10 for 30: #2 Broken Spoke
Exploring 10 Austin music venues that have been open more than 30 years
Jerry Jeff Walker used to say that he didn’t live in Texas, he lived in Austin. The opposite can be said of the Broken Spoke, where true honky tonk Texas resides in the in the heart of Condo Row.
The rustic red roadhouse used to be on the outskirts of town, but now it’s smack dab in the middle, like the Alamo. South Lamar is almost unrecognizable from just 10 years ago, but inside the Spoke it’s still the ‘60s, the band is playing “Walking the Floor Over You,” and the dancefloor is a counter-clockwise swirl of bodies.
It’s all about dancing at the club, which was founded in 1964 by James White’s stepfather Joe Baland, a gregarious carpenter in pinstriped overalls, who convinced Austin businessman Jay Johnson to not only lease him the old Al Erlich Lumber Co. property at 3201 S. Lamar Blvd., but provide $5,000 worth of building materials.
The first year it was just a beer joint that served a great chicken-fried steak. The dancehall, James White’s baby, was built on in the back in 1965.
"One of the things Joe used to say was, `I've been drinking beer on this road for 30 years and always paid retail, but if I could build my own place and pay wholesale I’d save a lot of money,’" Johnson told John Kelso for Baland’s obit in 1990. At age 72, suffering from cancer and other ailments, Baland did what he told everyone he would, turning a shotgun on himself in the one-room shack he lived in behind the Spoke.
He’d officially turned over the club to James and Annetta White in 1980, but they’d always been running the place, and named it after a favorite Western Broken Arrow. James also booked the 661-capacity venue, a job he held until his passing from heart failure in January 2021.
The first name act to grace the stage was Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, White’s all-time favorite group, in 1966. Their fee was $400 ($3,600 in current buying power- still a bargain.) “Nobody believed they were gonna show, until Bob Wills himself walked through that door, smoking a big cigar,” White said. “The fellas practically fell off their barstools.”
The butt from that cigar is featured in the Spoke’s “Tourist Trap” mini-museum, along with mementos from other acts who’ve played there, including Willie Nelson, Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Tex Ritter and Kitty Wells. There’s also a cowboy hat from George Strait, who packed the Spoke with his Ace in the Hole Band once a month from 1975 to 1982. Along with Big G’s in Round Rock and the Skyline on North Lamar, the Spoke was a stop on the honky tonk circuit of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“We have only two rules when it comes to the bands,” Annetta told me for a Texas Highways story in 2014. “First, they’ve gotta be country. And then I tell them, ‘If the dance floor ain’t full, you’re playing the wrong songs!’” Club regulars Al Dean and His All Stars, from San Antonio, could always fill the floor with their resurrection of a forgotten fiddle tune called “The Cotton-Eyed Joe” in the ‘60s. The accompanying circle dance and “Bullshit!” response were developed at the Spoke and other Texas honky tonks a decade plus before Urban Cowboy.
Acts like Jesse Dayton, who held a popular Thursday night residency for years, tailor their sets for the venue. “It’s not about presenting yourself as a singer-songwriter—or even an entertainer—at the Broken Spoke,” Dayton said on the eve of the club’s 50th anniversary, nine years ago. “The music is totally for the dancers, and we play the shuffles, waltzes, polkas, and 4/4 beats they love.”
A world class greeter, James White had an enormous presence at his club, but his passing did not affect the dance floor.
Dale Watson wrote a Texas two-step song- “Quick Quick Slow Slow”- as a template for new dancers, who share the floor with expert twirlers. As for non-dancers, they quickly learn to respect the sign that says “No standing on the dance floor.” That elbow was on purpose.
The most successful Spoke bands have been the ones like People’s Choice- who packed it every Wednesday from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s- that present perfect copies of the hits old and new. The Spoke is the most famous cover band bar in Texas.
One longtime Spoke act who did sing original compositions was Don Walser, which worked because his songs sounded like classic country.
Dubbed “the Pavarotti of the Plains” by Charles M. Young in Playboy, the magnificent yodeler received a standing ovation at the Erwin Center when he opened for Johnny Cash in 1996. Walser was then signed to Sire Records, the home of Madonna and the Ramones, but he picked up his career so late that he had only a decade of relevance. In the early 2000s, weighing 350 pounds, his health deteriorated to the point that fans were openly concerned. The last club to book him was the Broken Spoke. “Don just loves to sing, but it broke my heart to watch him perform when he was ailin’ so badly,” White said. The decision in 2003 to scratch his good friend from the schedule was the toughest he’s ever made. But actually the people made it for him by not dancing like they used to.
“When you come to the Broken Spoke, you’re coming to the same place that folks have been coming to for 50 years,” James White said in 2014 about his aversion to change. The Spoke experience is still one of the coolest, most authentic things about Austin, a visitor’s favorite stop at night after a day at Barton Springs Pool.
“Texas has a dance culture unlike any state in America,” said Dayton. “Asking someone to dance without any intention of picking them up is just a part of who we are. And it started at places like the Broken Spoke.”
On April 12, which would’ve been James White’s 84th birthday, the Broken Spoke finally got its historical marker. It’s a cool decoration, but the next step in ensuring this landmark is never torn down is for the the land to receive historical zoning status. The Austin City Planning Commission will vote on that this coming week.
May the Austin City Planning Commission have their heads outside their butts!
It popped into my head to say: “if these walls could talk? They would say clean me!“