For Johnny Bush, these are the good old days

It was early afternoon. In a back booth at Casbeers, Johnny Bush drank water, passed on ordering food and said, I just ate breakfast. Though he just celebrated his 72nd birthday, Bush is still a honky-tonk musician through-and-through.

He's made some concessions to age: He no longer eats hamburgers and he walks at least two miles a day. But he still works the road hard, still sleeps as late as he can and still eats breakfast around noon.
Johnny Bush also still celebrates.

This month he has a pair of reasons to party. His autobiography, Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk, written with Rick Mitchell, is being published by University of Texas Press. A new CD, Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston's Country Soul, is being released by Ice House Music.

Bush wanted the book published for several reasons.
I wanted people to know the real story of how it was, he said. Honky-tonk originated before I was born, but after World War II it really got popular.

I wanted to explain to people what a honky-tonk was. A honky-tonk wasn't a respectable place. It was on the outskirts of town, and you didn't want people to see you there.

Men went there to forget somebody or to find somebody.
And I want people to know what it's like to deal with this debilitating voice problem (spasmodic dysphonia, which hit Bush on April 17, 1972). It's a neurological disorder that affects the basil ganglia area of the brain.

There's no cure for it, but you can control the effects.

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Whiskey River doesn't skirt many, if any, issues. It's full of stories, some funny, some not, about Bush; his peers, including Willie Nelson; his old boss, Ray Price; musicians galore; record label honchos and others. It also includes words about things such as Bush's womanizing and his battle to regain his voice.

It's too late now to have second thoughts about the book, he said. But it's the truth. I tried to be honest, and I didn't sugarcoat a thing.

Still, Bush is a bit nervous about how some people will react to the book.
My preacher, Charlie Johnson (formerly with Trinity Baptist Church), read it and said there are a few things in there he'd rather not know about, Bush, said, laughing.
But Bush doesn't laugh about everything in the book.

My grandkids are going to read it, but hopefully they'll learn some lessons about what not to do. I made a lot of bad mistakes and hurt a lot of people. God has forgiven me, and I hope the people who I hurt have forgiven me, he said.

Some of the things still haunt me. I was selfish and controlling. My biggest regret was being promiscuous and being an adulterer.

I could have copped out by saying that in our business that was accepted and encouraged, but when you start falling in love with the road women and leave your wife, it becomes a behavioral problem. I'm sorry I didn't take those marriage vows seriously.
Since 1988, when he married his fourth wife, Lynda, Bush has paid close attention to those vows.

In my songs, I always tried to put myself in the position of the guy who was drinking and running around. I didn't know at the time I was that guy, he said. I feel I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have the family I have.

I'm thankful to God that, so far, it's turned out good. You can leave the devastation behind you when you surrender to the Lord. Things started to go good when I gave up and turned myself in.

I wasn't doing so good on my own.
What Bush can never leave behind is ribbing from Nelson. Bush and the redheaded country music icon go back decades.

Nelson has recorded Bush's Whiskey River dozens of times, Bush played drums in Nelson's band, Nelson produced Bush's first record and Nelson wrote the foreword to the book.
I have no idea what I said in the foreword, Nelson said. But I think the book will be interesting.

If anybody were going to tell the true story of honky-tonks in Texas, it would be Johnny. It surely would be Johnny Bush. He's been up and down the highway almost as much as I have.

He has a good memory and good anecdotes. He's a good joke teller and a good storyteller, so the book is going to be good.
Nelson doesn't seem to be too worried about everything in Bush's book being the truth.

He's kinda like Ray Price, Nelson said. You can always tell when he's lying: His lips are moving.
The Kashmere Gardens Mud CD will contribute to understanding Bush's development as a musician.

Kashmere Gardens, the hardscrabble, northeast Houston neighborhood where Bush was raised, was a gritty, muddy part of town. Bush grew up influenced by music including the country of his uncle, Jerry Jericho, and Houston-based artists including Floyd Tillman and Ted Daffan. The Bronze Peacock club, a storied blues and R B club, was on the edge of Kashmere Gardens.

Kashmere Gardens Mud features Bush singing music from stripped-down acoustic country such as the title track and I Want a Drink of That Water, done as a duet with his brother, Rev. Gene Shinn, to big band blues ( Free Soul, Born to Lose ) with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra.
To me, the album doesn't make sense unless you read the book, and the book doesn't make sense unless you hear the album, Bush said.

The music is all by people from Houston or who worked in Houston or were from very close to Houston, Ted Daffan, Townes Van Zandt, Dale Watson. There's all kinds of music on the CD, and it's all the kinds of music I heard in Houston, country, blues, Spanish, all of it. What I'm concerned about is will my old fans buy this.

I'd like a new audience, but I don't want to lose the old fans.
In the book, he looked back, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with regret. But Bush doesn't wax nostalgic about the old days.

The good old days are now, he said. Everything from highways to morality are better. The old places are gone, and it's good that they are.

In the old days you'd mix ignorance with alcohol and you'd have a volatile situation. It's been years since I've seen a fight at a show. I used to see two or three a night.

That's why we used to play loud and continuously.
The musicians are better now and the equipment is much better. Up until about 1968 you couldn't buy a good p.

a. system, you had to build your own. The only things that are not better today are the songs.

There are still good records being made, but you're not going to hear them in the mainstream.
But you can still hear Johnny Bush singing songs such as Whiskey River, Green Snakes on the Ceiling and An Eye for an Eye.
Johnny Bush is still out there, Nelson said, going up and down the road playing great music.

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Johnny Bush will celebrate the publication of Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk and the release of Kashmere Gardens Mud from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Buckhorn Saloon, 318 E.

Houston St., and at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday at Borders at the Quarry, 255 E. Basse Road. Bush will do acoustic sets at both gatherings.

Staff writer John Goodspeed contributed to this story.
San Antonio Express-News publish date Feb. 25, 2007
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-- 'I tried to be honest, and I didn't sugarcoat a thing,' says Johnny Bush about his autobiography. -->