This program is supported by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation.

Now, if I said Luke and Rock, Texas, that song is probably playing in your head right now.

What are you thinking about?

Jerry Jeff Walker and Gary Pinon with their breakout album, Viva Terlingua!

That was recorded right here at the dance hall.

Maybe you know about Hondo Crouch, who actually bought the town of Luke and made this Texas legacy.

And Laura what it is today.

It was a bit more to the story, actually.

Miles and miles from here.

There was some country music greats that they didn't like the way Nashville ran their music, and they revolted.

They came to Texas, and that was the start of the outlaw country music scene.

It's great to be here.

It's a great day in Luke.

Well, how are you, Taylor?

This is Taylor Brown, and we're going to talk a little bit.

Yeah.

Let's go inside.

Yeah.

Now, Taylor, you are the head of hospitality of Luke Bach, Texas.

Now, that's got to be the coolest job, right?

It's really, really fun.

We see people from all over the country every single day.

There's not been a day that's gone by that we haven't asked where someone is from, and they're from other parts of the world, and they tell you their stories and you tell them many of the stories out here, right?

People have so many connections to Luke and Bach, whether it's music or family members that they had heard stories about from their childhood and growing up.

And so we definitely hear all of the wild stories, the good stories, the memorable ones associated with music or just the area.

Now Looking Box got different eras of history.

Let's talk about the very beginning.

There's two histories to Luke and Bach, right?

There's the musical history that most people have heard of.

And we fill in the gaps, of course, but there's also a pioneer history, and you can't have one without the other.

And so Luke and Bach at its earliest days, was a Comanche Indian trading post.

So there were Comanches here before the Ingles, and the Luke and Box settled in and built a little community.

But once they came in, there ended up being a very civil peace treaty.

In fact, it's the only peace treaty between Germans and Indians that has never been broken to this day in the United States of America.

The only one they used to trade out of the Eagle House.

And it was so civil that the Eagle family would usually make some type of rendered animal content in animal fat and place it on the windowsill later to come back and find that the Comanches had taken the animal content and there would be produce left for them.

That was the exchange.

Time went on.

More Germans did come in, and so the Comanches did, did move along.

And so they built a little community.

We're sitting in the Ingle Town Hall.

This was a town hall before.

It was a dance hall.

And then surrounds us is the other little buildings that were part of the community the post office, general store, saloon.

There's remnants of the cotton gin across the creek, and then there's even a building that we call the egg House is now just an office, but that used to be where they would grade eggs and sell them.

And then lastly, our warehouse store, where we sell fun t shirts and ball cap that used to be an old lumber yard feed store that I've been told, but it was just a beer cooler we used for a long, long time.

I would say the most iconic building out here is the post office.

Everybody wants to go through it and I'd like to go through it.

Can you show it to me now?

Yeah.

Great.

Let's go to your.

Welcome to the office.

Thank you very much.

This is the white line that used to separate the post office from the general store.

And here is all sorts of old memorabilia that's original to when Hondo purchased the property in summer armadillo baskets.

You used to be able to pump gas in the front.

There's the old gas of $0.16.

You better fill up while you're here.

Those are the good old days.

I used to never know what the military helmets meant until I asked.

They said that the pickers that would come play under the trees were sick of the chickens roosting and getting put on their heads.

So they started all wearing military helmets.

And this is the beautiful old bar.

Lots of history in here.

Lots of things on the wall to date.

The bar, the potbelly stove has been here since 1901.

And then if you just look around, you can see all of the pictures of people that have played here, drank here.

And then let me show you the door.

Yes.

This is the infamous Viva Terlingua door.

Yes.

So this was Hondo album.

He was pointing to a flier that they had put around town, advertising Jerry coming out to do a live album recording in Texas, and it became a really iconic album cover because, you know, it changed the fate of Jerry Jeff Walker's career.

It was a big part of the outlaw movement, and it changed the fate of Luke forever.

And I want to show you this really cool statue.

Yes.

So over here is a statue we put in just a few years ago when Jerry Jeff Walker passed away.

We had a really big memorial concert, and we got someone to carve this beautiful statue of Jerry, Jeff Walker and Hondo Crouch.

