Last Tuesday, I went to a local dive bar legend not far from where I live in Silver Spring. MD. Hank Dietle’s has been around since 1950. I first went in the ‘80s. The thick cloud of cigarette smoke that I remember from my younger days is gone. So is the pool table.
But the vibe is the same. Bikers and businessmen, old hippies and buzz cut veterans all casually conversing, sipping their beers and hearing some truly fine music.
I went to hear Dan Hovey, a local guitar player who performs a 90-minute set every Tuesday. He was excellent. More on him in a moment. Because this isn’t really about Dan Hovey. This is about a guy I never saw live. Jon Dee Graham. Jon Dee was an Austin legend, and I’ve been to Austin for exactly four days in my 60-plus years on this planet.
Jon Dee died on Friday. He was 67. He leaves behind a wife and family and a wealth of some of the best American music produced in the last 45 years. I’m sorry, I never saw him. But I am grateful for how his legacy helped create my own love of music.
Jon Dee Graham – a Texas legend who reached well beyond the Lone Star State
When I have to explain my own personal taste in music, I always stumble a bit. How do I make sense out of the pair of vinyls I bought last week – a collection of Bob Wills’ Texas swing hits from the 1940s and the Lambrini Girls’ blistering modern punk rock debut filled with song titles I can’t even print in this family column?
Jon Dee Graham is part of the answer. He went from playing in the seminal Texas punk band The Skunks to backing up R&B singer Lou Ann Barton. His journey took him from the Escovedo brothers' hard-rocking True Believers to playing alongside Americana giants like James McMurtry.
I can’t do Jon Dee Graham’s life and career justice. I never saw him. If you want to read up on him, I’d suggest this excellent remembrance from Chuck Reece. I can just tell you that his last album, Only Dead For a Little While (2023), contains some of the best American roots rock you are likely to hear, and it was pretty much on a par with all his other solo work.
And I can tell you this. Listening to Jon Dee Graham taught me that my seemingly disparate love of punk rock and Americana isn’t nearly as schizophrenic as I used to think. The genres really aren’t all that different. If you turn punk far enough in the right direction, you arrive at bluegrass. And vice versa.
Actually, I think that is true of any two music genres you can name. At the core, they all grow out of the same notes. Some optimistic dreamers are fond of saying that despite the apparent chasm that exists between various groups in the world today, human beings’ commonalities far outweigh their differences. I think that applies to music as well.
So, back to Dan Hovey and Hank Dietle's for a moment. I had only managed to get myself into Hank’s a couple of times over the past many decades. It’s five miles from my door, but I don’t drive at night and, well, there was always a reason not to drop in.
But I had a night free, and I had heard some good things about Dan Hovey, so I made the circuitous subway trip, perched at the bar, and got a Dogfish IPA.
I’m so glad I did. Dan was fabulous. A good storyteller. A virtuoso on guitar. He played Norman Blake. He played Mark Knopfler. He played Warren Zevon and Merle Travis. the Stones, and a few originals that fit right in with the rest of his set.
A few days later, I went out on a lovely Thursday night to a nearby public golf course where another local singer/songwriter – Cole Larravide – was doing a ninety-minute free show. He had a different set list – heavy on the Beatles and other late 20th-century rock and roll, along with his own strong original numbers.
But like Hovey, it was a guy and a guitar and some fine, fine music. I don’t really think I was experiencing a Lou Reed – life-was-saved-by-rock-and-roll – moment, but I do know I felt better for having heard Hovey and Larravide last week.
Maybe this is about Hovey after all. I’m going to go back to Hank Dielte’s. Not every Tuesday, but whenever I can. If he’s in town, that’s where he’ll be. Just like Jon Dee Graham, most Wednesday nights at Austin’s Continental Club. I never made it there. But there are clubs like that all over the country, and artists like that plying their craft for anyone who takes a few minutes to listen.
Start in your hometown. Find your Hank Dielte’s. Or Songbyrd Music House. Or Jammin’ Java. You’ve got one – or five – not far from your door.
Then, explore the other towns you visit. Next time you’re in Atlanta, hit up Little Five Points. I’ve lost track of whether Regi Wooten still does his Wednesdays at Nashville’s Rudy’s, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find something to like in the middle of nowhere on Gleaves Street.
Ask your friends in Minneapolis, Phoenix, Detroit, etc. If you don’t have any friends in those towns, find the local record store and ask whoever you run into. That’s how I found Askew in Providence a few years back.
Askew is closed now. John Dee Graham is no longer part of the Austin scene. I’m not getting any younger myself. I intend to hear as much local music – whether in my own hometown or not – as I can while I still have the ears to listen.
RIP Jon Dee Graham Â