

That night when Steven appeared on stage he was his usual gregarious self but looked a whole lot like Rocky Raccoon – and lighting couldn’t fix it. He’s blonde and blue-eyed – would be considered fair skinned – and all that just enhanced his boo-boo’s. The knot on his head had pooched out exponentially and his resemblance to a unicorn was even worse than it had been. His two black eyes looked kinda like the Lone Ranger’s mask. He had on blue jeans so his mincemeat knees were out of sight.

He immediately explained his odd appearance to the standing-room-only crowd, told the truth about his run-in with the law, what he’d done and how it had turned out but of course made it funny as hell and had the audience rolling in the aisles. He also told them something I didn’t know. He and Beck had not been drinking bourbon or rum the day of the fracas – they’d been drinking tequila all day long! I’d often heard him do raps about tequila and how it made everything “later” but he came forth with a different view that night that went something like this:

“Y’all ever pulled a real good tequila drunk? Well, if not, and I’m not suggestin’ it, mind you – but if you do – the morning after put a shot glass up to your ear and you’ll hear a bunch of Mexicans laughing at you!” The crowd loved it!

We finished the tour and by the time we got back to Austin Steven’s injuries were all a sad shade of yellow- green but he was no longer sore – bodily. Apparently the press decided to be kind as when I read my back issues of the newspapers it wasn’t all that bad. The day after the great jail episode, on the front page of the paper was a kindly worded article with the headline “Fromholz Sits It Out In Jail.” As I hadn’t heard anything from Capitol in six weeks I could assume they weren’t going to add insult to injury.

Oh yeah, the press plays a big part in any musician’s career – good, bad or indifferent. These days, when Steven comes out with some of his off-the-wall play on words, I’ll comment “You’re bad!” to which he’ll always reply “Yep, but I ain’t eeeeeee-vil,”-- and y’know – that’s the bottom line truth.

For a fact, in all these years in the music business; I’ve never known an evil or mean-spirited musician – can’t say that about any other group of folks – collectively – I’ve ever known. After 50 years in the business, no matter how minimally, I still consider it an honor to be among them

One of a series of articles entitled “In The Music Business You Dance Alone”

AngelaBlair©2012 All Rights Reserved.