Debbi Walton

I. Childhood and Marriage
Born on the 4th of July to a sixteen year old mother, Debbi Walton hails from Center, Texas and came into this world blue; barely able to breath at birth the infant nearly died. She remembers how her mother loved to play old blues and soul records. Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Elvis, Jimmy Reed, James Brown were as much a part of her childhood as Kool-Aid and hot summer days. When Deb was four, her twenty year old mother would stand her up on the kitchen table in red plastic high heeled shoes, and together they would to sing doo-wop tunes; daughter singing lead, mom carrying a harmony line.
Jump ahead twenty five years. Debbi, married twice and now a mother of three, was earning extra money keeping kids in the neighborhood. Everything in her suburban world seemed perfectly normal, but inside she carried an intense desire to be a singer. Being a busy mom, breast feeding her little boy, talking on the phone, peeling potatoes all at the same time had become her world. As she tended to the house and the kids, Debbi played her records too, singing along with Bonnie Raitt loud on the stereo. In a rare private moment she would drop the needle on the same spot over and over singing along until she could nail each little phrase. Vocal chops born in early childhood were honed in stolen moments in the back rooms of a housewife’s dream.
II. A Change is Going to Come
Eventually the truth came into the light. A challenge from her husband to“pick a night and go do something“ turned into a standing date at a local watering hole called the Crew’s Inn. Debbi was 32, and very talented, but damn near paralyzed by shyness. She had to be tricked into giving her first performance of an old John Prine tune called ‘Angel From Montgomery’. Standing a foot off the mic she sang her song. The players at the open mic night loved it and Debbi was thrilled. She had found her tribe. She was striking, happy to be out of the house, and a lot of fun to be around..... plus she had all the makings of a real soul singer, and good players love to play that funk and soul. Before, Debbi had been in a shell ,but in singer mode the sheltered house wife had come out. Her education into the music world was well under way.
Nothing can trash the family van like a band. A band was what she wanted. So with her raw talent, a band was what she got.....along with a whole lot more. Her life went into a time of total upheaval. Buried emotions gave way to a round of adventurous rebellion. Deb and her band started playing bars and eventually landed a shady little record deal that devolved into contractual difficulties. Her husband was mad as hell about the whole thing and wanted his housewife back. The couple split up, and soon after he was tragically killed in a late night car crash that changed everything.
The next big change to come into her life was a new boyfriend guitar player. He talked her into home schooling the two younger kids, and together they started a crash course in coloring outside the lines. The works and ideas of: Picasso, Van Gogh, Gustav Klimpt, Emily Dickinson, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Ghandi, Frank Zappa, John Steinbeck, John Milton, Joseph Campbell, Charles Bukowski all entered the home. With the loss of her mate of 13 years and the father to her children, her world was broken, hurting and laid wide open. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen: everything has a crack in it, that’s how the light gets in. Four out of five years sneaked by, kids grew in and out of phases; some beautiful, some agonizing. Her relationship with the guitar player took root, lived, flowered and died only to take root and start all over again.
The revolution continued as her evolving world view also took root in broad minded ideas and a new passion for learning. Grown children heading out on their own left time for new things like painting and music lessons at the piano. A keen interest in biographies about amazing people like Picasso, B.B. King, Nina Simone, Etta James, Marvin Gaye, Van Gogh cast her world in a new light. Then she saw Bill Moyers interview with mythologist Joseph Campbell. She could feel the tumblers in her heart and mind clicking into place, and that kind of liberation can also bring mixed blessings. Creativity can be accompanied by chaos, and rejection of social norms can lead to not knowing what to do. During this time she was also dealing with the rigors of raising strong minded teen-agers in a hectic world. Deb relied on what she knew to be true: love, kindness, openess, hope, a sense of fair play and patience about critical decisions. Over time, it was her patience that led her to a durable peace.
Debbi embraced challenging life to be more than it had been before. By studying music and informing her heart and mind, she was equipped to find a voice, this time as a writer.
III. Dewdroppers
Dewdropper is Jazz slang term for someone who plays by night and sleeps by day. Choosing that name for their production company, Debbi and her co-writer/partner in crime Julie Sckittone, launched into the murky world of the music business in Jan of 2004. With a pocket full of half-finished songs and an intense desire to make a record they ventured into Austin night clubs in search of collaborators, and that “elusive entity” that is a record producer. In the words of Patty Griffin..... ”It’s a mad mission sign me up.” They decided to give it a go, and things got interesting right away.
In January of 2004 Debbi’s horoscope said: “ the last three weeks of January would lay the groundwork for the next two years.“ Within that time Deb and Julie met Bonnie Raitt which was like meeting Miles Davis, or Etta James or Ray Charles, a kind of shot and they both needed. They realized there was a missing link. Now, in search of a collaborator with “salt”, Deb and Julie paid a visit to Mike Cross.
Mike Cross has been a veteran singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist around the Austin music scene for years. One of many bands lucky to have him handle lead vocal chores is the Blue Monday Band. Holding court weekly at the legendary Antone’s blues bar in downtown Austin, they are arguably one of the most authentic blues quartets working in that style, anywhere. Mike invited Debbi to sit in on a song, and tune grumbling expressions came over the faces of the old dogs on stage. They quickly turned from relief to approving nods as they realized that she was actually pretty good. Still a little shaky from the adrenaline hit, Deb and Julie invited Mike to get together for a few writing sessions. With Mike’s natural instinct for groove and melody and a I’ll-try-anything approach, he was perfect . They had their infant songs finished up and demoed within a week’s time. Now it was time to find a “real” producer, the “right”producer.
Working the rooms around town, the demos were gingerly given to prospective producers. But CD’s are easily lost, promised calls don’t materialize in a world inundated with independent artists “trying to cut a record”. After several unsuccessful attempts to find their guy, Julie and Deb left an unrelated recording session in a big hurry to catch singer- songwriter/friend Tommy Elskes’ set at the Saxon Pub. They only caught the last 30 seconds of his last tune, but as they greeted him after his show they met a very special friend of Tommy’s. Old-school guitarist, song-writer, and established producer Stephen Doster. Stephen walked up and said, “I want to be over here with ya'll.” Stephen went home that night with the burned CD of some home-made recordings that would come to dominate his creative mind for many nights to come.
Stephen took it home and listened, closely. He would later say that he heard conviction in Deb’s voice. He called the very next day wanting lyric sheets. He stated how refreshing it was to hear an understated R&B singer in contrast to the shout-filled Austin blues scene. A big fish had swallowed the hook. Doster showed up early and stayed up late for this project as he “finessed the process” that created Debbi’s most accomplished and mature record yet. ‘Still Your Fool’, in the words of Austin record mastering specialist Jim Wilson.............“this is one of those all-time classic records. in ten years it won’t sound dated.”
In the endlessness of endeavor, endings link to beginnings, and so this the end, of this chapter in the story of Debbi Walton. A record made is not a record in the black . So, on to the next part of the trek. It’s a wacky thing to do with your time and effort.....kind of scary too, but as Deb & Julie like to say, “If your dreams don’t scare you then you’re not dreaming big enough”. This dream is not about her alone, it’s a dream for anyone who has ever said, “Hey Man, wouldn’t it be cool if we...”