Tex played nylon strings because his fingers got torn up by steel. He used to say he had "paper skin." He also worked very hard to keep his nails on his right hnad strong, using Knox gelatin and anything else reputed to work, including clear hard nail polish. His Martin -- and the guitars of several other people he knew -- had a clear plastic guard that surrounded the soundhole, top and bottom. He shared this with anyone, true to his always generous nature.

Tex was linked to so many people -- long before the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" -- that sometimes it seemed as if I was always saying, in relation to some performer, writer, actor or other "Yeah, Tex knows him/her/it/them." His tales, always told with an eye for detail and couched in the best artistic tones weren't as tall as many might think. I was around for several of them or have heard them told -- a little awestruck -- by others who were there.

His time in the Village, when I first knew him, was a weird and wonderful time, and to those who weren't there -- and some who were -- much that happened on a daily basis would seem like fantasy. His ability to weave stories into powerful, evocative images worked so well that his sung version of "I Must Down to the Sea in Ships" (which those of us of a certain age learned in school as a poem by John Masefield) moved my Dad, a tough critic of all the arts, to tears and endeared Tex, chief among all my "beatnik, no-goodnik" friends to my Dad for the length of his life.

So long, kid.

Jamie