on Highway 80 West toward Weatherford, and all the joints up and down the Jacksboro Highway and the Mansfield Highway, where the featured entertainment was “Live Band Tonight.”
After the clubs closed, Oliver would sit in at the New Jim Hotel downtown, the “colored” hotel where black touring musicians stayed when they were playing in North Texas. “You had to be careful and know the right people or they’d roll you,” Oliver said. “You wanted to have some black friends.” The reward was getting to play with some of the finest road bands, black or white, on earth.
Oliver learned to play a little bit of everything and a whole lot of Western Swing, usually doing four sets a night from eight until midnight, except at the Westland Club, where they went till sunrise. “We didn’t make much money,” he said. “Nobody did. A musician in it for the money was in the wrong business.”
For Oliver, music was its own reward. “When I was at the Westland Club, from eight to twelve, we’d play country. From twelve to four in the morning, we’d play jazz. Everybody back then liked Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France. I idolized him when I was a little kid.” Oliver turned Willie on to Django. Willie helped Oliver whenever he could. “If Willie had ten dollars, he’d give someone five if they needed it. He didn’t have anything, but he’d give you half of what he had.”
Willie was learning a lot and making enough at sales to move Martha and Lana out of Ira and Lorraine’s house into their own rent house out toward Arlington. But he still wasn’t satisfied. What Willie really wanted, Oliver realized, was to be understood and not get too distracted. If someone offered him a shot of whiskey, he’d drink it and keep drinking until the bottle was gone, which led to nights when he didn’t come home. He took his first knowing drag off a marijuana cigarette behind a building on East Belknap. “I didn’t realize it until then that I’d already smoked marijuana before as a kid with my cousin who had asthma,” he said. “The doctor had given him some cigarettes and while we were fishing out on the creek bank, he brought out one of these asthma cigarettes, and I took a couple of puffs. That smell stayed with me for the years later when I first ran into what was really pot.” A lot of musician friends smoked. “I was smoking for six months before I realized I was getting high.”
But the presence of family kept him out of serious trouble. Between Martha and Lana, Ira’s family, and Bobbie Lee’s family, who moved to Fort Worth along with Mamma Nelson to live with Aunt Rosie and Uncle Ernest in White Settlement, there were plenty of kinfolk with an eye on him.
S ISTER Bobbie thought she had lost her way. She had divorced Bud Fletcher, and after Bud’s influential parents went to court early in 1955, they won custody of Randy, Freddy, and Michael Fletcher, leading Bobbie to suffer a nervous breakdown. When she recovered and regained custody of her boys, she headed to Fort Worth to find work and raise her sons. “I thought I couldn’t play music anymore. It was sad,” she said. She found a job in a TV repair shop and enrolled at Brantley Business College to learn secretarial skills. “I had to find a way to raise my children and make as much money as I could,” she said.
When she completed secretarial school, she went to the Texas Employment Commission. “I was the only person at the employment agency who was a pianist and a stenographer,” she said. The Shield Company called to ask if she would work as a stenographer in the organ department and be trained to teach the new Hammond electric organ. Bobbie needed no persuading. “I could go back into music,” she said. “I played pump organ but this was a different thing. Me and my boys started going to Edge Park Methodist Church. They bought a little spinet organ from Hammond. I started playing for the church. Willie and his father and his wife
After the clubs closed, Oliver would sit in at the New Jim Hotel downtown, the “colored” hotel where black touring musicians stayed when they were playing in North Texas. “You had to be careful and know the right people or they’d roll you,” Oliver said. “You wanted to have some black friends.” The reward was getting to play with some of the finest road bands, black or white, on earth.
Oliver learned to play a little bit of everything and a whole lot of Western Swing, usually doing four sets a night from eight until midnight, except at the Westland Club, where they went till sunrise. “We didn’t make much money,” he said. “Nobody did. A musician in it for the money was in the wrong business.”
For Oliver, music was its own reward. “When I was at the Westland Club, from eight to twelve, we’d play country. From twelve to four in the morning, we’d play jazz. Everybody back then liked Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France. I idolized him when I was a little kid.” Oliver turned Willie on to Django. Willie helped Oliver whenever he could. “If Willie had ten dollars, he’d give someone five if they needed it. He didn’t have anything, but he’d give you half of what he had.”
Willie was learning a lot and making enough at sales to move Martha and Lana out of Ira and Lorraine’s house into their own rent house out toward Arlington. But he still wasn’t satisfied. What Willie really wanted, Oliver realized, was to be understood and not get too distracted. If someone offered him a shot of whiskey, he’d drink it and keep drinking until the bottle was gone, which led to nights when he didn’t come home. He took his first knowing drag off a marijuana cigarette behind a building on East Belknap. “I didn’t realize it until then that I’d already smoked marijuana before as a kid with my cousin who had asthma,” he said. “The doctor had given him some cigarettes and while we were fishing out on the creek bank, he brought out one of these asthma cigarettes, and I took a couple of puffs. That smell stayed with me for the years later when I first ran into what was really pot.” A lot of musician friends smoked. “I was smoking for six months before I realized I was getting high.”
But the presence of family kept him out of serious trouble. Between Martha and Lana, Ira’s family, and Bobbie Lee’s family, who moved to Fort Worth along with Mamma Nelson to live with Aunt Rosie and Uncle Ernest in White Settlement, there were plenty of kinfolk with an eye on him.
S ISTER Bobbie thought she had lost her way. She had divorced Bud Fletcher, and after Bud’s influential parents went to court early in 1955, they won custody of Randy, Freddy, and Michael Fletcher, leading Bobbie to suffer a nervous breakdown. When she recovered and regained custody of her boys, she headed to Fort Worth to find work and raise her sons. “I thought I couldn’t play music anymore. It was sad,” she said. She found a job in a TV repair shop and enrolled at Brantley Business College to learn secretarial skills. “I had to find a way to raise my children and make as much money as I could,” she said.
When she completed secretarial school, she went to the Texas Employment Commission. “I was the only person at the employment agency who was a pianist and a stenographer,” she said. The Shield Company called to ask if she would work as a stenographer in the organ department and be trained to teach the new Hammond electric organ. Bobbie needed no persuading. “I could go back into music,” she said. “I played pump organ but this was a different thing. Me and my boys started going to Edge Park Methodist Church. They bought a little spinet organ from Hammond. I started playing for the church. Willie and his father and his wife
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