Music stayed with me long after Brady High School. There would be other bands, other stages, and other chapters of my life. Eventually, I found myself playing solo at the Riverside Country Club in Lake Jackson, Texas. I played there for eleven years. One evening, sometime in the mid-1970s, another band was playing a dance in the ballroom while I was performing separately in the club. At some point during the evening, I noticed a man standing in the doorway watching me play. He had a dark beard.
I didn't recognize him. I didn't think much about it at the time. I was working, and people came and went. Later that night, after everything had shut down, I discovered who the bearded man was. It was Kent Finlay.
A Connection Back to Lohn
Kent belonged to that earlier Lohn music world. Years before, he had played lead guitar with my brother Charles Marshall at a Brady High School talent show. Charles sang and played rhythm guitar. Charles and Kent’s second-place finish at the 1956 Area VII FFA contest was another connection between us. Kent and I both played with Charles, although we never performed together. Kent and I knew one another through that Lohn music world, but we never performed together. That made seeing him at Riverside all those years later particularly interesting.
Life had taken both of us far from Lohn. Kent had arrived at Riverside with his band to play a dance in the ballroom. I was there doing what I had been doing for years—playing solo. For a few hours, two paths that had started around the same little Texas town crossed again. But by then, Kent had also become part of a much larger Texas music story.
Cheatham Street Warehouse
In 1974, Kent opened the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos, Texas. It became more than simply a place where bands could play. Kent created a gathering place for Texas musicians and songwriters—a place where young performers could get onstage, develop their music, and learn their craft before a live audience. Among the young musicians who played there was a singer named George Strait. George Strait and the Ace in the Hole Band became regular performers at Cheatham Street during the early years of Strait's career.
Nobody sitting in those audiences could have known just how far George Strait was going to go. Kent, however, recognized talent and gave young musicians a place to develop it. Over the years, Cheatham Street became closely associated with the Texas songwriting and music community, and Kent became known not only as a musician but also as someone who encouraged other musicians and songwriters. At Riverside, our paths crossed again: Kent had brought his band to the ballroom, while I was playing solo. Seeing him in that doorway brought back the music world we had shared around Lohn.