My friends kept talking about going to see Damon Bramblett at the Dry Creek Café and Boat Dock.
“He’s practically the best living country songwriter. And he’s totally eccentric. Only plays every so often at the Dry Creek.”
I’d long admired Bramblett’s self-titled, traditional country album, some of the songs familiar from the first listen because covered by Kelly Willis. So one Friday at sunset I headed to the Dry Creek Café with friends.
It was my first time to the dive bar nestled in the hills off of Balcones Drive, tucked away between the trees and the huge houses. At this point it’s neither café, nor boat dock; and they serve domestic beer only. There’s no waitstaff and customers aren’t served a second beer until they bring the bottle from their first back to the bar.
The place was owned and run by Sarah Swanson from 1956 until she passed away last April, just before her 96th birthday. Her son, former state representative Jay “Buddy” Reynolds, has taken over as proprietor. Sarah was legendary for yelling at her customers. She married four times and John Kelso quoted Reynolds as saying, “Oh God yeah, she put them in the grave. She was like living with a bobcat or a black widow spider.” But Sarah’s harsh exterior masked a kind heart–she was known to give a cheeseburger to a regular patron waiting on a paycheck, and once in 1975 she loaned $1,000 to a couple renting an airstream on her property so they could buy a car.
Upon arriving, I was indeed impressed by the Dry Creek’s lack of polish. If the building were any more rustic, it might collapse on itself. We bought our beers and headed up the stairs to the patio where Bramblett was tuning up to play to the small crowd sitting on the rickety old chairs, his back to the stunning view of rolling green hills.
When Bramblett began to play, the sun beat down, but as soon as it dropped below the horizon, the light of dusk combined with the music and breeze to create a magical feeling–the kind of feeling that creeps over you when you’re drinking a cold cheap beer and listening to one of the greatest living country Western singer/songwriters, who doesn’t happen to be terribly well-known, but who you have had the charmed luck of stumbling upon.
Between skillful renditions of his original songs, Bramblett offset the confidence of his music with self-deprecating humor. At one point he told the crowd that he lived nearby and could sometimes hear his dogs barking as he played. “I sing at home a lot of the time, and I wonder what my dogs think when they hear my voice coming from all the way over here.”
When finished playing, Bramblett wandered from table to table, chatting up the crowd.
Ever a fan of a dive bar, I left feeling I’d discovered an authentic and enchanted, if grubby, little secret. The next day, I called my mom to tell her about it.
“The Dry Creek!” she exclaimed. “My first year in college my friends and I used to go there on windy days in my black MG. We’d take kites and balloons and tied them to the rail on the top deck. We’d watch them fly while we drank longneck beer.” When I asked her if she knew the owner, Sarah, my mother said, “Everybody knew Sarah. She had the foulest mouth of anybody. She was the toughest old lady around. And she could handle any situation.”
My mother then handed the phone off to my 74 year-old stepfather, saying, “Eric, tell Mary about the Dry Creek.”
Turns out, my stepdad had frequented the Dry Creek years before Sarah took over as owner. In 1952, he lived in a little two-room shack on Dry Creek Road. “Had a couple of roommates. Had a boat down there,” my stepdad said. “Wasn’t any paved road to it. You come off of Mount Bonnell Road and there it was, our little place by the water, about 20 feet past the Dry Creek Cafe. I lived there for about a semester. “
“Days I went to the University I’d stop by the Dry Creek for a beer on the way home,” he told me. “It wasn’t any big deal. It was just this dump beside the road. It wasn’t any historic marker or anything.”
Exactly.
NOTE: For a video tour of the Dry Creek Cafe, click here.
I’ve always been curious about that place.
And yet they, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time.
—-Rainier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Love this piece, ML, that brings back so many touching memories when Austin really was a small and sleepy town!
so good
don’t ever
stop
Been there few times Mary, loved the jukebox and the sunset breeze on the deck of which you mention…..but somehow.. your rendition was a bit more.
Thanks for sharing.
LR