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16
Cenizo
Neil Trammel and Trevor Reichman
by Andrew Stuart
A
rtists of any kind need
time and space to devel-
op their art. While the
Big Bend is not necessarily an
easy place to make a living, it is,
in comparison
to the city, a
cheap place to
live, and space,
a wider margin,
is, for many
artists, a kind of
wealth in itself.
It’s one that the
region can pro-
vide in abun-
dance.
The
Big
Bend’s is also a
culture
that
appreciates
handmade art
and perform-
ance. Without
malls or cine-
plexes, West
Texans
are
alive to simpler
pleasures,
primed to be
entertained or
enlivened by a
songwriter and
a guitar or a
we l l - p l aye d ,
unadorned
honky-tonk
tune.
For
these
reasons, the Big
Bend is a good
place for song-
writers to hone
their craft, as
two
young
songwriters
now at work in
the region demonstrate.
Songwriters Neil Trammel
and Trevor Reichman came to
the Big Bend from very differ-
ent places – Trammel from
North Texas farming country
and
Reichman
from
Johannesburg, South Africa,
via Austin and Portland, Ore.
Now living at either end of
Brewster County, their music is
First Quarter 2010
different, too – Americana with
a serious Texas barroom habit
for Trammel, a warm, intense-
ly intimate kind of folk for
Reichman. But in their respec-
band that includes harmonica
and mandolin player Todd
Elrod, dobro and steel guitar
player Matt Hicklin and Chris
McWilliams, a talented song-
writer in his
own right. In
recent years,
they
have
played as a
group as the
Doodlin’
Hogwallops.
With covers of
vintage tunes as
well
as
Trammel’s own
wry, whiskey-
soaked songs,
the Hogwallops
have brought
something of
the spirit and
swagger
of
Texas’ honky-
tonk heyday to
the Big Bend.
Tr a m m e l
was
raised
rural, on an
80-acre farm
not far from the
Brazos River, in
Godley, Texas.
Reared
on
Bluegrass and
Bob
Wills,
Trammel
discovered the
wider spectrum
of
Texas’
honky-tonk
heritage, as well
as its inward-
looking song-
Neil Trammel: photo by Matt Wright-Steel writers, on a
regular Sunday
tive back-to-basics musical
evening radio broadcast, “The
journeys, both have found in
Honky Tonk Texas Show” on
Far West Texas ways of life and
KSCS FM. The sounds
a community to support their
Trammel heard – from 70s era
work.
Willie Nelson and Waylon
Since his arrival in Alpine
Jennings to melancholic song-
almost a decade ago, Neil
writers like Townes Van Zandt
Trammel has been establishing
and Guy Clark – triggered an
himself as a part of the region’s
interest in music, and by the
musical landscape. He’s per-
end of high school he’d taken
formed as a solo act and with a
up the guitar.