OneTwoThreeFour!

Management custody battle snags Lonely Boys

By Joe Gross
July 8, 2004

So, exactly who manages Los Lonely Boys?

That's the question at the heart of a knotty set of lawsuits in which the Boys, their current manager Kevin Womack, of Loophole Entertainment, and former manager Jimmy Stratton, a well-known Nashville photographer, are currently embroiled.

Nowadays, Los Lonely Boys' rise to the top of the adult-rock heap seems increasingly relentless. Last week, they were No. 9 on the Billboard album charts, knocked down to a still-mighty-impressive No. 13 by the probably inevitable chart debuts of the "Spider-Man 2" soundtrack and Wilco's "A Ghost is Born." Los Lonely Boys' 2003 debut, currently distributed by Sony, has been certified gold with more than a half-million copies sold.

The album's single "Heaven" is a cross-format hit, exactly the sort of radio-ready tune you want in this age of atomized audiences. "Heaven" currents sits at No. 17 on Billboard's Top 40 after a run as the Adult Album Alternative (AAA) single of the year in 2003 and a strong showing on the Adult Contemporary chart. The video for "Heaven" is being shown on VH1 and Country Music Television. They will be on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Thursday night and on "The View" on July 15, not to mention a sold-out, two-night stand at Stubb's on Friday and Saturday.

So who orchestrated this rise to the top of the heap?

In March 2001, Los Lonely Boys filed a breach-of-contract suit against their first manager, Stratton, in Davidson County, Tenn., Chancery Court. The suit alleges that Stratton, who signed the band to management contracts in 1996 and 1999, had failed to live up to his obligations as manager of the band, including failing to secure them a recording contract.

In July 2001, Stratton and his lawyers answered that complaint with a counter-suit alleging breach of contract on the band's part. About $70,000 in expenses is in dispute.

Photo by Alex Jones for AA-S

Los Lonely Boys continue to blaze with their self-titled album. But who orchestrated this success? The courts will have to figure that one out.

This suit puttered along until August 2003, when a profile of the Boys ran in the American-Statesman. The article stated that Womack, their second manager, had contact with the Boys as early as the late '90s, when they were still under contact with Stratton. This was news to Stratton, who filed suit in October 2003 in the Middle District of Tennessee against Womack, alleging that Womack "intentionally interfered" in the contractual relationship between Stratton and the Boys and "induced the Garzas to breach that contract and enter into a management contract" with Womack, according to the lawsuit. Stratton is demanding damages of more than $100,000 from Womack.

"There's nothing to report," Womack said Friday. "I'm not gonna talk about any of it, so you can just kind of drop it."

Stratton says he discovered Los Lonely Boys on June 5, 1992, when he heard them playing "Johnny B. Goode" with their father in front of the Elvis Presley Museum in Nashville, Tenn. "(Los Lonely Boys guitarist) Henry (Garza) was knockin' it down, man, holding his own," Stratton said last week from his Nashville home.

Stratton says he last had contact with the Boys in December 1999, when he says they failed to show up for a planned trip to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Christmas party. Stratton waited for them and went to their house when they didn't show.

"I was informed by their landlord that they had gone back to Texas," Stratton says. That was the last he heard from them.

"I really didn't know what was going on," he says. "I didn't have anywhere to call. I didn't have a way to reach them at all." He had no other clients at the time, though he did have a photography business to tend to. Next time Stratton heard from them, he says, was when he was served with the lawsuit.

Despite his involvement with the band, Stratton doesn't make much of an appearance in the documented Los Lonely Boys history. A Nexis search revealed no stories that contain both Los Lonely Boys and Jimmy Stratton and a Google search reveals only one reference, a 1997 mention on Flagpole.com -- the online version of the Athens, Ga., alternative weekly Flagpole magazine -- that Stratton and the Boys were working on a CD at Elixir Recording in Athens at that time.

But Stratton says that -- at least as of August 2003 -- the Boys and he were acting like pals when he saw them at an in-store.

"I spoke personally with all of the boys at shows an in-store at a record store. There were hugs and kisses like old friends," Stratton says. "We talked for, like, an hour, there didn't seem to be any animosity, but they were telling me I needed to end this. They seemed to think I was in control of this situation."

FIVESIXSEVENEIGHT!

The local feminist and music community is mourning the death of Beth Westbrook, a local transgender activist known for her photographic contributions to Ladyfest TX events. Westbrook, 34, died June 30. A cause of death was not confirmed at press time. A memorial service for the Arkansas native will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Play Theater Group, 1204 Cedar Ave. (at East 12th and Cedar streets).

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jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926