FT 38347hours (“not goin’ to the bathroom
or nothin’”) and composed 52
songs (“Every tunewas different,
too”) withlyrics inspiredby news
magazines or topics suggestedby
the crowd.“Indeed, I did,yes I did,
I surely did, yup!” herecalled with
pride.
“Thosewere my best years, ” he
remarked concerning the 1940s and
50s. His songswere oftenrecorded
by big Countrymusic stars like
ErnestTubb, Eddy Arnold,Tex
Ritter, Jimmie Davis, and Flatt and
Scruggs (Elviseven did a couple
of takes on‘A HundredYears from
Now’ in 1970) aswell as a host of
lesser-known artists. McEnery
remained a NewYork radio fi xture
until 1952, when he moved back
to San Antonio and headed upa
popularTV showfor se ven years.
“The hurting started whenfi lmed
TV came along and live TV died.For
14 years, Iwas justforg otten.”
SINGING COWBOY REALTOR
Dave moved into property,
operating as the president of Red
River Da ve Real Estate in San
Antonio, with sidelines in mail-
ordermusical instrument sales,
numerous further topical 45rpm
releases (sometimes billing him as
the ‘Singing Cowboy Realtor’) and
an unsuccessful tilt at public office
in 1968 as a DemocraticParty candidate
for County Chairman, in which he invited
“people of allraces, creeds and occupations
to take part”. InJune 1974 tragedy struck:
Dave’s wife of almost 35years,Alberta, died
horribly in a domesticfi re. He “arrived home
as thefi re was beingextinguished, butwas
unable to identify the body.” Devastated, he
moved to Nashville to try his luck butfound
“thousands of songwriters whowere sleeping
in cars.”
But the stillfl amboyant-looking Dave
was a natural showman and inveterate
entrepreneur. He soon opened a ‘Cowboy
Church’ at the Country Music Hall ofFame
Motor Inn where hewould performrope
tricks while preaching towaywardmusicians.
He was reputedly the “first and
perhaps only personever
to deliver a sermon
entirely in CB jargon.”
“What Iwas
doing hadreal
fl air. I made the
front page ofThe
Te nnessean. It
was a fi ne thing
fundamentally, but
I ran afoul ofmy
second wife [Velma
Lee]. So, I went to Texas,
got a divorc e and headed to
California.”
All the while Red River Da ve continued to
write and perform,working at Knott’s Berry
Farm, swinging his lariat and singing
about theFalklandsWar, Korean
Flight 007, theAyatollah Khomeini,E.T.
and other hot topics, until his death on 15
January 2002 at the age of 87.
As a valiant sunset troubadour in the
epic tradition of saga orevent songs, Red
River Da ve knew no equal; his outputwasprodigious, articulate, witty, artful
and heartfelt.A patriot anda
humanist, Dave’s work sometimes
invited controversy: a live
rendition onWOAI of his heart-
breaking Civil Rights lament ‘The
Ballad of EmmettTill’ generated
both anger and praise in equal
measure.
Much of his unique songbook
has lain dormant or neglectedfor
decades.The 45rpm sides seen
here were sometimes pressed
in tiny runs of just 100 or 200,
and oftenrecorded mere hours
or days after a tragedy or news
story. ‘Answer to the Death of
a President!’was, for example,
pressed on 23 November 1963–
the day after PresidentKennedy’s
assassination (seeFT333:42-46
for the musical history of the JFK
assassination). Sides like ‘Games
of Death – Olympics 1972’,‘The
Fate of Lt. Calley’,‘The Ballad of
Three Mile Island’,‘Atlanta’s Black
Children’,‘TheWatergate Blues’
and a songabout theJonestown
massacre areeven moremythical;
some might onlyever ha ve been live ra dio
broadcasts or sold so few copies as to have
completelyvanished.
McEnery’s most outlandishrecording,
‘California Hippie Murders!’, dealt with the
gruesome slaying offi lm director Roman
Polanski’s then-pregnant wife SharonTate
and members of her entourageby fo llowers
of mystic/jailbird/Beach Boy consort
Charles Manson.The songwas written and
pressed during the height of the Manson
Family trial and sold in sadly unremarkable
numbers from the boot of Red River Da ve’s
Cadillac in Nashville.Today, three original
copies of this astounding 45 are known to
exist, one of themreputedlychanging hands
in private dealer circlesfor over $5,000.
Effortless andyet often sublime, the
topical songs of Red River Da ve are
preciousmusical portals into other eras and
forg otten landscapes. Every day, McEnery
would rise,read the morning paper and
write a song: “Itmust be part ofmy karma,
I write them sowell and so easy. Indeed,I
do, yes, I do, yup! I think it`s important to
balladise the news. I’m kind of likeJohnny
Appleseed.Yes, I am, indeed I am.”
“I’m the last of thered-white-and-blue
singing cowboys and that’s all... but I never
missed a meal.”✒DAVID THRUSSELis a musician/
composer/writer/record label mogul/
fi lmmaker/closet-hillbilly who lives deep in the
Australian outback and is bestavoided.LEFT:Daverocks the post-Waylon and
Willie outlaw look in this 1978 photo
from theTexa FolklifeFestival.BELOW:
The iconic singing cowboy in his
younger days, complete with horse.