Antone's Odyssey

Drug case is latest turn for club founder whose blues devotion has made him an Austin icon

By Chris Riemenschneider
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Editor's note: The following story, written by former American-Statesman critic Chris Riemenschneider, first appeared in the newspaper Aug. 24, 1997.

A night owl by preference and profession, Clifford Antone politely tells most people not to bother him before 4 p.m. On a Sunday afternoon, though, only weeks after a federal grand jury indicted Austin's most prominent nightclub owner on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges, Antone broke the 4 p.m. law for some visiting family members.

Inside his condominium on the fifth floor of the Towers of Town Lake — the high-rise you see just before crossing the lake on southbound Interstate 35 — Antone's two sisters, one brother-in-law and a pair of rambunctious young nieces were drinking Dr Peppers in the living room, where Antone has two 50-plus-inch TVs sitting side by side so he can watch two baseball games at once.

Nearby on a table are photos of musicians Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins, and mementos fromAntone's two decades as one of the country's best-known supporters of blues music.

To get to Antone's condo, guests must pass a security guard, walk across a fancy marble lobby and take an elevator.

``Did you all see where I carried in those thousands of pounds of marijuana into the building?'' Antone joked. He said it quietly enough so his nieces couldn't hear him, loudly enough so his news media guests could understand the anger behind it.

If the federal government has anything to do with it, Antone won't have many more days like this at home with his extended family, which gathered last month for the 22nd anniversary of Antone's Nightclub. Nor will the promoter and chronicler of a music style born of hard times be free to lead a blues bastion recognized by fans throughout the country and even overseas. Once again, hard times have visited the club known locally for its long history of financial and legal problems.

On June 16, a federal grand jury indicted Antone, 47, along with five others on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges involving nearly 5 tons of marijuana and $1 million that changed hands as part of a smuggling ring stretching from Mexico to Canada. If convicted, he faces 10 years to life in federal prison.

Antone has pleaded not guilty, is out on $50,000 bail and could goto trial around the end of the year or early next year.

The timing of the indictment, announced the day before grand-opening celebrations began for the new Antone's location at Fifth and Lavaca streets, gave clubgoers plenty to speculate about. The feds, it was apparent to music fans, knew they were charging one of the most prominent figures in the Austin music industry, the man who had fostered the careers of the Vaughans and the Fabulous Thunderbirds while bringing blues legends such as Muddy Waters and Albert King to town.

``I was wondering if they would leave me alone long enough'' to enjoy the festivities, Antone said. They proceeded on schedule.

Although it wasn't made public at the time, in April 1996, investigators searched Antone's condo and, according to the later indictment, found $50,000 in cash, a 50-pound scale, beepers, phone cards, 2 ounces of marijuana, a vial of cocaine and other evidence. A dealer already convicted in the trafficking ring that prosecutors said included Antone named Antone as a buyer.

Antone doesn't claim to be an angel. He pleaded guilty in 1984 of possession of more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and spent 14 months in federal prison. But he says he's innocent of the new charges and claims they are part of one guilty man's desperate attempts to avoid life in prison. Antone's lawyer, Dick Deguerin, who defended David Koresh and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, says Antone had met the man, El Paso resident Bruce Victor Hackfield, but barely knew him.

On the day the indictment was announced and Antone's face appeared at the top of every TV newscast in town, the club and record label owner offered this as his defense: ``You know me; all I've ever been about is music.''

Antone said he believes he won't be convicted, but he doesn't consider it impossible.

When asked whether the charges against him, past or present, had anything to do with the financial woes of his blues operations, he was blunt: ``Of course they did. Of course.''

Inherited business sense

Tucked away on the second floor of the Texas Gulf Museum in Port Arthur, the Southeast Texas town where Antone grew up, is a section on music that would make the Hard Rock Cafe folks jealous.

There isn't much money left in this bayou-dotted, oil-soaked coastalland, which may be why the museum seems so especially rich. It features memorabilia from locals such as Janis Joplin, George Jones, the Big Bopper, Clifton Chenier, Cookie & the Cupcakes, Edgar and Johnny Winter — all singers, innovators or examples of the blues.

Antone isn't named in the museum, but the retired ladies who volunteer there know who he is. The Port Arthur News ran only a small item on the indictment, but it was enough to earn gossip. When the topic comes up, the women's voices lower.

``He always seemed to be a real decent person,'' said Frances Devall, Antone's teacher in the eighth-grade. ``But I always thought he grew up in the wrong kind of environment, that maybe he learned the grass can be greener on the other side of the fence.''

