Free True to the Roots by Monte Dutton

dreams. It's all original, from the ramshackle roof to the bumper sticker that says, "I'd rather be a fencepost in Texas than the king of Tennessee."
    "They're all heroes," White says, pointing to all the photos and memorabilia of forty years of honkytonk nights. "They're all on the top shelf and at the top of the ladder. I've loved country music all my life. I get to live my dream being right here at the Broken Spoke, and people let me do it. When I got out of the army back in 1964, I started thinking, you know, I've been in honkytonks. I've always had a good time, so why not, when I get out, open up a place of my own.
    "I came out under the big old tree out front, right here on South Lamar, and I visualized a place like no other. When I got it built, I named the place the Broken Spoke. People ask me how I thought of that name. I was kind of thinking about something western, something original, something country, something Texas, and, anyway, I was thinking about wagon wheels in my brain, and all of a sudden I thought about this old movie, Broken Arrow , and it just kind of clicked in. Kind of like the lightbulb went on, and I thought, well, I'll just call it the Broken Spoke. I'll just buy me a couple of wagon wheels, and I'll knock a spoke out and I'll put them out front where people are walking in. I kind of figured that was all there was to going into business, but I found out over the years there was a lot more to it, but at least I got a good start.
    "I love the true country music, like Don Walser said, 'When you cut out the roots of country music, you just cut out the soul, and you're cutting out the country music altogether.' I like the sound of a steel guitar. I love the fiddle. The guitar and everything just blends right in together. Country music tells a story, a lot of them soulwrenching and about the hardships of life or about drinking beer in a honkytonk. When you get up and you sing those songs, it brings back memories. I've had so many good times, and there are a lot of upbeat old country songs too. It's what I grew up on: Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, George Jones, country in its purest form. If Roy Acuff were still alive, he wouldn't be allowing a lot of this stuff you see on TV nowadays. Nashville today, if he was still there, along with people like Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow, they'd frown on some of the stuff that's popular now."
    Go to the Spoke any night of the week except Monday, and there will be something compelling to see, whether it's Debra Peters with her accordion or Jerry Jeff Walker celebrating his birthday. White even mounts the stage on most Tuesday nights, along with Alvin Crow, for the weekly "Hard Core Country Music on Tuesday Nights."
    "We do a lot of the old songs. Alvin does a lot of the old Jimmie Rogers songs, and I'll jump in there with some songs that I like," White says. "I've been here forty years, and I figure I can pretty much tell it like it is, and people seem to like to hear it. I don't have to change nothing. I ain't getting no hanging fern baskets on the ceiling. No Grey Poupon—we got the real mustard here. But we do have cold beer, good whiskey, and good looking girls to dance with, so what else do you need?"
    It doesn't take many questions to conduct an interview with James White. Just turn on the tape recorder and let the good times roll.
    "It was always good to see Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours come here," recalls White. "He'd flip that guitar over and say thanks."
    Tubb, you see, lettered Thanks upside down on the back of his guitar.
    "Ernest would sit up there on the bandstand, sign everybody's autograph and everybody's picture," says White. "Through his whole break, he'd be up there mingling with the people. The guy was a true Texas troubadour. He traveled all across the country, and he must have done three hundred dates a year or close to it. He loved it, and he always promoted it."
    The Broken Spoke is a country music mecca. Bigname acts, even the