Texas singer/songwriter Vince Bell's story begins in the 1970s.
Following the likes of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Bell and his
contemporaries Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, and Lucinda Williams were
on the rise. In December of 1982, Bell was on his way home from the
studio (where he and hired guns Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson had just recorded three of Bell's songs) when a drunk driver broadsided him at 65 mph. Thrown over sixty feet from his car, Bell suffered multiple
lacerations to his liver, embedded glass, broken ribs, a mangled right
forearm, and a severe traumatic brain injury. Not only was his debut
album waylaid for a dozen years, life as he'd known it would never be
the same. In detailing his recovery from the accident and his
round-about climb back on stage, Bell shines a light in those dark
corners of the music business that, for the lone musician whose success
is measured not by the Top 40 but by nightly victories, usually fall
outside of the spotlight. In One Man's Music, Bell's prose is not unlike his lyrics: spare, beautiful, evocative, and often sneak-up-on-you funny. His chronicle of his own life and near death on the road reveals what it means to live for one's art.
Join us at Brazos for a talk and a few songs by Vince Bell, then take the half-a-block walk for an after-party at Under the Volcano. Don't miss Bell at the Texas Book Festival and at Houston's Anderson Fair the night of November 6.