And a lot of people ask us if that's Willie in Waylon, and we sell them.

No, because without these two, without this friendship that sparked and ignited, that led to that album, Willie and Waylon would have had nothing to sing about.

Well, folks, this is a real treat.

This is my long time friend, geek kook.

But Geek and Hondo were partners.

They bought the town together and gates was part of the marketing.

When did you become friends with Honda?

Well, Honda's wife, Shotzi Crouch, had been a long time friends with my parents, and so I really knew Hondo all my life.

Tell me about the opportunity you guys got the opportunity to buy this.

What were the details?

I told Shotzi I wanted to move up to looking up to back to the Hill Country.

I was working in Houston.

She called me one day and she said geek the town of looking back for sale.

She'd seen it in the Fredericksburg paper in the classified section said towns for sale.

Edgar out will make payments.

And so I came up and to look at it, and sure enough, the town was for sale and aggregates would make payments.

And on Mondays and Tuesdays, the local ranchers and farmers brought in their eggs and cheese and butter and traded for feed and groceries and beer.

Then Wednesday's I took the eggs to San Antonio and sold them door to door on a route.

When did you and Hondo decide that this ought to be a music Mecca?

Well, we didn't know what to do with it when we bought it, and so we started off with a World's Fair.

That was when, you know, they invited me on the Johnny Carson show to talk about this festival that we were having.

And looking back, Texas with population three.

And that's amazing.

How did Johnny Carson find out about you?

I told you there had been some stories in the paper about buying this town and the eccentric people that were here.

We didn't have any money.

We had a $200 budget to put on this festival.

So we put on a World's fair.

We had chicken flying contests and hot air balloon races, Indian dancers, a cannon shoot.

We got four pages in some Greek newspaper over the cannon shoot.

We really had a good time.

It became known as a kind of a quirky place.

You know, we had this rooster that drank beer out of here, out of a cup, and it was a great success.

We had about 20,000 people show up with one restroom.

But I invited Willie Nelson.

He was getting ready to have his first 4th of July picnic, and Willie came up on his own with his Buster, and he played.

You know, when he gets started, he's home.

He played for about four hours free.

This was probably two years before Jerry Jeff came up here.

Tell me more about Willie.

We weren't buddies, but we knew each other.

And I really admired him.

And so happened that I was at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, had a Kris Kristofferson concert with Willie and Waylon and Jesse Colter, and we sat there and then after, when we were leaving, Willie said, guess what we did this week?

I said, what's that?

He said, we just cut a song called Look in Texas.

It's going to be number one.

And it was he was right.

He was absolutely right.

And then we had busses of people that came in and after that, and they almost loved the town to death.

And we just had people sitting outside playing all the time.

And so then after Jerry Jeff did his album here, Viva Terlingua!

That was that was quite a production.

That was quite.

We didn't even have a city for it, but we had some electricity, but they had to bring their own generator.

They brought 4 or 5 pickup loads of hay for baffles in here, but it turned out really a great, great album.

Well, at times they are changing.

Somebody ought to write a song about that.

I do, I do, no, I really it's been an honor interviewing both of you.

It's been a great day and you lived it.

So this has been a really treat for me.

And 80 years now, I'll tell you what.

One of the three of us by a small town and do it all over again.

Been there, done that.

I'll do it.

Come on, folks, let's do that.

There we go.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Looking back to.

Looking back.

When we were his kids.

And we were his first testing of all his jokes.

Oh, my God, his jokes.

Like we go hunting in the pasture.

And Hondo secretly grabbed the BB gun instead of a real gun, and he already had gone there and shot a deer and edited.

So when we came up, he gave the BB gun to my brother one and he shot and it killed it.

And Honda said, oh, let's go look.

And there was a dead deer land there and wanted he must have shot it in the eye.

Well, anyway, there were pranks galore like that.

Hondo was like Indian scout or this magician that he.

We were his first audiences.

He played tricks on.

It was a rider called Peter Cedar Stacker.

And his satire comments in the newspaper kind of became looking back with all its crazy characters.

But when he bought it, the school closed and the post office closed.

So they had to think of some zany, crazy events to go there.