Antone said he had a healthy, happy upbringing in Port Arthur and credits his love of music to those times. His father, a first-generation Lebanese American like his mother, owned several liquor stores in the area.

``In the summer, I'd work in his warehouse with all these great black guys from Louisiana,'' Antone said. ``Since I was a kid, I was surrounded by them, and we didn't listen to nothing but the blues on KJET from Beaumont.''

On weekends, he'd go to the skating rink to see Aaron Neville's band or Cookie & the Cupcakes. On Sundays, Roy Head might be playing in the hall at St. James Catholic Church. The recreation center would host acts such as the Moving Sidewalks or the Sir Douglas Quintet.

Antone said his family gave him his business sense. Grandmother Amuny owned Pauline's, the dress and gift shop on the ground floor of the now-boarded-up Sabine Hotel. Most of his father's and uncle's liquor stores are gone, too. There's an Amuny's Liquors on Gulfway Drive, but somebody else owns it. His uncle Fred Ashy still has a dentist's office in town after 50 years. Around Houston, his cousins from his father's side own numerous Antone's Sandwich Shops, while other relatives are in real estate there.

``There are so many different family businesses I could go into where I could make more in a week than what I do in a year now,'' Antone said. ``But I was bitten by a bug early on with all that music. And then when I finally heard the Chicago blues, man, it was like I finally discovered what had been in my mind my whole life.''

`Guys in the Italian pants'

An 18-year-old Antone moved to Austin in 1968 to attend the University of Texas. He planned to become a lawyer. And maybe a hippie. That year, he was arrested for trying to smuggle a bag of marijuana across the border at Laredo.

The case was dismissed, and Antone soon discovered a new passion — the blues. When he first heard the 1971 album ``Fleetwood Mac in Chicago'' featuring Willie Dixon, Otis Spann and Elmore James, he saw music as a goal in itself and soon dropped out of school.

Antone was arrested again in 1971, caught in a friend's truck in Austin with another small bag of pot. That case also was dropped.

In 1973, when he was 23 and working in construction, Antone opened his first business, Antone's Imports, on the corner of 16th and Guadalupe streets. ``Imported clothes from Mexico, real nice stuff,'' Antone said. ``Imported foods, too.''

What really mattered, though, was the back room at the shop, supposedly the office. It was just big enough for a couple of amplifiers and a few young white guys who wanted to play the blues. Among them were Doyle Bramhall, Derek O'Brien, Denny Freeman and two brothers named Stevie and Jimmie Vaughan.

``I think Clifford cared more about that little office back there than he did the store,'' said singer Angela Strehli, who would later become Antone's girlfriend. ``But you have to understand, there just wasn't anywhere for blues players to go.''

In the mid-'70s, the Austin music scene could be summed up in two words: progressive country. Willie Nelson moved here, grew his hair long and spawned a following of Cosmic Cowboys. Blues music was for the east side of Austin, and even there it didn't get much respect.

``It was like we were the bastard children of the Austin music scene,'' said Kim Wilson, who joined Jimmie Vaughan in the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974. ``We were the guys in the Italian pants, and no one wanted anything to do with us. You have no idea what Antone's meant to us when it opened up. It was the greatest moment of our lives.''

First location easy choice

Jonas Wilson is a 17-year-old guitar player who drove up from Victoria to attend Antone's 22nd anniversary shows, and to introduce himself to the club's namesake.

``Some day, I'm going to play your club, you can count on it,'' Wilson told Antone, who was already beaming from the music.

A smile exploded across the club owner's face.

``I know you will,'' he told the youth.

Antone is in his element at the club. Dressed in his usual attire — white shirt, no tie, and a large blazer covering his hulking, rotund figure — he makes the rounds to all the musicians who have gathered for yet another series of all-star jams. Thoroughly polite and genuinely charming, he asks them in his raspy, slow voice how they've been. If they've already been on stage, he tells them how incredible they were.

After meeting the 17-year-old, he conceded, ``Man, that kid gave me deja vu.''

Antone didn't say whom the boy reminded him of. The Keller Bros. or the Holy Moellers, the youngest players now at Antone's? Sue Foley or Teddy Morgan, who came before them? Ian Moore or Charlie Sexton? The Vaughan brothers?

A lot of young players have walked into Antone's since he gave up the import business to open a blues club in a former clothing store on East Sixth Street.

``There was nothing down there — nothing,'' Antone said. ``But we went down there and took one look in the window and said, `This is it.' It was a beautiful building, ready for some beautiful music.''

