Chequered Flag wasn't the finish line for Rod Kennedy

Austin's impresario took folk from a downtown club to his ranch in Kerrville

From 1967-1971 this folk club was at the future site of Castle Creek and the Comedy Workshop.

Enamored with folk singer Allen Damron, a native of Raymondville (“Gateway to the Rio Grande Valley”) who managed the 11th Door on Red River, Rod Kennedy thought about buying the struggling folk club in ’67. But after token negotiations with owner Bill Simonson, he decided to build his own venue at the former Bureau of Water Engineers offices at 1411 Lavaca Street.

The Chequered Flag debuted in September 1967 with a car racing décor and dipped roast beef sandwiches on kummelweck rolls, modeled after Meyer’s Tavern in the owner’s hometown of Buffalo. Kennedy put the Texas Speed Museum next door to display his collection of vintage Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis, plus other cars on loan. On opening night, club manager Damron sang “Mr. Bojangles,” a song Jerry Jeff Walker had written at Damron’s apartment earlier in the year, but had yet to record. Damron’s live recording from opening night at the Chequered Flag was released on a 45, sold only at the club.

Damron introduces Austin-raised folk star Carolyn Hester at the Chequered Flag

The Flag was planted in the name of folk authenticity when Woody Guthrie died just two weeks after it opened, and Woodyphile Segel Fry threw together a brilliant tribute concert. A six-set run by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott in February ’68 solidified the one hundred-capacity club’s stature. The 11^th Door closed that month.

Besides Carolyn Hester, who packed it five consecutive nights, the Flag featured regular appearances by Jim Schulman, who had a wide repertoire of Israeli folk songs, and Frummox, the duo of Steven Fromholz and Dan McCrimmon who workshopped the classic “Texas Trilogy” before recording it on 1969’s From Here to There (ABC). Jerry Jeff Walker and Michael Murphey were regulars, as was Alan Ramsey, a 19-year-old from Dallas who’d not yet grown into the Willis.

Three Faces West at the Flag in 1971. L-r Rick Fowler, Wayne Kidd, Ray Wylie Hubbard. Photo Burton Wilson.

Another fave was Three Faces West, who Damron called “the funniest group to ever play the Chequered Flag.” When somebody broke a string, Ray Wylie Hubbard would tell stories of his Oklahoma upbringing. “My grandfather was a bootlegger,” he’d say. “He smuggled books into Arkansas.” (Fifty-seven years later, Hubbard is still one of the funniest singer-songwriters. Earlier this month: “Here’s a new song. I don’t have any banter for it yet.”

“A marine doesn’t fail” was former USMC officer Kennedy’s motto, but the Chequered Flag was becoming as expensive a hobby as the fast cars, so it was announced that the club would close in September 1970. Instead, Damron and Fry bought the business from Kennedy and extended the run to June 1971. One of the last nights featured a screening of Tobe Hooper’s Peter, Paul & Mary doc The Song Is Love, which the Austinite directed right before Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Talk about range.

As president of Aquafest in 1966, Rod Kennedy announced that Melody Patterson of “F Troop” would be celebrity guest of honor. He’d soon move on to more creative pastures. Photo courtesy Austin History Center Statesman Morgue Files.

KERRVILLE FOLK FEST

A politically conservative owner of sports cars running a folk club in the ’60s may seem incongruous, but Kennedy had long looked at life from both sides. He could be “a crusty old bird,” as musician Bob Livingston led a memorial piece after Kennedy’s passing in 2014 at age 84, but he also helped nurture hundreds of singer-songwriters at his Kerrville Folk Festival from 1972 to present. His best friend of forty years was the liberal singer Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul & Mary, yet, until switching parties in 2008 to back Barack Obama, Kennedy was an avowed bootstraps Republican.

Robert Earl Keen and John Yutkin at Kerrville. Photo John Carrico.

But this right winger kept an open mind. Yarrow convinced Kennedy to add a New Folk songwriter competition to Kerrville, a  new concept for music festivals in 1972. Winners through the years have included Eric Taylor, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Slaid Cleaves, Hal Ketchum, BettySoo, Tom Russell, Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief, and future political consultant Mark MacKinnon. The New Folk winners concert is always a highlight of Kerrville.

Michelle-Shocked became a star after a bootleg recording of an ‘86 campfire session at Kerrville was released in Europe.

Kennedy laid down the rules that kept Kerrville unique: no talking in the audience during a performance, no recorded music between sets, and get that drum circle the fuck out of the campgrounds! There was a “no star” system, where each act got paid the same and the lineup was listed without headliner.

Kerrville has stayed alive over five decades because the biggest draw is the people who paid to get in. Now, that’s a failsafe business model! The camaraderie of song freaks has the people coming back year after year, and you never know who you might discover. In 1986, a former punk squatter named Michelle Johnston thumbed her way into a career when a British label owner recorded her impromptu set—crickets and all—with a Walkman. The Texas Campire Tapes made Michelle Shocked a star in Europe and led to her signing with Mercury Records. But ye olde campfires of Kerrville have been put out by yearly burn bans, replaced by often-resplendent compounds that would rent for $5,000 a month if they were in Austin.

Attending the fiftieth anniversary festival in 2022, I wondered if Hardline Rod would approve of the psychedelic afterhours blowout Kerrville has become. If you’re tripping, it’s a heavenly scene. What’s better than a lusty “Ooh La La” singalong at 5 a.m.? I was thinking sleep, but didn’t have that option. 

Kennedy would love the heartfelt endurance of “Welcome Home” as the Kerrville salute that sets the festival’s tone.  As uptight as the head Kerr-ator could be, he believed in the spirit of music to connect. 

Folk singer David Rodriguez and violinist daughter Carrie at Kerrville. Photo John Carrico from “Austin Music is a Scene Not a Sound.”

“I was pretty intimidated by Rod when I met him in 1981,” said Robert Earl Keen. “Not just because of his reputation, but because he ran something that I very much wanted to be a part of.” Keen said that when he was one of five New Folk winners in 1983, “it validated music as a career choice for me.” Many more can say the same.

When Kennedy was in hospice in 2014, among those who came to visit was Yarrow, who led a singalong of “Give Yourself to Love,” Kennedy’s favorite song by Kate Wolf, a Kerrville regular who died in ’86 at age forty-four. “Love has made a circle that holds us all inside,” sang the gathered. “Where strangers are as family, loneliness can’t hide.”

READ the chapter on Rod Kennedy from Austin Music Is a Scene Not a Sound (TCU Press summer 2024)