The Resentments: Sundays at The Saxon Pub
February 23, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Images courtesy of Bruce Hughes/The Resentments.
Back in 1999, Sunday nights at the Saxon Pub (get directions) were pretty slow. This slowness was certainly the exception, not the rule, in the otherwise beloved little "old Austin" bar with a huge fan base.
As the story goes, owner Joe Ables invited local music legend Stephen Bruton to hold court with a weekly residency. Bruton agreed, calling his new band the Resentments. It featured a rotating cast of characters, seasoned music veterans looking for a chance to jam for fun with their equally seasoned friends, trying out new songs and covering old favorites.
What started out as a fun little side project eventually morphed into something akin to a religious experience — what with a dedicated following showing up Sunday after Sunday, the joke became this was a different kind of church. The lineup has changed more than once, but nearly a dozen years since the Resentments first took the stage, you can still find them playing to a very enthusiastic crowd of Sunday evening worshippers.
Star Studded Lineup
Bruton, a guitarist and singer-songwriter, played with folks including Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello, and Willie Nelson. He brought in a number of equally talented musicians, among them singer-songwriter-guitarist Jon Dee Graham, who had his own strong following. Then Scrappy Jud Newcomb and Bruce Hughes joined in, and the two legendary Austin musicians shared guitar and bass duties. Like Bruton and Graham, Newcomb and Hughes also had their own other primary gigs, and plenty of fans in their own right, too. John Chipman rounded out the band on drums. This combination would last the longest, with all five members contributing vocals. Sadly, in 2009, Bruton succumbed to cancer — just as he was finishing up co-writing the music for the Oscar-nominated Crazy Heart — and Graham departed after more than a decade of holding down the Sunday night fort.
The Beat Goes On
Hughes, Newcomb and Chipman now form the core of the band, and eager crowds continue to fill the Saxon Pub on Sunday nights, ready for whatever new musical adventure the Resentments dish out. Austin, the self-proclaimed — Live Music Capital of the World, is crawling with astonishing musical talent and at any one of the band's Saxon Pub gigs you're bound to encounter a jaw-droppingly impressive lineup of guest musicians and singers strutting their stuff along with the trio. Over the years, the band that started out as a fun project managed to become a band taken seriously, one that released four CDs. Still, the Sunday night gathering never lost its spontaneous feel, and the thrill born of musicians playing for the pure joy of it.
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