Antone's Nightclub opened on July 15, 1975. Clifton Chenier, a childhood favorite of Antone, performed the first week. The next week, Sunnyland Slim, a piano-playing blues patriarch from Chicago, played for five nights. Within weeks, the club was known in Chicago.

``Sunnyland Slim got all the Chicago guys to start calling me,'' Antone recalled. ``These were my heroes, and they were calling me and asking me, `Can I please come play your club?' They were so freaked out that anyone, especially in Texas, would want them, and I was freaked out just to be talking to them.''

Antone treated the Chicago legends like they were royalty, wining and dining them, making sure they had a good time in Austin. But he was known to indulge all the musicians, even locals like the T-Birds, who were the house band in those early years.

``He'd give us more money than we earned,'' said Wilson. ``I remember he gave me the first and last month's rent on my first place in Austin. He made it easy for us to be musicians, and fun. Whether he was making money on the club or not, it didn't matter, as long as we were happy. And we were.''

Wilson played with the great Muddy Waters that first year. Albert King came to play, too, and Antone arranged for an on-stage jam with the younger Vaughan.

``It was the best I ever saw Stevie play — just this magical, out-of-this-world playing,'' said Strehli. ``It meant so much to him, and I know it wouldn't have happened if Clifford wasn't the one who asked Albert. Albert wasn't the kind of guy you asked favors of — he was big and a little intimidating.''

Nobody remembers whether the club made any money in those days. What's remembered is the day Antone stood across the street in 1980, watching the wrecking ball tear down his club to make room for what is now the Norwest Bank tower and a real estate boom that wouldn't last.

Marijuana arrest in 1982

The worst year was 1982. Both of Antone's parents died only a couple of months apart. The second location of Antone's, out of the club-crawlers' way in a Northwest Austin strip mall, was losing money fast.

``I never knew what I was doing, man,'' Antone said. ``I just looked to God for guidance.''

During the summer of 1982, Antone's moved to 2915 Guadalupe St. near the UT campus, where the club would stay for almost 15 years. But similar to this year's move to the fourth site, the opening of the new Antone's wouldn't be grand for very long.

In November 1982, Antone was arrested for selling marijuana in the parking lot of Jo Jo's Restaurant at Interstate 35 and Oltorf Street. The federal complaint cited him as the source of more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana. Fifty pounds were found at Jo Jo's, the rest at an undisclosed Austin residence.

Antone's cousin, Mikal Amuny, who was living in Austin, was also named in the complaint. Three years younger than Antone, Amuny also is charged in the new indictment against Antone.

In March 1984, the two cousins pleaded guilty and were sentenced to five years at the federal minimum-security facility in Big Spring. They entered prison in the summer of 1985. While there, Antone organized several blues concerts for inmates and raised money to help pay for a community center in Big Spring. Both he and Amuny were released after 14 months.

Susan Antone, a year older than Clifford, gave up her life as a photographer in Los Angeles to move to Austin and manage Antone's when her brother went to prison.

A new generation of blues players was beginning to make itself known. Teen-agers Charlie Sexton, Doyle Bramhall II and Ian Moore grew up at Antone's, watching the original blues legends at work.

``It was kind of a quiet time for the club,'' Moore recalled of the mid-'80s. ``But that was all the better for us, because it gave us a chance to play. And even if there were just 20 people there, to get up on the stage where we saw these amazing, late-night jam sessions by some of the greats — that was exciting for an 18-year-old.''

Mission: Record legends

Antone came out of prison with a rekindled passion for the blues.

``Like anything, Clifford tried to make it a positive,'' Strehli said of his jail time. ``And when he got out, he wanted to be around the music again more than anything. He especially wanted to record the music.''

Their eight-year relationship ended before he went to prison, but Strehli stuck around to help start a record label. The first albums for Antone's Records Co. were by Strehli, Memphis Slim, Ronnie Earl and a live recording of the much-revered 10th anniversary show at the club.

By the early '90s, the Antone's label appeared to be thriving. ``Dreams Come True,'' an album featuring Strehli with Lou Ann Barton and Marcia Ball, earned critical praise and sold more than 50,000 copies. Doyle Bramhall's ``Bird Nest on the Ground'' did even better, selling 100,000 copies. But problems with record distributors around 1992 made Antone's Records have trouble getting its product sold.

``The distribution did us in, there's no question,'' Antone said. ``It was hard then for independents. It's twice as hard now.''

