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Austin’s favorite folk singer

Allen Wayne Damron may have been the most influential male folk performer in Austin, Texas, during the ’60s and ’70s. Sonobeat co-founders Bill Josey Sr. and Rim Kelley“Rim Kelley” was the pseudonym used by Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Jr. as a radio deejay in Austin, Texas, during the 1960s and as a Sonobeat producer from 1967 to 1970. met Allen in 1965 through KAZZ-FM. live remote broadcasts that KAZZ presented from Austin’s seminal folk cabaret of the era, The 11th Door. Allen was a regular fixture at The 11th Door during the mid ’60s, playing 12-string and 6-string guitars and 5-string banjo and wise-cracking his way through night after night of sold-out performances. In addition to launching Allen’s career, The 11th Door helped ignite the careers of Janis Joplin and Jerry Jeff Walker, to whom Allen played the role of big brother.

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In 1967, about the same time Bill Josey Sr. and Rim Kelley were forming Sonobeat Recording Company, Allen began managing Austin’s most famous folk music venue, The Chequered Flag, owned by Kerrville Folk FestivalKerrville, in the heart of the Central Texas Hill Country about 100 miles west of Austin, is home to the Kerrville Folk Festival, founded in 1972 by Rod Kennedy. The Festival has been an annual event ever since, drawing tens of thousands of attendees each year. founder Rod Kennedy, who also served as the first station manager of KAZZ-FM when it went on-air in 1957. In fact, Allen was the first act to perform at The Chequered Flag’s grand opening on September 22, 1967. KAZZ broadcast a live remote from The Chequered Flag on its opening night, during which Allen performed Jerry Jeff Walker’s now-classic Mr. Bojangles. KAZZ recorded the performance, which is the first known recording of the song that helped Jerry Jeff gain national prominence (Mr. Bojangles famously was covered in 1970 by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and hit the top 10 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart in 1971). By October 1970, Allen had purchased The Chequered Flag from Rod and began booking rock and cross-over acts, including Austin’s Genesee and country-boogie trio Cross Country (a reincarnation of Whistler, a folk-rock act that recorded with Sonobeat in summer 1970).

One of the two Allen Damron’s master tapes in the Sonobeat archives is dated in late April 1968 and features Allen’s signature tunes Nancy Whiskey and Requiem for a Balloon (The Balloon Song). Nancy Whiskey is an Irish folk tune and Requiem for a Balloon was Allen’s original that’s sometimes referred to as Is There a Heaven for Balloons?. The recordings are simple and intimate – just Allen singing, accompanied by acoustic guitars – but, sadly, all are distorted, leading us to believe the recordings were made as tests or, perhaps, as a favor to Allen. We’re pretty sure the songs were recorded in the living room of the Josey family home in northeast Austin and were not intended for commercial release. Indeed, none were ever re-recorded or released by Sonobeat.

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Allen was a native Texan, born the son of a ranch foreman in Raymondville, close to the Texas Gulf Coast and Texas-Mexico border, where he spent his childhood. Allen moved to Austin to attend The University of Texas, taking a B.A. degree in philosophy. Austin remained his home base throughout much of his adult life, but he did take an extended break to perform in Washington D.C. He also performed at the Newport Folk Festival in both 1962 and ’63. He recorded commercial releases for several record labels, both before and after recording with Sonobeat, many with his singing partner, Carol Hedin. Back in Austin, the pair made a local hit of Nancy Whiskey in a 1966 duet recording. Also in 1966, Allen hosted a weekly half-hour music series, The Younger Set, on local TV channel 42, that featured Austin-area rock bands. Allen was among a handful of performers inaugurating the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1972, and he continued to perform at that annual event for 31 years. He attracted well-deserved national attention when he toured the U.S. as part of the 1968 Celebrate Texas Concert Tour promoting the Texas sesquicentennial. On August 13, 2005, Allen passed away at his then-home in Terlingua, Texas. He was 66. The Kerrville Folk Festival celebrated Allen’s memory and legacy in 2006. We’re fortunate to have two classic songs from Allen’s repertoire in the Sonobeat archives.

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