Walter Hyatt, Late & Great

I was thinking of an old friend who isn't represented enough out in the world. Someone whose approach was a huge influence on me. Someone whose gentle advice and beautiful friendship I miss.

Walter Hyatt, 1949-96. Died on the ValuJet that crashed into the Everglades.

He had a group that was popular on the Austin circuit, Uncle Walt's Band. In 1987, Lyle Lovett produced his debut, King Tears. My roommate of quite a few years, Laurie Seniuk, played the hell out of this record for quite a few years. I totally shared her love for it, too. Walter Hyatt was like the Austin answer to Joao Gilberto. He sang soft with authentic gentle strength and power. He was his era's Floyd Tillman -- a jazzy, torchy, ballad-crooning brother of Western swing.

One night in 1993 -- when I was still living in Philly -- I saw he was playing at the Tin Angel, where I played quite often. I walked over. He hadn't gone on yet, so I walked to the little dressing room and introduced myself, and I told him how much I loved King Tears, and that knew and loved his music dearly. He was so enthusiastic and open that he invited me to play with him on the spot. I didn't have a guitar, so he told me to use his gorgeous round hole arch top Collings.

Although his record featured him with Lyle Lovett's rhythm section augmented by guitarist Champ Hood, he toured solo, and I watched how he presented his songs, how his voice was powerful but understated, and how great his guitar playing was. I wondered what the hell I was supposed to play when I got up there.

I shouldn't have worried. He introduced me, I walked up, and we locked into each other. I think he was shocked that I knew his songs as well as I did. But I really was quite the fan. And he was a truly fun singer to accompany. He had the same wonderful weaving/bending quality as Dee Lannon. Also, his qualities as a guitarist were only magnified by his dimension as a rhythm player.

We got to be friends and stayed in touch. He requested my group be his opening act when he'd play the Tin Angel, which was great of him. He also would periodically write me a letter. He had the most perfect handwriting this side of John Hartford's. He would ask advice about chords and so forth. He used my chords to "The Christmas Song" on his Christmas gigs. I was honored.

The last time I heard him, he played a new song called "All That Glistens". It was one of the most moving things I ever heard. As far as I know, he never recorded it.

Walter only made two albums. The second, Music Town, was produced by Jim Hoke, who played with and did some arrangements for NRBQ. Like King Tears, it featured Champ Hood's guitar beautifully throughout, and was a tiny gem. "Where The Blue Begins" is one of the great sad songs of the 1990's, up there with Dave Alvin's "Why Did She Stay With Him", Benmont Tench's "Unbreakable Heart", and Big Sandy's "If I Knew Now".

(I wish Walter had lived to hear Big Sandy's Feelin' Kinda Lucky album. I think he would have felt like Robert Williams was his lost extroverted brother.)

I hadn't been living in Los Angeles very long when my Philly roomie Laurie called up and asked if I'd heard about Walter. I thought she'd tell me he had a new record or something. I'd heard about the plane crash, but had no idea Walter was in it. The news was terrible and sudden. The worst I'd ever heard. Dave Alvin called me later that day to ask if I'd ever heard Walter Hyatt and that news like that scared the hell outta him. He was spooked.

I couldn't listen to Walter's records for quite some time in the wake of that.

One day about ten years ago, I was in a used CD store in Glendale, and I found both his discs in the 99 cent bin, and I bought them. I sat up all night listening to him again, rediscovering what a beautiful artist he was, what a wonderful legacy of classic songs he left behind, and feeling less of the loss of a guy I knew and more of the comfort that I ever got to know someone that good.

Years later, when I started making The Long Way Home, I thought of Walter, of staying acoustic in an electric world, and of not being afraid to sing quietly.

I still see Walter smiling with tight lips and slightly tired road eyes, reminding me that Nat Cole never had to raise his voice, no matter how big the band behind him.

Miss him.