Welcome to Graham A Phone, your Awesome Music page!

"You know, I don't see Blues working here in the Hill Country.... I don't think the people around here have the intelligence or the patience for it, and the tourists would rather hear country or Americana..."
A Former Booking Agent for Silver Creek.

Hey Y'all

August 4th, 2008

Hey Ya'll!!

John Vandiver was a Texas Bluesman when it was cooler to be an outlaw country artist. John was an outlaw among outlaws.... musically speaking, that is! He ran with folks like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Michael Martin Murphy, Rusty Weir - all the time staying true to his blues roots. John claimed that he only had one album when growing up - the New Orleans blues great Lonnie Johnson. He learned every song on it!
Sometime in the mid-eighties, a friend, J.D., gave me a cassette (CD's??? Hell, they will never last!) of Vandiver's music. It was a live recording at Poor David's Pub on Lower Greenville in Dallas circa 1984. I was floored by how well this "bootleg" recording (it was taken - with permission - from the sound board) conveyed Vandiver's charismatic music & stage personae. Over the years of listening to this tape - and subsequently his posthumously released CD - I realized that the recording or the tape or the equipment could have been nearly inaudible and that charisma would still shine through.
Back then, I discovered that, along my musical path, I had picked up a few of the same songs in John's set list. It wasn't a far stretch for me to learn a few of the covers ( " I Found A Dream" and "Lonely at the Top") and a couple of his originals ("Comin' Home" & "Country Girl"). That started a life long study of John Vandiver.
We lost John in 1985. That's a whole 'nuther story......
I never got to meet John, but, Shake Russell did. In fact, Shake was the bass player in the Ewing Street Times - John's band in the early/mid seventies. To our good fortune, after touring all over the Eastern U.S., John & Shake settled here in Texas - Dallas/Houston.
Shake Russell will be our special guest tonight at Blue Monday at Silver Creek in Fredericksburg to celebrate John's birthday and his life in music. Shake will have many more stories and songs that he and John performed.
Joining us will be Billy Bucher, of Dallas - who also played with John as his drummer - on drums & the rest of the Bona Fide Blues Band standing by to add their two bits to the music!
Have I said that this is a DON'T MISS SHOW!!
Well, it is!
We'll kick off at 7. Come hungry, thirsty, ready to here some incredible music!!

Love, Graham