Bob McTeer

On a tip, Suzanne and I first saw Allen Damron perform at Uncle Calvin’s Coffee House in the basement of a Dallas church.

And what a performance it was.

The term “Renaissance” fit the performance as well as the man. He sang every type of song in multiple languages and brogues and with multiple instruments.

Even today, if I wanted to buy a CD of his at Barnes & Noble, I wouldn’t know which section to look in.

Early in that performance, Allen broke a string, and, out of nowhere, Marie appeared to swap guitars with him.

She floated gracefully onto and off of the stage in a Western outfit with a broomstick skirt down to the floor.

Not being able to see her feet, the effect was that of an angel propelled by invisible wings.

Several months later, I invited Allen to entertain a group of VIPs from all across the country that I was hosting in Houston.

I worried a little that, just because Allen was MY cup of tea, he might not appeal to some of my more “sophisticated” friends from places like Boston, New York and San Francisco.

Not to worry—they all loved him.

He got the same response a couple of years later at a joint board meeting I hosted of about 30 Texas VIPs and their spouses.

As fate would have it, one of them later helped get Allen admitted to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

I emailed Allen one day that I was trying to write a cowboy poem, which wasn’t going very well.

He offered to help, but I didn’t take most of his suggestions.

We simply marched to different drummers.

His uniqueness made him too hard to copy.

He told me he was entertaining at Ms. Tracy’s Café in Terlingua on New Year’s Eve, 2003.

He said that if I would come down, I could read my cowboy poem at intermission. He would lend me his audience—a captive audience.

The night before, he and Marie took us to hear Butch Hancock perform at the Starlight Theater in the ghost town nearby.

Butch performed all evening, but the song that struck my fancy was Gallo del Cielo, by Tom Russell, also recorded by Joe Ely, I believe.

It was a sad ballad about a brave fighting rooster that was supposed to win enough money to buy back a family’s stolen farm.

The rooster fought valiantly many times, and won many times, but ultimately lost, when his cracked beak fell into his corner-man’s hand.

I leaned over and told Allen I thought that was just too much responsibility to place on one rooster.

He was mildly amused.

Suzanne and I took shooting lessons from Allen while we were there, and I noticed that while he is known to be quite a marksman, he never fired a shot himself.

For a professional entertainer, I thought that showed remarkable modesty.

We learned that Marie is quite a shot herself, and, when she walks alone in the desert, she packs two types of pistols, depending on the kind and size of critter she encounters.

In the desert, Marie is no angel.

Allen was licensed to give the concealed handgun course, which included an anger management component.

He said he learned anger management over many years of running and playing in honky-tonks.

I hired Allen to give anger management classes to about 40 armed guards at the Dallas Fed who made me a bit nervous when I was around them.

He gave the classes with his guitar, alternating between speaking and singing, and everyone loved it.

The one piece of advice I took away is, if someone is about to lose it, you probably shouldn’t tell them to calm down.

It annoys them, and they tend not to.

Allen left us way too soon. I think he was 66.

I know that for his 65th birthday, both Governor Perry and President Bush send him personal letters of thanks for his contributions to Texas music.

I’m glad he got to realize how much he was appreciated.

When I went to Ms. Tracy’s Café with him, I wrote another little poem for the occasion.

It ended like this:

“If what goes around comes around
Is the story line again
Then, this movie is familiar
I know how it will end.

But tonight new friends are gathered
In a faraway place for me
It’s pretty hard to get to
But it’s a pretty good place to be.

All the way from Dallas
To Ms. Tracy’s café
To check out Terlingua, see Marie,
And hear Allen Damron play.

I later told Allen I was pretty proud of the lines:

“It’s pretty hard to get to, but it’s a pretty good place to be.”

I told him he ought to write a song around those lines.

I knew it was expecting a lot, but I halfway expected him to do it some day.

But he left us way too soon, with too many songs left in him.

Those lines could apply to the Kerrville Folk Festival, which Allen co-founded and played at for over 30 years.

“It’s pretty hard to get to, but it’s a pretty good place to be

And I’m finally here for the first time, thanks to Allen, and his angel, Marie.”

—Bob McTeer

About the Author

Bob McTeer is the former chancellor of The Texas A&M University System and former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.