That brought sometimes, unfortunately, thousands of people.

It was the first of what she called outlaw music.

Now, what outlaw music was, was where and when and how something got recorded.

It wasn't in a studio.

You didn't wear rhinestone outfit.

The songs were written on the spot, sometimes five minutes long, and they were poetry.

We had to have hay bales to bustle the sounds of the chickens, and often I saw Jerry Jeff come in.

He recorded three albums there.

He would come in in a cowboy hat and a t shirt and a bathing suit and boots.

Hondo would come in and put soap flakes on the dance floor.

Back then you'd think of the Alamo, think of looking back.

Because Jacob looking back, one of the first of many thousands of German people that came over.

He fought in the War of the Revolution in 1835.

Jacob looking back, and he got awarded land and he and his other immigrant friend called August Ingle.

They settled around looking back.

First airplane was invented at looking back, 1861.

Jacob rode back.

He was also a genius and a music man and taught music, and was one of the first school teachers in Wickenburg.

That was 40 years before the Wright brothers.

And they he had intricate drawings.

And so what if it started off of a barn top and only went 20ft?

It still was the first flying machine.

Hondo.

He was known as a Texas folk hero.

And he would he would be shocked that anyone remembered him today.

In 1946, if you travel way, way, way northwest of San Antonio, down an old country road into the Texas Hill Country, you'd see a familiar landmark a two story building covered in Texas limestone with the sign out front, The Shape of Texas, the Texas Story.

And it's been called that since the very beginning.

And it started out as a beer joint, as a destination for motorcyclists.

But really, it's the music venue, the list of the people that have played the stage at the textarea.

It's an iconic list.

You got to see it.

Come on, let's go.

The Texas Story here on Bandera Road serves as both a dance hall and a restaurant.

But there's something I got to show you.

This is not just a list.

This is the who's who of country greats.

And they all played here on this stage at the Texas.

Darian, interrupt your big moment here on the stage Troy J. Troy, this is Troy lot.

He is the owner of the Texas Star in.

And you've got some stories for me.

Let's go sit and talk about that.

Now.

This started in 1946.

Who were the owners back then?

It was the client family.

Frank Cline and his wife, I believe Frank Cline's wife was tired of him being on the road doing all of his honky tonk in there.

So they decided to open the Texas Star in so he could do his honky tonk and right here.

And that way he could be home every night with his wife.

Well, it's a great start and keeps the marriage together, I guess.

Absolutely.

But he was the first.

But actually, you know, we look at this list and there were so many people, the great country Western folks who in their early days, they played the stage.

And I know, you know, Willie Nelson and Doug Song, who are some of the other names?

Well, of course, you talked about Willie Nelson.

Willie Nelson played here before.

Anybody knew who Willie Nelson was.

He was the fiddler for Ray price when Ray price was popular playing at the Texas Doreen.

Matter of fact, Ray price played here on Halloween of 1961 for $600 and a lot of other big names.

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys played here.

We heard Hank Williams senior played here, and of course, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Rodriguez.

And since we put all the names up there, we found out some other big ones that have played here.

When we made the list, we didn't want to put anything up there that we didn't know was true or not true.

And so but since then, we did find out that Johnny Cash actually played here and a couple of other big names as well.

Charley Pride, we don't have him up there.

And back then this was just a way out of the way place.

That's right.

What was the draw you think?

You know, I think it was somewhere for everyone to go back then and just have a good time, you know?

You know, back in the 50s and 60s, there just wasn't a lot around.

And it was either here or John T Floors Country store in Helotes.

It was definitely just a good, fun place for people to go and have a good time.

Honky tonk, but are some other great stories of the past that you remember.

So one of the big stories is Johnny Bush.

Johnny Bush got his start when he was 17 years old here at the Texas Star, and when he started working for Frank Klein, this is where he started.

And as a matter of fact, he ended up being roommates with Willie Nelson while he was working here.

And both of them played in Ray Price Band, I believe Johnny Bush was the drummer and Willie Nelson was the fiddler.

But Johnny Bush, in his biography, if you read it, he talks about when he started playing at the Texas Star in and they were filming live country music here in 1953 and 1954, talks about, well, I've made it big now I'm on the I'm on the TV screen now, and this happened right here, right with this very stages.

