Honoring Esteban Torres with Guthrie’s “Plain Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)”
Recently I learned that retired U.S. Representative Esteban Torres had passed away at the age of 92. Although I had met Congressman Torres (or “E.T.” as friends called him) several years ago, I never really knew him, but I knew about his incredible career. Born in the copper mining region of Arizona, his father, a miner, was deported to Mexico in 1935, when E.T. was three years. This was during the depths of the Great Depression and thousands of Mexican laborers were deported. E.T. never saw his father again but he went on to an inspiring career serving in the ... [Read More]
All They Will Call You: The Telling of the Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon – Darryl Holter Book Review
Tim Z. Hernandez, All They Will Call You: The Telling of the Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon. University of Arizona Press, 2017. Book Review by Darryl Holter | Woody Guthrie Annual, 3 (2017) Woody Guthrie made lists. He compiled lists of all the songs he had written and then made new lists, sometimes changing the titles. In private notebooks he made lists of songs he wanted to write, headlines from newspapers, and names of friends he planned to write. On New Year’s Day in 1943 he recorded a list of thirty-three resolutions including “work more and better,” “change socks,” ... [Read More]
Happy Birthday, Waylon Jennings! (No, not that Waylon Jennings.)
Happy Birthday, Waylon Jennings! No, not that Waylon Jennings. I mean my dog and BTW, I didn’t name him. Waylon turned 15 years on January 16th, so we had a little party for him. I adopted Waylon from a rescue service in 2008. I’ve always liked the songs by Waylon Jennings so I liked the dog’s name. Also, I am a bit of a Francophile and Waylon is a French Brittany, the largest of the Spaniel family, a bird dog who loves to retrieve tennis balls. Unlike American Brittanys, which are brown and white or liver and white, French Brittanys ... [Read More]
All of Darryl Holter’s recordings are now available to stream or purchase on Bandcamp
Darryl Holter has made his latest album Roots & Branches available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp - Along with his entire back catalogue, including Radio Songs, West Bank Gone, Crooked Hearts and more, now easily accessible. Visit the entire catalogue for stream or purchase on https://darrylholter.bandcamp.com/ Darryl Holter grew up playing the guitar and singing country and rock and roll songs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His current brand of Americana music draws from country, blues and folk traditions and often tells stories about people, places and events.
Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan
It's Bob Dylan's 80th Birthday and that reminded me of this incident. - DH It was December 1977 or 1978 and I was driving from Madison to Minneapolis with April and Rachael to visit our families for Christmas. We stopped in Menominee to pick up April’s brother, Dean. Around midnight I stopped at the Big Steer truck stop outside of Osseo, Wisconsin, to get some coffee so I could make the next hundred miles to the Twin Cities. I saw a new red Cadillac in the parking lot. We sat in a booth and ordered. Dean, who was sitting across ... [Read More]
Don Heffington, Lone Justice drummer and session musician for roots stars, dies at 70
I had the pleasure of working with Don Heffington on two albums, Crooked Hearts and Roots and Branches. Don was a consummate professional. He arrived ahead of time, set up his drum kit, and was ready to roll when most of us were still tuning up. The long list of artists lucky enough to hire Don for percussion reads like a who’s who in roots and Americana music. In the studio Don was low-key and serious, but I remember when we knocked off for lunch while recording at Sunset Sounds, Don asked me why I changed the tempo of “A ... [Read More]
Op-Ed: Why L.A. shouldn’t rename a stretch of Figueroa Street for Kobe Bryant
By Darryl Holter, William Estrada and John Echeveste Los Angeles Times | Dec. 6, 2020 Whether with a bulldozer or stroke of a pen, Los Angeles often shows little respect for its multilayered history. To most motorists, Figueroa, Pico and Alvarado may just be major and meaningless congested streets that crisscross the city, but their significance is deeply ingrained in the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of Los Angeles. A case in point is the controversy surrounding Figueroa Street, one of the city’s earliest and longest streets, stretching in two segments nearly 30 miles across Los Angeles, from the ... [Read More]
San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore on verge of closing
San Francisco's iconic City Lights bookstore on verge of closing Sad news. Another victim of Coronavirus might be San Francisco’s venerable City Lights Bookstore. Like other bookstores in California, including our Chevalier’s Books in LA, it has been shuttered since March 16 and may not survive. I’ve always loved City Lights and never visit SF without stopping to browse the poetry section or the incredible collection of Beat Generation literature upstairs. I stay at a hotel near Union Square, walk through Chinatown up to City Lights, buy a book or two, walk across Jack Kerouac Alley, enter Vesuvio's Bar, order ... [Read More]
Watch Darryl Holter’s Performance & Presentation: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California
Darryl Holter’s Performance & Presentation: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California From October 26, 2019 at The Glendale Public Library. Darryl Holter sings Woody Guthrie songs and shares stories from Guthrie's time in Los Angeles. Presented in partnership with the Natural History Museum. Darryl performs several unrecorded and virtually unknown Guthrie songs written for his radio show including “Downtown Traffic Blues”, “Big City Ways”, “California, California”, and “Hooversville.” Darryl also shares stories from Guthrie’s time living in Los Angeles.
Performance & Presentation at Glendale Public Library
The La Crescenta Valley New Year’s Flood of 1934: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California Join local artist Darryl Holter on a musical odyssey of Glendale’s weather history. Holter sings Woody Guthrie songs and shares video commemorating the 1934 Crescenta New Year's Day flood. This video features Darryl singing Woody Guthrie’s Los Angeles New Year’s Flood and includes archival images provided by the Natural History Museum’s Seaver Center for Western History Research. Images of the flood from the Library’s Glendale History Room will shed light on the history of the flood and its impact on local residents and ... [Read More]
Darryl Holter grew up playing the guitar and singing country and rock and roll songs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His current brand of Americana music draws from country, blues and folk traditions and often tells stories about people, places and events.