Land of Mañana
Story and photograph by Rani Birchfield
W
hen you relocate to the
Trans-Pecos region, the
remoteness and inconven-
ience of it forces you to look at things in
a different light. If you’re a musician
who is used to tons of choices in venues
and equipment, accustomed to playing
with only one band, you learn to
groove to a different, sometimes discor-
dant, tune and get comfortable being
with multiple partners. Take the band
Dry Creek Diggers, for example, which
now consists of constants Jim Hall and
Gary Oliver, but which like many
bands in the Big Bend region has mor-
phed over the last decade.
Jim Hall moved to Far West Texas
with his wife, Jan, in the early 2000s.
Newly retired, with time to follow other
passions, he wanted to give music les-
sons, repair amps, and find a new
band. Coming from the multitudinous
music scene of Fort Worth to a dearth
of options, he wasn’t sure where to
hook up with local musicians. His past
life as an engineer (playing gigs at night)
made him meticulous about the search
process; he watched the papers, attend-
ed events, and drove around looking
behind cacti and under rocks, hunting
for the elusive music scene.
Gary Oliver played in a band in col-
lege but gave up instruments for what
would end up being three decades. He
kept his hand in the music world, how-
ever, by making art for clubs in Austin
and being part owner of the One Knite
Dive & Tavern, a popular watering
spot where Jimmie Vaughan was the
house band and the club hosted top-
name performers like The Flatlanders
and Willie Nelson. When the popular
Austin bar closed in 1976, Gary went
to South America with a backpack and
an old guitar, where he hitchhiked and
picked up Latin influences for his
music. After returning to the states in
the eighties, as Gary prepared for a
cross-country cycling trip to Alaska, he
met someone from West Texas who
rocked his world. Instead of heading
north, he set out for one of the other
wide spaces on the map, Marfa, Texas.
Although he later traveled the
Southwest on a bicycle, Gary never
22
Cenizo
escaped – he ended up in Sal Si Puedes,
a scruffy spot on the east side of Marfa
where he remains to this day.
Gary started drawing for the Big
Bend Sentinel and during the nineties
returned to music by writing songs in
response to the proposed nuke dump.
Picking up musical instruments once
more and now in possession of a button
accordion, he spent time with locals on
Thursdays in the parking lot of the old
Holiday Capri Motel.
As Jim cruised through Marfa one
day, he saw a sign for “Marfa Music
Jam.” Jim inquired, and found Wendy
Lynn Wright, at the time a nascent
musician and the facilitator of the jam
held at the old Capri. The first jam Jim
attended, Wendy was the only person
there. Wendy begged Jim to give it
another try, promising more players
farther along in their musical prowess
next time. True to her word, at the next
week’s jam, Jim found a dozen or so
musicians, as well as groupies. Wendy
introduced him to locals Gary Oliver,
Billy Faier and Charles Maxwell, to
name a few. Finally, Jim found what
he’d been looking for – harmony in the
desert. Jim and Gary decided to form a
band along with Paul Graybeal, Drew
Stewart, and Billy Faier and call them-
selves the Dry Creek Diggers.
In these parts, you don’t get hitched
with one band – you play the field with
different ones. One way to get some
action going is to offer to play for free,
later graduating to a meal perhaps, and
if you’re lucky, moving on to making
the gas money. That’s how Dry Creek
Diggers came to play on Thursdays at
Cueva’s in Fort Davis. Jim talked the
owner into “trying” them out for free
and Thursday was the agreed upon day
due to the star party schedule. No star
parties at the observatory on
Thursdays meant people were in town.
Live music on the patio would give
locals and visitors alike a fun way to fill
up the evening, dancing on the side-
walk and indulging in purchases made
at the package store across the street.
Aside from Dry Creek Diggers, Jim
makes himself available to play with
other bands. After sitting in with Craig
Second Quarter 2015
Carter a few times, Jim came home
and informed his wife that Craig want-
ed to go steady. Craig had asked Jim to
be his one-and-only bass player. That
doesn’t mean Jim can’t play around,
but when Craig has an event, Jim is on
bass.
It’s good to know you’re “The One”
so that when you happen upon a poster
announcing one of the bands you play
with is scheduled for a gig and you’re
planning to be out of town that day,
you know to investigate. Such was the
case a few years ago when Jim saw a
poster in Alpine advertising Craig
Carter’s Spur of the Moment Band
playing the annual Fireman’s Ball in
Terlingua. Oops! Jim and his wife had
plans to be in Arizona that week. They
changed their plans but still had no clue
what the venue was. Although the
location was unknown until a short
time before the event, Pam Weir and
her friends made it happen at the
Boathouse. As it was a tad neglected,
they cleaned like crazy, built a stage,
and literally wired the place for sound.
They pulled it off as a success. This
year the Ball will again be held at the
Boathouse on April 18, 2015, hosted by
Craig Carter’s band.
Music, art, life... they’re all a bit dif-
ferent “out here.” Haphazard, discon-
nected, unorganized, and oftentimes
spur of the moment. But if you can go
with the flow (because really, there is
one) and be ready for anything, it may
come together… down the line. After
all, this is the “land of mañana,” but
mañana doesn’t necessarily mean
tomorrow.