Thinking a few things about Speedy Sparks….
He was one of the first friends I made through music when I moved to Austin in 1973, working for Carlyne and George Majewski at Soap Creek Saloon bartending and helping out Jim Groenewegen, Doug Sahm’s official roadie. He was from Houston, I was from Fort Worth. We both moved to Austin for the music.
He was there when Freddy Fender emerged from obscurity to play a show at Soap Creek with Doug Sahm, a gig that effectively jumpstarted Fender’s career, and when Esteban Jordan aka Steve Jordan brought his psychedelic conjunto accordion to the club.
Next thing I knew, Speedy was playing bass in El Molino, the Tex-Mex ensemble put together by Joe Carrasco, a Sir Doug protege. He was paired up with drummer Richard “Eh-Eh” Elizondo, a four-fingered dwarf from San Antonio with his own language to make for one of the unlikeliest rhythm sections I’ve ever heard.
Speedy’s father was an opera singer.
Speedy resided for many years at the Red River Motors/Washington Motors compound on Red River Street south of Cesar Chavez Street, a collection of houses and cars and trucks and buses overseen by Artie Osborn and Doug Breeding, directly across the street from what is now the tallest skyscraper in Texas. This was the last honest hippie hang in Austin – a great place to find a cheap used car or hear great music, usually on Speedy’s record player.
Speedy was an accomplished musician, but also had a deep understanding where music came from. He knew his history. He told me when he was a teenager in Houston, he used to run with Chuck Dunaway, the disc jockey on KILT radio, Houston’s Top 40 station, who had the ears of teenagers throughout the Houston area. Dunaway took Speedy to see and hear rhythm ‘n’ blues acts like Bobby Blue Bland and Little Junior Parker.
Speedy started playing with several bands, notably the Bizarros, with whom he shared the stage with drummer Bill Bentley and guitarist Sterling Morrison, a University of Texas grad student of Medieval Literature and former member of the avant-garde band The Velvet Underground.
By 1981, he was the bass player in the reconstituted Sir Douglas Quintet and hit the road with Doug Sahm and Augie Meyers throughout the United States and Europe. Speedy emulated Doug in finding good places to eat on the road, no matter where they were, and on his own, sought out landmarks and points of interest, especially related to music. His curiosity was unlimited.
Ask music people in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Norway: they all know Speedy Sparks.
When Patrick Mathe of New Rose Records in Paris, France came to Austin, Speedy became his producer, A&R man, and bandleader, producing and playing on Roky Erickson’s album All That May Do My Rhyme, featuring “Clear Night For Love,” the psychedelic singer’s most Buddy Holly-esque rendering ever. Roky and Speedy were Buddy Holly nuts.
A connoisseur of the 45 rpm single, Speedy started his own company, Dynamic Records, as a goof. He collaborated with an exceptionally talented guitarist named Junior Brown to release the single “Too Many Nights In the Roadhouse” b/w “My Baby Don’t Dance to Nothing But Ernest Tubb,” unwittingly launching the solo career of the master of the Guit-Steel. (Read Junior’s recollections on Facebook: Speedy and Junior weren’t trying to do anything other than have a goof making a record).
He said he wanted to make a record singing in Czech. He grew up loving Tex-Czech because that was what he heard when he visited his grandparents in Brenham.
Speedy was a happy sideman. He wasn’t a mic hog and didn’t need the spotlight. Playing in the band is what mattered. He made his own record on Dynamic – “OK, Let’s Play,” which became the title of Speedy’s solo album.
He revived the career of George Tomsco, the guitarist in the West Texas-New Mexico rock and roll band, The Fireballs, by accompanying George on playdates around Austin.
He raised Charlie and Will Sexton. Speedy had dated their mother Kay Sexton, and took them in when they left their home in Wimberley in their early teens, providing them a musical education as they grew into artists in their own right.
He played bass in the Texas Tornados, the supergroup with Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez, Doug Sahm, and Augie Meyers – Sahm called them “the Tex-Mex Beatles,” won a Grammy, and toured the world.
He understood Homer Henderson.
He understood James Hand, the prickly neo-traditional country singer, and played in his band until Hand’s passing.
He played in more bands in Austin than any single person I know – Del Rio, the Nortons, the Mystic Knights of the Sea, the Koolerators, TG Band, the John X. Reed Band, Alvin Crow, Leroi Brothers, Teddy and the Tall Tops, The Texas Mavericks, The Rhythm Rats, Ben Vaughn, Lazy Lester, and….[add your band here].
He drove cabs for Roy’s Taxis, along with songwriter Rich Minus.
He was a regular at the Continental Club, the Hole-in-the-Wall, Black Cat, Saxon Pub, C-Boys, Soap Creek, Antone’s, Blondie’s, After Ours, Austex, Duke’s, Club Foot, Sam’s, Ginny’s, Henry’s, Giddy Up’s– anywhere where there was music
He was part of the Eve Monsees-Mike Buck orbit as a charter member of Eve & the Exiles, and traveled with them to the retro-rock Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans several times and recently played and recorded with them in Memphis and in Mississippi.
He was the best, most honest character in my documentary film “Sir Doug & The Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove“
His bass was always refined and understated, simply pouring the foundation for any cool groove. His style provided the path for several generations of bassists who have followed him.
He liked to ride trains and to smoke good weed.
He defines everything great and lasting about Austin music.
The last words I spoke to him was “I love you.”
His last words to me were “I love you too.”
So long, Speedy, it was really, really good to know you.
