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by:  Michael Barnes

In 1976, Eddie Wilson left his grand experiment, the Armadillo World Headquarters. Four years later, the seminal 1970s Austin music-food-and-drink venue that he had founded at Barton Springs Road and South First Street closed for good.

As Wilson tells it in his marvelous new memoir, “Armadillo World Headquarters,” he next discovered an open spot at 605 Sabine St. — a half-block off East Sixth Street — that rented for $125 a month.

“The name of the joint was the Raw Deal,” he writes. “The modest-to-the-point-of-crude concept was that it would be a beer bar that also sold some stuff to eat.”

It was no Armadillo, but the Raw Deal attracted a storied clientele of artists, politicos and just plain barflies who epitomized a key strata of 1970s Austin cultural history. (Send your memories and images of both places to mbarnes@statesman.com.)

With permission, here is an excerpt from the book that relates some of the more colorful and renowned customers who elbowed the bar at this grand old greasy spoon:

“Among my regular customers, Ann Richards was one of my favorite people to talk to. She and another well-known and powerful Texas politician, Bob Bullock, were very close to each other before they became non-friends. Bullock was state comptroller when I had the Raw Deal and was later elected lieutenant governor and served two terms. With the knowledge that, on occasion, I had special T-shirts printed, one day Ann came to me and asked if I might have some made in honor of her friend Bob.

“Bullock was in the middle of a campaign, and Ann wanted a T-shirt that would pay tribute to his notorious raging temper and mean-spiritedness. What about something that incorporated an image of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin? The more we talked about it, the more perfect it sounded.

“I called (artist) Micael Priest and asked him to create a drawing of Idi Amin wearing his military cap, standing tall behind an old-fashioned cash register, ringing up sales tax. I specified the words ‘Idi Amin for Comptroller’ should appear in large lettering. I sold dozens of the shirts to Bullock’s friends and enemies both — even to members of his staff. Once he found out about the T-shirts, sales immediately stopped. On election day, Bullock sailed to victory, but that was no surprise.

“In 1973, when Bullock was still the Texas secretary of state, he had been a regular at the (Armadillo) beer garden. He was politically ambitious, and it was known that he was thinking about running for either state comptroller or treasurer. Bullock’s daily companion was Ed Wendler, a significant political operator on a more local scale. Wendler was a lawyer who represented developers, a yellow dog Democrat street activist who favored pressed blue jeans. Feeling ballsy one afternoon, I stopped by their table to ask Bob if he’d made up his mind which office he planned to seek.

“‘Yup, just now, and you’ll be the first to know,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned that my liberal friends don’t trust me enough to want me as treasurer. I’ve also learned that they don’t know what comptroller means, so I’m going to take that one and shove it up their (expletive).’

“Later that day, as Ed and Bob were visibly approaching their limit, Bullock waved me over again. He wanted to know if I saw Willie Nelson regularly. At the time I did, and told him so.

“Bullock wanted me to ask Willie to play a fundraiser for his campaign. Then he went on to remind me that he had grown up in Hillsboro, the town next door to Abbott, where Willie had grown up. Willie would come to Hillsboro on the interurban bus, and when he got off the bus toting his guitar, Bullock and his buddies would give Willie a hard time.

“They’d make Willie take his guitar out of his case and sing a few songs under the implied threat that if he refused, they’d beat him up. Bullock seemed to think that was hilarious. Apparently, no one had told him that Willie was generally pleased to sing and play guitar for anyone, anywhere, at the drop of a hat.

“I said I’d be glad to pass along the request.

“I saw Willie a few days later and relayed Bullock’s request. Willie wanted to know what I thought of Bullock’s politics. I told him that Bullock had a future in whatever political arena he chose. Then Willie asked if there was anything else I thought he should know. The only thing I had to add was what Bullock had told me about when they were growing up, which I told him.

“Willie listened thoughtfully, scratched his chin, cocked his head, and said, ‘Would you mind telling Mr. Bullock from me to go (expletive) himself?’

“‘No, I don’t mind at all,’ I said.”