Jimmy LaFave

Austin-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jimmy LaFave infused his original folk material with intense rock & roll drive, whether performing unaccompanied or fronting a full ensemble. He spent his early years in Wills Point, east of Dallas, before his family relocated to Stillwater, Oklahoma, once he turned 17. During his teenage years his mother acquired his first guitar using green stamps. Although Stillwater lacked a thriving music scene, it sat near enough to Tulsa for LaFave to access the chances a budding songwriter needed. The region’s legacy proved substantial, encompassing folksinger Woody Guthrie, jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, jazz fiddler Claude "Fiddler" Williams, songwriter J.J. Cale, and Leon Russell’s Shelter Studios. Seeking broader exposure and a recording contract, LaFave relocated to Austin in 1985 and remained based there for the rest of his musical life.

He settled into Chicago House, an Austin coffeehouse, where he ran open-mike nights for eight years and sharpened his solo stagecraft. Throughout the second half of the 1980s he also appeared with his band, Night Tribe, at additional local venues. With support from computer entrepreneur Mark Shumate, who established Bohemia Beat Records in 1992, LaFave completed his first album for the label.

He issued three Bohemia Beat titles: the 1993 debut Austin Skyline, a live set whose title echoed Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline; the 1994 studio effort Highway Trance, which highlighted his abilities as guitarist, vocalist, and composer; and 1995’s Buffalo Return to the Plains, featuring only a single cover—Bob Dylan’s “Sweetheart Like You.” Additional touchstones for LaFave included Jackson Browne, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis. His community-driven method supplied a solid platform for lasting success, aided by the fusion of country, blues, folk, and early rock & roll in his sound, his steady diligence, and his understated connection with listeners.

Trail appeared in 1999, followed by Texoma in early 2001. Red House Records then released his next pair of albums, 2005’s Blue Nightfall and 2007’s Cimarron Manifesto. Depending on the Distance surfaced in 2012, with The Night Tribe arriving in 2015. During spring 2017 LaFave disclosed that he was fighting a rare cancer; he died from the illness at his Austin residence that May at age 61.