donal

hinely

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So, How Did I Get Here?

It can be an enlightening and somewhat scary exercise to sift through the past in search of some turning point, the one defining moment that sets you on your present course. One such moment arrived at the impressionable age of thirteen when my older brother Terry snuck me into Poor David's Pub in Dallas to see the legendary Texas troubadour/entertainer Steve Fromholz. Stepping through the door on McKinney Street into that smoky domain was like setting foot in some exotic new world. Fromholz told his stories, sang his songs in between tequila shots, and made me a believer in music. That pretty much did it.
Along the way there have been many other moments: In 1979 I saw Cheap Trick at the Dallas Convention Center. This led to my conversion to rock-n-roll and later to the formation of a great little rock band called the Agents of Kaos. I wrote some songs about social justice, but mostly I just wrote about girls. During a party in college in my hometown of Denton, Texas, I heard Van Morrison's album "Astral Weeks" for the first time. This awakening led me to a whole new world of music by the likes of Nick Drake, John Martyn, and Leonard Cohen. A California road trip with my sister Susan turned me on to the greatness of Richard Thompson as we drove through wine country listening to his live album "Small Town Romance." This led directly to the desire to write better songs. Around this same heady time, friends introduced me to the great Irish tradition as played and recorded by Planxty and Christy Moore. These influences led indirectly to playing music with my brother for over IO years at Renaissance festivals and small venues throughout the south including the aforementioned Poor David's Pub (it had moved to its current location on Greenville Avenue by that point) and the "world famous" Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I earned a masters degree in history from the University of North Texas and bummed around Europe with good buddies in 1982 and again in 1989. I also mowed lots of yards and painted many apartments.
In 1990 I bought a cheap guitar and a one way ticket to Australia. I hitchhiked over 5,000 miles playing street comers from Sydney to Melbourne to Tasmania to Adelaide and through the outback to Darwin. Seven months later, I ended up in Ko Samui, a small island in the South China Sea, where I played 6 nights a week at a place called the Jazz Bar. I eventually earned enough money for a strange flight to Sophia, Bulgaria. Later, during a particularly memorable performance in the streets of Prague, Czechoslovakia, I realized that I was living the greatest of all possible dreams.
In 1994, with the help of many good friends, I released a CD full of songs written on my travels called "Breakfast at Jim's." I then moved to Nashville to conquer the world. I believe Fromholz did the same thing. His song "Late Night Neon Shadows" chronicles his Nashville experience: "You try and put Nashville in a nutshell/its a hard-sell town, the dollar is the king/When you're drunk and you're broke and you're standing in the rain/nobody cares how well you pick and you sing." Fromholz still lives in Texas. Y2K has dawned and I'm still here in Gnashville.
I've been humbled considerably. I've also been inspired from time to time. Once, I sat next to Emmylou Harris and watched three Texans -- Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Steve Earle -- spin their masterful tales on the Bluebird Cafe stage.
In 1997, I lost my brother Terry -- my touchstone, confidante, partner, and best friend -- to a reckless driver in Oak Cliff, Texas. Since then, I have found a strange and sometimes uneasy peace playing the instrument he pioneered -- the glass harmonica. Four months ago I got married. In six weeks I will experience the joys of fatherhood. Life turns on such moments.
As I sit here in Tennessee trying to see the connections, I recognize that some paths are circuitous, some are shortcuts, and some play out altogether like a dirt road leading to a river. But it does seem to me that it was all set in motion in a special little dive in the bowels of Dallas. I've often wondered what my brother said to the doorman to let me in. I was recently surfing the web and came across www.stevenfromholz.com. The homepage features a big icon that says "It's Fromholz's Fault." Nothing could be closer to the truth. God bless him.

--Donal Hinely

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©2005 donal hinely