Viva Terlingua and that Dark Day in Dallas KFAN and Points Beyond in Both Time and Space essay by Esteban Erik Stipnieks all rights reserved. (if this honors the memory of Doc Bowman it was under his teaching that the thought processes emerged)
Joe Baulch talked of a journey from Austin to Kerrville in the midst of a drought interrupting flood that soaked the hill country in the fifties. The reference to Highway 290 as a snake path with a bar ditch on either side. As the old history professor talked an image of detachment of the Texas Hill country from Austin emerged. The drive from Austin to Dripping Springs (there once was a degree of separation between the two) and on into Johnson city was something scary. In the words of Joe Baulch it was a "snake path."
It is now on You Tube(isn't everything now) Jerry Jeff talking about London Homesick Blues(Gary P Nunn's Website he wrote it) being recorded at Luckenbach. Well something happened between the Viva Terlingua recordings and Joe Baulch's harrowing journey as teacher at the Schreiner Institute as he went through a flooding hill country night that would set records, strain bridges. Without this event Luckenbach would have been just another crazy German town in a near God forsaken region of Texas. (Come on it takes more then 30 acres of hill country land to support 1 head of cattle that is why goats were raised there). It comes down three letter LBJ. Simply put 290 between Austin and Fredericksburg during the Lyndon B Johnson admin was modified widened and made to the passable highway that it is now. Could it be that dark day in Dallas was not without its silver lining?
If we pull out the picture gets even more complex Scholarship on Kennedy's Death cultural effects. Now I will offend some people Sorry Viva Terlingua, Red Headed Stranger, and other works of the birth of Outlaw scene can not be viewed in Isolation. There was a larger almost reactionary shift culturally against the excesses of the acid rock extreme left shift America took. The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was no less a foreshadowing then Guns and Roses Appetite for Destruction. The slower evolution of the scene was because there was lass mass communications at the time. So the trend developed a bit more slowly. The direction and the flow was clearly reactionary and a return to some semblance of roots. The Southern Rock explosion from Marshall Tucker band to Skynrd occurred during this time. This is the same era that spawned the Flying Burrito Brothers. Viva Terlingua was popular when Don McClain's American Pie rose. John Denver also enjoyed a rise to fame in this era. The music has common threads. Luckenbach was hardly isolated it was a sign of a trend.
If you listen to KNBT and KFAN the scene is still kicking. There is a lot of good music born in the area. It has grown local and in my opinion Robert Earl Keen was a good start. Local licks at six and other bits show the vibrancy. As far as sound reflecting the region I can think of a song that reminds me of eating a burger at the Gristmill overlooking the beautiful flowing Guadalupe. I will give you a hint within 15 miles of Gruene Hall many points far closer. Take a listen (If the Cafe existed she would be invited to play)