William Harries Graham took on a new role as a kind of caretaker after his songwriter father, Jon Dee Graham, died. Specifically, he had to make sure Zeus \u2014 his father\u2019s weathered, beloved pieced-together Fender Stratocaster \u2014 wouldn\u2019t go silent.<\/p>\n
And as a left-handed player, that meant Graham had to get the instrument restrung and modified from its right-handed orientation to feel at home in his hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think any other guitar could sound like Zeus and do what Zeus did,\u201d he said Wednesday, hours before taking the stage at The Continental Club for the regular weekly gig he and his father played with their band, The Fighting Cocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s definitely my most prized possession,\u201d he said. \u201cTo be able to even play it or touch it \u2026 there’s an uncanny kind of spiritual element where it feels almost like \u2026 a guitar that has a mind of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s show wasn\u2019t intended as a formal tribute to Jon Dee Graham, but friends and family acknowledged it would serve as the first in an expected string of concerts and gatherings to honor his many years as one of Austin\u2019s most respected performers.<\/p>\n
The 67-year-old died last week from a fall in his home after a series of health complications that had increasingly limited his ability to perform, even as he continued writing and recording new music.<\/p>\n
For those who knew him, the loss lands less like the end of a career than the absence of a local constant.<\/p>\n
“There’s an uncanny kind of spiritual element where it feels almost like \u2026 a guitar that has a mind of its own.”<\/p>\n
William Harries Graham, Jon Dee’s son<\/p>\n
Musician Kevin Russell, who leads the band Shinyribs and collaborated with Graham regularly over the years, first encountered him in the 1980s as a young fan in Louisiana, when Graham was playing with the True Believers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe lived 1,000 lives, that guy,\u201d Russell said, acknowledging that Graham\u2019s struggles with health and sobriety through the years were among his sources of songwriting fodder. \u201cThat\u2019s what fueled him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond his hundreds of songs, Russell said, that special intensity shaped how the musician moved through the world. He recalled once seeing Graham interact with a regular Wednesday-night attendee, picking up on the fan\u2019s pain caused by a recent divorce.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came straight up to him and said, \u2018What\u2019s wrong?\u2019 And then the next day they had dinner. And then they kept doing that. He helped that guy through his life,\u201d Russell said. \u201cHe had a sixth sense for suffering. He could feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s low-key, understated presence showed up in smaller ways, too. Russell said he would sit in during early Shinyribs shows at Threadgill\u2019s \u2013 with one condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019ll come play, but don\u2019t introduce me. Don\u2019t even acknowledge me,\u2019\u201d Russell recalled. \u201cHe was like, \u2018I\u2019m just gonna come in and leave like a ghost.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
True to that intent, Russell said Graham would slip onstage, add a part or two, and then disappear before the set was over, heading a few blocks away to his regular Wednesday night slot at The Continental Club<\/p>\n
While Graham became known for helping friends and colleagues throughout his career, in recent years, that instinct was met with a kind of reciprocal support from the Austin music community as his health problems mounted.<\/p>\n
During multiple recovery periods following a series of surgeries, friends and fellow musicians organized benefit shows and stepped in to help where they could.<\/p>\n
Russell said accepting that kind of support didn’t always come easily for Graham.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a proud person \u2026 the way we’re raised, we don’t wanna ever ask for help. We help others, right? And so when we need the help, that’s a hard thing for a lot of people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jon Dee Graham – “Ballad of Barbara and Steve”<\/p>\n
In the months before his death, Graham continued to play and write when he could, with William, 26, absorbing as much as he could.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a literal front-row seat to him and everything he could do,\u201d said the rising songwriter, who has released multiple albums and is working with Strolling Bones Records. \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable that I got to play with my dad like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
William said working through his father\u2019s songs in recent days to prepare for Wednesday\u2019s show revealed just how much was happening beneath the surface of his guitar playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the most simple little guitar riffs. And they\u2019re the hardest things to play,\u201d he said, observing that his father had a way of folding rhythm and lead together to build songs out of small, precise movements that rarely called attention to themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was doing all these little things that most people would never think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as his health declined, Jon Dee Graham continued writing and recording. Father and son had been working on a new album, Lloyd, a forthcoming release named for Graham’s father and centered in part on that relationship. The record was nearly complete when he died.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t ready to put the guitar up, but he was really, really tired,\u201d William said.<\/p>\n
Now, as William continues learning those songs on Zeus, the connection still feels immediate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like the guitar is begging to play those songs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Correction: A previous version of this story had the incorrect name of the record label William Graham is working with. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Harries Graham took on a new role as a kind of caretaker after his songwriter father, Jon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,87128,31046,36833,43050,89845,89846,216,89847],"class_list":{"0":"post-232244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-continental-club","12":"tag-jon-dee-graham","13":"tag-kevin-russell","14":"tag-shinyribs","15":"tag-the-fighting-cocks","16":"tag-true-believers","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-william-graham"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}