Remembering Poodie: Austin music's master of ceremonies

2009 passing of Willie's stage manager left a hole not to be filled

Poodie 2005 photo AAS

One of my most rewarding assignments was in 2008 when the Statesman sent me up to Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie to write about Willie’s band and support team on the eve of his 75th birthday. To me, the most interesting Willie story ideas were about the people who’d been around him for more than 30 years. Head roadie Randall “Poodie” Locke (33 years at the time) set me up in the front booth, where drummer Paul English, bassist Bee Spears and guitarist Jody Payne, came up, one after the other, to entertain me with stories of their combined century in The Family.

They’re all gone now- and Poodie led the way, as he always did.

"There are no bad days" was Poodie’s motto, but an exception was May 6, 2009 when this giant of kindness and personality was taken away by a heart attack. He was 60.

As news spread, Poodie’s Hilltop Bar & Grill in Spicewood quickly filled up with mourners. The thought that he’d never walk through those doors again was more than most could handle. A family member had died.

In Willie's band of gypsies, Poodie was the ringleader who had a hug for everyone no matter how much was going on. Everybody wanted time with him, and he gave as much as he could, but there was work to be done. Both of the Nelson crew buses had signs that said "Poodie's on the other bus."

As stage manager, Poodie handled most of the advance work and was in charge of setting up the instruments. He guarded Willie’s favorite guitar like a secret service agent, willing to take a bullet for Trigger. But at the same time, Locke, who dressed in drag and chased Owen Wilson in the video for “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore,” knew how to have fun. Oh, goodness did he ever!

"He was the heart and soul of the road crew," said Joe Nick Patoski, author of the Nelson biography An Epic Life. No other roadie had his own logo, a silhouette featuring his prominent beer belly, on t-shirts and ballcaps.

As his mother, Gloria "Momma" Locke loved to tell people, Poodie Locke won the Most Beautiful Baby contest in Waco in 1948 when he was only a few months old. The nickname "Poodie" is derived from "purty."

Poodie Locke photo by Scott Newton

Poodie was only 12 when he met Willie, a regional star from nearby Abbott, who was playing bass with Ray Price at the time. After a college try at North Texas State, Poodie got his first job in music as a 20-year-old roadie for B.W. Stevenson. After 1973’s “My Maria” craze waned, Poodie and Buckwheat’s harmonica player Mickey Raphael joined the Willie circus. (Stevenson died from a bacterial infection following heart surgery in 1988 at age 38.)

Poodie was promoted to stage manager in 1975 when “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” changed Willie’s world forever. “I’ve got the best job in the world,” he told me. “I never want to let Willie down.” The work is hard, but worth it when you’re part of a team ruled by love, not stress. The crew of hippies and bikers and rednecks are on one hell of a ride, and they don't forget that for a second.

Having Willie Nelson as a boss is like living in a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan. You'd have to be crazy to move out/move on. But eventually the loyal roadie wanted his own thing, too. Poodie’s Red River Saloon opened in June 1990, with Billy Joe Shaver. Willie would play the official grand opening in September.

Before it was Poodie’s, 603 Red River Street was Raven’s Garage (named after the auto repair/resale business there since the 1930), an important late ‘80s venue for the nouveau country outlaw scene. Although Ted Roddy and Freddie Krc filled the 200-capacity room every Tuesday night with the Teddy and Freddie Jamboree, the club struggled and closed in early ‘90, to be taken over by Poodie and his business partner Rex Ludwick. They even kept the Old West decorations and the herpetarium. But Poodie didn’t like being in the heart of the entertainment district, under such close scrutiny. One ordinance made him get rid of the rattlesnakes; another shut him down for a week for serving after hours. Hell, what’s the use of owning a nightclub if you can’t slide your buddies a beer after they’ve been busting ass all day to put on a show?

Poodie and Billy Joe Shaver.

Poodie’s next place would be way out in the Hill Country, just a few miles east of Briarcliff, where most of Willie’s people reside.

Poodie’s Hilltop, the coolest country music beer joint in Texas, debuted in 1998 as a place where he and his crew could hang out when they weren’t on tour. But it quickly became a live music venue, with a stage for up-and-comers like Meagan Tubb, as well as legends like Merle Haggard, who just wanted to cut loose one night. L.A. country trio Midland moved to Dripping Springs in 2015, and took the carpool lane to credibility by woodshedding at Poodie’s for a couple months.

Poodie’s Roadhouse, as it’s called today, is filled with the life-hardened hombres with braided ponytails who’ll remind you of the oral sex joke with the punchline “I’m not Willie Nelson.” In the club’s early years, Willie played Poodie's at least a dozen times, once billed as "Phood" after hanging out with members of Phish.

"When we're out with Willie, we can't wait to get back to the Hilltop," Locke said in 2008, as he sat at a laptop in the bar, e-mailing equipment specifications to Australian Customs between bites. "I'm dreaming about these cheeseburgers on the drive back. But after a couple weeks we’ll look for excuses to call each other, and our wives or girlfriends will be saying, ‘um, don’t you got a gig coming’ up?’ We can’t wait to get back on the road.”

Poodie’s Hilltop was an oasis for other music travelers, and you never knew who was going to show up. Garth Hudson of The Band flew in from Paris to play SXSW in 2004 and felt that he'd just been getting warmed up when the 40-minute showcase was over. He ended up at Poodie's the next night and played for three hours with a pickup band.

As an impromptu nine-ball tournament broke out behind him, Poodie said his joint's "anything goes" attitude reminded him of the old Soap Creek, off Bee Cave Road. "You'd have to drive way out in the country, at least back then there wudn't nothing else out there, and go up this winding dirt road, and you felt like you were invisible from the authorities," he said. "When we get people driving all the way out here from Austin, I have to laugh. I can't tell you how many times, back in the old days, when someone would say, 'Let's go to Soap Creek' and I'd go, 'Nah, it's too far.' Compared to this place, Soap Creek was downtown."

WWPD?

On June 28, 2009, a celebration of Poodie Locke’s life was held at the Backyard at Bee Cave. Everyone was there but Willie, who promoter Tim O’Connor said didn’t want to take any attention away from his dear friend.

"This is probably one of the toughest days of Willie's life," O'Connor said.

The nine-hour show featured so many bands personally touched by “the big man on the Hilltop,” including Joe Ely, Little Joe Hernandez, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Billy Joe Shaver, Reckless Kelly, James Hand, Folk Uke and Carolyn Wonderland.

In the crowd were Johnny Knoxville, with a t-shirt that asked “What Would Poodie Do?” and Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage, who called his friend of 30 years “the greatest facilitator I’ve ever known.”

The show closed with a song Billy Bob Thornton, who knew Poodie since the B.W. Stevenson days, wrote the night of May 6. “Poodie was the master of ceremonies for all of us,” said Thornton in introducing “He’s Just Makin’ His Rounds,” which he performed with the Boxmasters. “There’s a hole that’s not going to be filled.”

Unless we fill it with our own compassion, and a sense of responsibility and fun that neglects neither. That’s what Poodie would do.

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