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Jason Hardison has written a tribute to Poodie Locke that appears in the Summer 2009 Texas.  It’s on stands now (at least in Texas), and I encourage you to go out and buy your copy to read the entire article.  Here’s a little bit of it:

Poodie
by Jason Hardison
Texas Music
Summer 2009

“The Monday afternoon crowd sqeezed tight into the confines of the First Baptist Church of Woodway in Waco could never be mistaken for the regular congregation.  It was an eclectic assembly of musicians, roadies, bikers, hippies, possible Mafiosi and all manner of “normal” folk, and the dress code was similarly all over the map:  black suits, leather jackets, University of Texas burnt orange, psychedelic tie-dye shirts and red bandanas.

Some would call the scene motley, but Randall “Poodie” Locke likely would have called it beautiful.  That seemingly outlandish clash of culture and style was his life and these were his people, saying goodby. 

Locke, best known as the stage manager for Willie Nelson for more than three decades, and as one of the most colorful and beloved characters on the Texas music scene, died suddenly of an apparent heart attack at his Spicewood home on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 6.  He was 60.

The funeral drew a crowd of more than a thousand to “sing and send Poodie On,” with enough star power in the house to rival the lineup of any Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic.  Nelson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Billy Joe Shaver, Joe Ely, James Hand, Cody Canada and the Austin bands Reckless Kelly and the Troubadillos. 

The service began with music by the Troubadillos, an act Locke booked regulary at his own honky tonk in far west Austin, Poodie’s Hilltop Bar & Grill, performed “On the Road Again” and “Troubadour.”  Hubbard led a sing-along of “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fy Away,” and when Shaver recited the lyrics to “Live Forever,” tears trickled from mourners in almost every pew.  Front and center sat a solemn Nelson, with wife, Annie.

Nelson didn’t sing — or even speak — at the service.  He was dressed somberly in a black suit and wore dark glasses, which he removed several times during the service to wipe away tears.  He once remarked that Poodie, everyready with a dirty joke, was always “the smile in the middle of the madness.”  Still visibly in shock at the loss of one of his oldest and closest friends, Willie sure looked like he could have used one of those smiles now.

Locke spent some 34 years burning up white lines of highway on the road with Nelson, acquiring a collection of stories that coudl fill multiple volumes of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.  Like the time he smoked a doobie with his boss on the roof of the White House, or got kicked out of Peru with actor Dennis Hopper after eating a few to many funny mushrooms.  Or his wild ride with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and the time he convinced the Dali Lama to flash the “Hook ‘em Horns” sign.  There might be an account of the time he met Frank Sinatra while Ol’ Blue Eyes was pissing down an elevator shaft because the backstage bathroom seemed a little too far away, and possibly a whole chapter on Poodie’s reported flings with famous ladies of country music persuasian, not to mention his daylong marriage to Bonnie Raitt in Hawaii (as Poodie used to tell the tale, it lasted “until we got sober”).

Less sensational, though hardly insignificant to those involved, would be the role Locke played as a champion of music on the local leval, offering gigs and support to young guns like Pat Green, Kevin Fowler and Cory Morrow, long before they wee headlining dancehalls and Texas music festivals.

To read the rest of this article (4 pages), hurry out and get your copy of Texas Music, Summer 2009.

Thanks to Lyn from Texas, for sending this article to me.