Business at the club near UT began to sag, too. Students within walking distance were driving to Sixth Street, while older patrons didn't seem interested in the smoky atmosphere or late-night hours. Property taxes had skyrocketed since Antone had moved the club there. Frequent benefit shows helped keep the club open.

The cavalry arrived in 1993 with local businessmen Harry Friedman, who took the financial reins and brought in two wealthy investors, Austinite James Heldt and Fort Worth resident Carson Thompson. Friedman created an offshoot label called dos, and a deal was struck with a larger record company, Discovery Records, to distribute Toni Price's albums. But by the end of 1995, the independent label was suffering again.

``We definitely hit a slump, but we weren't alone,'' Friedman said. Antone's Records became virtually nonexistent.

The label was saved once again last year when Warner Bros. bought Discovery Records and took Antone's with it. A party celebrated the deal at the West Lake Hills home of Heldt, who by now had invested money in the club as well. Heldt is a well-known contributor to the Austin Museum of Art and owned property downtown that was once suggested as a new home for the club.

The party didn't last. Warner Bros. began downsizing earlier this year and left Antone's in limbo. A new boss, industry veteran Seymour Stein, has expressed interest in keeping Antone's on board at Warner Bros., but nothing is definite yet.

Antone said he is confident the label will continue, and recently spent a week producing an album with legendary Detroit blues harpist Lazy Lester at Arlyn Studios, one of Austin's more expensive recording studios.

``It's sad it's taken so long to get people like Lester or Lavelle (White) on record,'' Antone said. ``I look at that as my mission, to record the blues legends before they're gone. There's so many more, too. There's so much more I want to do than I financially am able to, and it's sad.''

More time at the club

Antone is spending a lot more time at the club these days. There was a time, a few years ago at the Guadalupe Street location, when it was rare to see him there. The joke then was you'd have a better chance catching him at Sugar's Uptown Cabaret, a topless bar near Highland Mall.

``He's a very nice man,'' said a manager at Sugar's who wouldn't give his name. ``He's been known to come in here, but the truth is, I haven't seen him in a while.''

Louis Meyers, a former director of the South by Southwest Music Conference, was brought in to book music acts at Antone's in 1995. His hiring was a last-ditch attempt to bring crowds to the Guadalupe location. It didn't work.

``Yeah, Clifford was never at the old club, but neither was anybody else,'' Meyers said. ``It just wasn't an appealing place, especially toward the end.''

Both Meyers and Friedman — who were running Antone's businesses at the time he was allegedly dealing in marijuana — said they saw no signs of such illegal activity. Nor did they see much of a reason why there would be.

``Clifford was being paid pretty well by us,'' Friedman said.

Today the downtown club is booming, the record shop makes modest profits, and the label could have a bright future. Where Antone himself will fit in the picture is unclear.

Sister puts up privacy wall

Susan Antone is as fiesty as her brother is Southern-boy polite. She's brash, sarcastic, uninhibited. Which isn't to say she's any less charming.

``I love my brother, and I love that club, and that's all you need to know,'' she said in batting away questions about her personal life.

Susan has more or less been running the club since 1985. Most of its assets are in her name.

``Susan really knows the club business well,'' said Meyers, who left Antone's a few months before it moved downtown. ``The people who know and respect Clifford have the same feelings for her. They're not going to disappear if Clifford does.''

Kim Wilson, whose Fabulous Thunderbirds went from being Antone's house band to a Top 10 recording act with ``Tuff Enuff'' in 1986, said Antone should be seen as a hero, if not a martyr, for the Austin music scene.

``When you get off the plane, and it says, `Live Music Capital of the World,' they should have a picture of Clifford there,'' said Wilson, who moved to the Los Angeles area last year. ``Austin needs to get its priorities straight as to who the criminals are, and who the heroes are.''

Back at his condo, Antone pulled a half-dozen photo albums out of his closet. They weren't far out of reach.

After paging through the proof of his legacy — ``There's Jimmie and Angela with Muddy,'' ``Here's that one of Stevie with Albert King,'' ``Here's that reunion of Eddie Taylor and Jimmy Reed'' — the burly club owner scoffed at the idea that he should be painted a hero.

``Naw, man, you know who the heroes in this business are, they're the ones who make the music,'' he said. ``I'm just a man who loved the blues, who tried to hear it whenever I could and get others to hear it. That's all.''

That isn't quite all. He borrowed from the title of an album he released by Lavelle White, ``But let me tell ya, it haven't been easy.''