My dad was a bit of an entrepreneur. From the early '60s until the mid '70s, he owned a series of bars on the South Side of San Antonio. The one that provided the most memories for me was Willie's Ice House, a former gas station on Frio City Rd. that was adjacent to the abandoned Kelly Drive-in Theater. (In the photo, Arco Iris Ice Cream, in the lower left corner, has replaced my dad's place; the large lot above it, marked with the red circle, was the drive-in, now a junkyard.)
It wasn't long before my dad took advantage of all that land behind his bar. He leased the drive-in property and he and some friends fashioned a softball field for weekend tournaments in the corner of the vast lot right behind the ice house. They also built a wobbly two-story structure that at ground level was a concession stand; upstairs was the perch for the scorekeeper/announcer. That was my job, where I spent many summer weekends as a teenager, trying to beat the heat with a non-stop supply of ice-cold Big Red. (If you have to ask, then you're not from Texas.) Occasionally, some team would be one player short, so I'd be summoned to come down and grab a glove. I don't know what was worse--playing on the gravel-pocked infield where every grounder was a potential nose-breaker, or roaming the outfield, where there was no fence. If a batter hit the ball far enough you'd have to chase it through an area that hadn't been leveled, running up-and-down the berms that ran between the parking rows.
In the spring of 1972, someone from the local free-form FM station, KEXL, stumbled upon the drive-in property and decided it was the perfect spot for an Independence Day music festival. They struck a deal with my dad, which put him in charge of concessions for the event. The promoters built a stage against the massive screen (still visible at upper left), which in the evening provided a canvas for the psychedelic light show. The lineup included the Austin band Freda and the Firedogs, featuring lead singer Marcia Ball. The headliners were Seals & Crofts, riding the waves of their hit album, "Summer Breeze." The co-headliner was bluesman Freddie King, aka The Texas Cannonball, who blew everyone away.
The event was a huge success. My dad and a few of his buds were bitten by the festival bug and they decided to put on their own event. They found a riverfront property just south of town and, on Easter Sunday, 1973, held the "Welcome Home POWs Rock Festival." One of my dad's partners was a U.S. Navy retiree so he must have come up with the concept. The headliner was supposed to be Malo, led by Carlos Santana's brother, Jorge. But I'm not sure they even showed up. It rained most of the day and the event was somewhat of a flop, disparaged as such by Chet Flippo in Rolling Stone.
That ended my dad's days as the Mexican Bill Graham. But I'll always have the memories of Willie's, the Kelly Drive-In, and The Texas Cannonball. (FYI--by this point, Freddie King was recording for Leon Russell's Shelter Records label. Here's a song co-written by Leon; that's him on piano with his regular band at the time: guitarist Don Preston, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon.)
The cover art was by Jim Franklin, who produced those classic posters for Armadillo World Headquarters.
Let's see, was this before Dripping Springs? Wasn't that the first Willie Nelson Picnic? 1973? Maybe this concert was an inspiration for Willie and all that came after. Freddie King died way too young.
Posted by: Sean Riley Mitchell | September 05, 2011 at 01:09 PM