We mentioned Gina Rodriguez.

You've got a story about him I do.

So one day I believe it was on a Sunday.

We came in and Johnny Rodriguez was in here.

I went and talked to him.

He was with a friend of his, and his friend's name was Rick.

And Johnny Rodriguez decided that he wanted to play a concert here, and he wanted to do his release of his bio, and he wanted to do his book signing here.

So when he was here, I asked him what he went to drink and he said, I'll take a double scotch on the rocks.

Of course, it was noon and I don't drink that early, but he did.

And so I went ahead and got that for him.

And then I said, hey, you know, we have you up there as one of the backdrops on the stage.

Would you mind signing this for us?

So he did.

He came in and he walked up on our stage back here, and he went ahead and signed the backdrop for us.

And we scheduled a day after Cinco de Mayo.

Johnny Rodriguez was supposed to perform here, and unfortunately, he got sick and he was put in the hospital and two months to the date that he had signed our backdrop on the stage, he passed away.

What would draw all these great country players to the Texas Star in?

Well, I think back in the day when we had the big names coming to the Texas Star in, of course, that was before my time.

You know, I think it was just one of the, you know, fewer there were fewer places to go and there just wasn't a whole lot of the, the, you know, I guess the, the this was a smaller venue.

And, you know, some of them at the time, the bigger names weren't as popular back in the 60s.

They, they, you know, their popularity grew.

And so then they had to go to bigger venues.

But before they went to the bigger venues, they played at the Texas and it was a smaller venues.

Now, the building itself, 1946, it's using Texas limestone.

It was taken right out of Leon Creek, down the street in 1946.

They hauled it from Leon Creek.

And when you passed Leon Creek, I believe it's the I want to say maybe it's the right side.

You'll see a bare area where a bunch of the limestone was taken, and now it's erected right here.

And that's why this building is standing.

For a while, it was just the main square stone building that kind of resembles the Alamo out there.

And then in 1952, this, the part that we were in right now, was built.

So in the early 50s, even in the 40s, that 46 on through through 52, where we're at right now was the patio area.

And they would come out here and the bands would actually be outside.

And and then this would be the dancing area right where we're at.

But they would also have bonfires and everything all around, and people would have lawn chairs and sit out on the patio and watch the band.

I've got some stuff I'd like to show you before we get out of here.

Wonderful.

Check it out.

So show me what you got here.

So we have a few books here that has the Texas Star in them.

The the dance halls and last calls.

There's an article about the Texas Star in.

And this one here, this book here.

The greatest honky tonks in Texas.

Of course, they've got the Texas Star in in there.

And this scrapbook was from the 1980s when the Texas Star in was run by these two ladies here.

So one of the articles that that I like looking at here is the article that was an interview with Loretta Lynn.

And of course, she talks about her time over here at the Texas Star in in the article.

And when she used to play at the smaller venues like we were talking about earlier and she said it was more personable, she got to meet people and really talk to them.

And so she missed those days about playing at those the places like the Texas are in.

This is one of our bar.

The old bartenders in this guy, he actually still comes in here every once in a while.

His name is Phil, but there was a one of them that I wanted to show you with Johnny Bush actually dancing out here on the dance floor.

And there it is right here.

They're good.

Cool.

I wanted to ask you about this because I grew up out here, and I'd always see this.

This sign.

What what what happened to that sign?

That sign is still here.

It's just up on the building now.

Oh, it's been refurbished.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, looked up there.

Looked a little more modern.

Okay.

Very good.

So it's still there?

It is.

But I don't believe the city would allow us to have it out this far right now.

So.

So we had to put it up on the building.

Gotcha.

Okay, cool.

Well, this has been great, Troy.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Take care of something real quickly.

Yes, sir.

Oh, I can't believe I'm going to be playing on the stage with all these great names.

Is something I wanted to do all my life.

I want to play one of my favorite songs I wrote.

I ain't you silly, Smokey Boy.

I'm really with my dog most of the time, and I would sing her man, we are close.

Oh well, at least I can put my name up here.

Don't you dare.

This program is supported by the Elisabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation.