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Pat Green's Dance Halls & Dreamers

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Pat Green's Dance Halls & Dreamers

(4 customer reviews)

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M0292718764

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"Pat Green's Dance Halls and Dreamers" is an all-access look at Texas' legendary music venues and the musicians who make them great. Author Luke Gilliam and photographer Guy Rogers III spent a day at ten of Texas' venerable dance halls, recording candid interviews and action-packed color photographs. The result is an unprecedented day-in-the-life look at the people who make the Texas music scene flourish. Each of the chapters documents a venue's personality, history, and atmosphere as everyone prepares for and parties at the biggest show in town. Texas icon and three-time Grammy nominee Pat Green shares his memories and favorite stories of each venue. He also gives fans a backstage pass into his world with a performance at his favorite dance hall, Gruene Hall.A unique assemblage of Texas musicians share their stories about dance halls that have served as landmarks on their rise to fame. Hear from honky-tonk heroes Willie Nelson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Robert Earl Keen, as well as established stars Jack Ingram, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Cory Morrow, and Kevin Fowler, and up-and-comers Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen. Each performer offers a firsthand perspective on his career. The venues are equally diverse, from the big city lights of Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth and Stubb's BBQ in Austin to road-trip outposts in Luckenbach and Schroeder Hall. But the Texas music scene's true essence is painted by the dance hall owners, bartenders, bouncers, and fans, who commingle at these halls on a nightly basis. Colorful sidebars delve into the unique characteristics of each hall as well as its founding fathers.

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Product Details

Author:	Luke Gilliam
Hardcover:	184 pages
Publisher:	Dance Halls & Dreamers Publishing LLC
Publication Date:	January 15, 2008
Language:	English
ISBN:	0292718764
Product Length:	10.31 inches
Product Width:	12.17 inches
Product Height:	0.85 inches
Product Weight:	3.18 pounds
Package Length:	12.2 inches
Package Width:	10.1 inches
Package Height:	1.0 inches
Package Weight:	3.0 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 4 reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 5.0

( 4 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Great Photograph Make This a Fun Book All Around! Jun 10, 2008 By Cindy W. Bonner
Outstanding photography is half the fun of reading this book; the other half comes from the words of the musicians who have played in these ten legendary Texas dance halls, and the owners who tend them. There is something unforgettable about each of these places.

The Cabaret in Bandera has a hump in the dance floor. According to the owner, the hump is "kind of like a speed bump at the Indy 500." The dancers use it to turn themselves around, and newcomers trip over it. At the Coupland Inn and Dancehall it's the upstairs Bed & Breakfast, dressed like an old-time bordello, that makes the place unique.

At Luckenbach, it's the song, of course, and the laid-back attitude of the people who frequent the matchstick buildings that comprise the town. Gruene Hall, Texas' Oldest Dancehall, was a hay barn in the middle of a ghost town when it's owner found it and restored it in the 1970s. The roll call of acts that have played there reads like the Country Music Hall of Fame. Just a piece up the road from Gruene is lesser-known Saengerhalle, which lays claim to being haunted. Holes in the dance floor there are covered by old hammered-down Texas license plates.

Stubbs Bar-B-Q in Austin attracts a little bit different crowd, a little louder, a little more rocking. The barbecue is pretty good, too. And then there's Billy Bob's Texas, the World's Largest Honky Tonk, with it's wall of shellacked autographed burger buns, and its hallway of hand prints, like an upright version of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

John T. Floore's Country Store in Helotes is where Willie Nelson got his start, and continues to return for his July 4th Picnics. The 6,000-square-foot, puke green building "has all the ambiance of a bomb shelter." A collage of oddball signs adorn the exterior entrance. Inside, hats and boots left by customers, ropes and saddles and anything else that can dangle, hang from the ceiling over the dance floor.

The Sons of Hermann Hall in Dallas is remembered for having the "load-in from hell," a steep stairway outside the building up which roadies and musicians must carry their equipment to the second floor stage. An amplifier or two has taken a fatal tumble down the near-vertical flight of metal stairs. But so far nobody has died.

And then there's Schroeder Hall -- it's the Second Oldest Dance Hall in Texas, built in 1890. "To get there, drive to the middle of nowhere ... and take a left." Pat Green says, "You have got to want to get to Schroeder Hall." Everybody from Merle Haggard to the Marshall Tucker Band to Willie has played here. The trademark gold and silver tassels are on display in one of the photographs, the strings of lights in another, as is the after-dance, bottle-littered floor.

As I read this book and lingered over the pictures, I realized that I had personally been to all but three of the ten featured dance halls. And when I closed the last page, I had the urge to pull on my boots, jump in my car and make the drive to visit those last three.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Great for Texas country music fans! Apr 23, 2008 By C. Mcgregor
This book is a great look into the life of Texas country music. The book is very pleasing to eye with great photos and the stories are entertaining. I've loved Texas country music for years and was glad to add this book to my collection. It makes a great coffee table book and is very high quality. Worth every penny!

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Pat Green's Dance Halls & Dreamers Mar 31, 2008 By Tamara Beene
I loved the pictures and the stories that the musicians told. I am a huge Texas Country music fan and this was a very good book depicting those artists.

Texas Dance Halls Revisitd Jul 18, 2010 By bbracr1
This is a great book if you love Texas, its history, its Music and dance and its people. The historical aspect is great as ais the writing and the photos. Stories abound and show off the spirit of the Lone Star Republic and its people. Get this & then go exploring in the Dance Hall Route.