Secret history of Austin music, part 3: Dolores and the Blue Bonnet Boys

In the nine years between the end of World War II and the big bang of rock 'n' roll, the Austin music scene was dominated by Western Swing and country bands with such names as Jesse James and All the Boys, Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters, Doug and the Falstaff Swing Boys, Grouchy and His Texas Pioneers, Leon Hawkins and His Buckaroos, Hub Sutter and the Galvestonians, and Buck Roberts and the Rhythmaires.

But Dolores and the Blue Bonnet Boys stood out because it was that rare country band led by a woman who wasn't the main vocalist. Far from a novelty, Dolores Fariss wrote songs, chose outside material, played piano and ruled her group of talented musicians like Bob Wills in a skirt.

"My mother ran the band like a business," says son Don Fariss, 70. "Dad (drummer Lee Fariss) pretty much went along with whatever she said when it came to the group." Rule No. 1 was no drinking before or during a set. And Dolores Fariss was also clear that she didn't like her musicians showing off. Although she had a Hammond solovox piano attachment, which produced a shrill, single-note organ sound, Dolores used it mainly to emulate the clarinet notes during the band's polka numbers. (The most famous recorded use of a solovox is on "Sugar Shack" by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs.)

"Mother knew the way to stay popular was to keep the crowd dancing," says Don Fariss, "and people loved to dance to polkas." The majority of the group's repertoire was country hits, though Dolores Fariss penned a local hit of her own with "The Austin Waltz."

"Dolores was very commercial-minded, and she called the shots as to what we played," says the band's fiddler, Bill Dessens, who joined the Blue Bonnet Boys in 1949 while still in college at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos. "Her motto was 'Keep it simple, boys.' She'd say that whenever me and (twin fiddler) Joe Castle would take off on a crazy course. We used to get together in the basement of Joe's church and learn songs like 'Stompin' at the Savoy,' but Dolores didn't care for that hokum (jazz)." She insisted the band give the crowd what they wanted, which made the band extremely hireable — not only in the clubs but on the more lucrative campus and West Austin private party scene.

Steel guitarist Jimmy Grabowske says "it was never an issue" to take orders from a woman because "Dolores knew what she was doing when it came to the band. She was such a wonderful person and such a talented piano player."

Rather than tour the dancehalls, honky-tonks and VFW halls all over Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, Dolores and the Blue Bonnet Boys rarely ventured outside Austin, where they played every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at the Skyline Club on far North Lamar Boulevard (at the corner of what is now Braker Lane) in the early '50s. The group also played Dessau Hall twice a month and the Buckholts SPJST Lodge in Milam County about four times a year.

The Skyline gigs included the Wednesday "Spot Dance," which was like musical chairs on the dance floor. When the music stopped, those who were not on one of the large white dots on the floor had to drop out.

The group publicized its shows by playing live on KVET (AM 1300), which signed on the air Oct. 1, 1946. Before KVET, there were two stations in town — the Lady Bird Johnson-owned KTBC (AM 590), a CBS affiliate, and KNOW, headquartered in Norwood Tower. Lyndon Johnson, then a rookie U.S. congressman, encouraged several of his closest associates, including future Texas Gov. John Connally and future U.S. Rep. Jake Pickle, to pool their resources and launch a third station, before NBC could enter the market. Better that competitors be friends than enemies. Because the new station owners were veterans of World War II, they went with the KVET call letters.

The Blue Bonnet Boys and the other big country band in town, Jesse James and All the Boys, were friendly competitors, often sharing and trading members. Blue Bonnet Boy guitarist Claude Hallmark even co-wrote "Darlin', I Don't Understand," with James, who had a regional hit with it.

Grabowske played with both groups, leaving Jesse James for Dolores in 1953, after six years on the road. "Jesse James (was) popular all over the state, but the traveling would kill you," says Grabowske.