Page 12 - BiTS_05_MAY_2022

[laughing]. It was really fun, and that night was a triple bill with The Storm, with Jimmie
Vaughan on guitar, Paul Ray and the Cobras, with Paul Ray and Denny Freeman. Stevie
Vaughan wasn’t in that band yet and The Nightcrawlers with a 17-year-old Stevie Vaughan,
Doyle Bramhall Senior on drums and Keith Ferguson on bass and that night completely
changed my life. I hadn’t heard real blues up until that point, and so from that point on, any
time those people were playing, I was there.

BiTS: Were you already a guitar player at that age?

KM: No, I was a photographer. I was actually going to Central Texas College. I had gotten my
GED at that point, and I was taking vocational photography classes and I took a lot of early
photos of the blues scene here in Austin. I’d always wanted to be a singer, but I would have
never in a million years thought I would have the nerve [chuckling] to open my mouth in
public. I was pretty shy, and long story short, when I was 21, there was this great club in
Austin on South Congress called the AusTex Lounge, run by Steve Dean and it was live blues
seven nights a week and I always sang in the car with friends and one night friends talked me
into sitting in and Steve Dean then offered me a Sunday residency there and I put together a
band and haven't really looked back since.

BiTS: Did you have any intentions at that time to become professional? When did you actually
start earning money at playing blues, or playing any music?

KM: When I was 21 at the AusTex Lounge. I think back then, we got paid all of the beer and
wine we could drink and $15, and that was big money back then, like wow! Paid to do this that
I love so much [chuckles].

BiTS: Tell me how you and Bill met because Bill’s now, I think, your manager as well as being
the guitar player in the band.