Free True to the Roots by Monte Dutton Page A

ones that fill football stadiums, still play there every now and then, but White has a soft spot for what country music used to be. He has his standards. They aren't the same as the ones used by the record companies and the Clear Channel stations, but they're just as restrictive.
    "They'll repeat the same words over and over again," he says. "It doesn't have enough soul in it anymore, as far as I'm concerned. It's just, with the bands that play here, I don't really have any what I call 'copy bands' anymore at the Broken Spoke. A lot of them play original music, and even if they do some famous man's songs, they'll do their versions. You don't hear no top forty on the radio, and I think it's a shame that the radio stations have got to the point where people can't hear the music they say they like. Now it's: 'This is your playlist. This is what you'll play.' I loved it back in the Loretta Lynn days, when she'd go to a radio station and pitch 'em a song, give them a 45-RPM record, and do a little guest appearance. Those days were just so good.
    "Now the big boys are going to force it down your throat, whether you like it or not. When they pulled Ralph Emery off the air (on the old Nashville Network), it was a crying shame when they did that because there were so many pure country people who loved 'Nashville Now.' They yanked him off because he wasn't young enough looking. He wasn't playing enough of the young artists. Now the whole darn thing is sold out."
    White helped raise money to relieve Willie Nelson's income tax woes. He's seen all manner of behavior and lifestyles that don't necessarily jibe with his own. He never expected the heroes to be perfect, though. Heroes are the performers who rise above their flaws.
    "Jerry Jeff Walker is one of my biggest draws," White says. "He plays the Friday night here when his birthday party kicks off [it's called the BDB, for 'Birthday Bash'].
    "I've had 'Jerry duty' a few times back in the old days. Jerry duty is when you get to take Jerry Jeff Walker home when he's had too much to drink. We get along just wonderful, him and his wife, Susan, and his kid, Django Walker, his son, who's doing real good writing songs now. We had a good time."
    The Spoke has been ranked the best honkytonk in Texas by at least one publication, and another rated its chicken fried steak the best in town. The front room is a restaurant that's open for lunch, even though the steel guitars don't crank up generally until after the sun goes down.
    "I love the music, and I hate to see it changing like it is, getting too slick, too imitation, too plastic," White says. "It's just not there, but every now and then, some of the stations will throw us a bone and play some good country music. I wrote a song called 'Putting the C Back in Country.' I haven't got it on CD yet, but I mention the doghouse bass and the steel guitar. You know where you are when you hear that steel guitar, you know. There's nothing any better than a steel guitar and a fiddle sound when it's played correctly."
    But no one could say the world has passed the Spoke by, at least no one present to see Asleep at the Wheel play on a Saturday night. Country radio gears itself to a young demographic—not only young but with limited sensibilities, it seems—but the Spoke reflects the larger population. Every age group is represented on the dance floor, from the gentle shuffles of an elderly couple staring warmly into each other's eyes to the advanced, showy version of the same dance as practiced by college kids. A lot has changed, White concedes.
    "Sometimes you kind of reflect back to when you were in high school, and that's what I do sometimes, only I reflect way back to the opening day of the Broken Spoke," he says. "I was still working sixteen hours a day out front, beer was two bits a bottle as fast as we could pop it, and there were some good, hardcore drinkers back in those days.
    "I mean, well, there would be a fight. There'd be a knockdown, drag