▼ Music Mic Dropped Steve Jackson, who nurtured Dallas artists as a host of Opening Bell’s open mic, steps down. BY DESIREE GUTIERREZ PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE BROOKS O n June 24, Steve Jackson walked into Opening Bell Coffee in his usual uniform of jeans, shirt and a gray golfer hat, lugging his encased acoustic guitar. He greeted the baristas, pulled up a stool on the corner stage and got to work. First thing on the list, sound check. The sweet hum of his prize-winning song “Goodnight Moon” filled the South Side on Lamar basement suite. It was part of his pre- show routine, one he has perfected through- out his 13 years as host of one of the best open mic nights in North Texas, an old- school open mic: “No sign-ups, just come.” At 6 p.m, perched center stage, Jackson kicked off the event with his typical banter. “No guns. No knives. Only bare-knuckle fist fighting. In the event of a tie, there will be a spelling contest,” Jackson said, just like he had hundreds of times before. At 6:45 p.m., mid-show, Jackson walked off the stage and handed the mic over to the baris- tas. As he walked out the door of Opening Bell Coffee for the last time, he finally pressed send on a text he’d long meant to write to Opening Bell Coffee owner Pascale Hall. “I’m done. I need to move on,” it read. “I would have loved to have gone out with a bang instead of a whimper, but I feel if I didn’t leave then I would be stuck in it for another six or seven months,” Jackson says. An hour after his abrupt departure, Jack- son cemented the end of his tenure with a Facebook announcement. “It is with immense sadness that I an- nounce that I have stepped down as host for Opening Bell’s open mic,” the post read. “For almost fourteen years, it has been a pleasure to have worked with some of the most amaz- ingly talented artists, but right now, personal health issues will be the focus in my life.” Since 2009, Jackson has spearheaded Dallas’ longest running open mic. He’s part of a tradition that’s vital to any thriving mu- sic scene, which gained popularity in Har- lem’s Apollo Theater and among folk singers in the 1960s. As the musical equivalent of a literary salon, songwriter nights serve as in- cubators that prepare artists to perform in front of live audiences, allow them to form connections and learn from fellow artists and to find a place under the wing of men- tors such as Jackson. In Dallas, open mics have been a first stop for aspiring musicians who’ve gone on to achieve fame and critical success. As one of the most popular open mics, Opening Bell has boosted some of Dallas’ best singer- songwriters. During his time, Jackson hosted countless talented artists who have made a point to come through Opening Bell to perform at open mics and tribute shows. But the ties are severed. Regulars will no longer see Jackson’s salt-and-peppered head smiling from that corner stage. “It’s a clean cut, we haven’t spoken since,” Jackson says of Hall. “I’m sure that she feels like she’s abandoned, but I gave her almost 14 years and 700-plus shows of com- plete dedication, so regardless of how it ended, I did everything I could on my end.” His own passion for music began when he was 5 years old and A Charlie Brown Christmas introduced him to jazz, some- thing he never heard much of in his home- town of Abilene. At 14, Jackson heard The Eagles for the first time and knew he wanted to be a songwriter. With his mother’s encouragement, the teen nurtured his appetite for music. He learned to play instruments by ear, devel- oped a “knack for writing a hook” and began to trust his musical instincts. His mother be- came his biggest fan. His father became his worst critic. “My father told me I couldn’t sing worth a damn,” Jackson says. By adulthood, he was playing lead guitar on stages in Dallas and rubbing elbows with future Dallas icons, including Stevie Ray Vaughan. “Unless you were really good original art- ists like Stevie Ray was, you didn’t get a chance to play your original stuff at the clubs,” Jackson says. “The clubs just want you to do the covers. I got fed up. As a song- writer I wanted more out of it.” In 1981, Jackson walked away from music. The next year, he sold all his equipment ex- cept for one guitar. For a quarter century, Jackson confined songwriting to a hobby be- hind closed doors. Echoes of his father’s criti- cism ensured the songs stayed buried there. “I was always very intimidated, even in my own home, about singing because of my father’s influence on me. Even without any- body present, I was afraid,” Jackson says. “But when I found that chord structure, it became a beacon for me to use that voice that I had never tried to use before.” The chord structure was influenced by the ominous Silence of the Lambs theme song. It would become the foundation for Jackson’s “Wicked Web” and the algorithm for his songwriting. During his reprieve, Jackson accumu- lated a 14-song collection that would be- come his 2013 album Goodnight Moon. Once he showed his music to his friends, they urged him to go to open mics. Riddled with fear, Jackson returned to the stage in 2006. His first performance was at the former Bend Studio. From that perfor- mance on, he was hooked. The next week, he stepped foot into Opening Bell Coffee for the first time. “I got up the gumption to go out there and try my hand at it, and the very first per- son I met was the guy who I took over for,” Jackson says. Ramon Mallow, known to Dallasites as Mr. Troll, welcomed Jackson into Opening Bell Coffee. The two artists bonded over their “hippie days” and shared stories of their time performing in Dallas and Denton. Before they knew it, both were Opening Bell Coffee hosts. Six months after Jackson became an open-mic regular, Hall asked Jackson to host open mics at Opening Bell Coffee’s sec- Steve Jackson had hosted Opening Bell’s open mic night for the last 13 years. ond location at the Mosaic building. Mallow was the host of the South Side location. Nervously, Jackson accepted. That time was short-lived, however. The Mosaic loca- tion dissolved six months later. “Two days later, [Mallow] called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m about to burn out, can you fill in for me for a couple months?’” Jackson says. “A couple of months turned into 13- plus years.” Throughout those years, Jackson paved paths for artists by acting as a guide, scout, consultant, matchmaker and liaison in many corners of the industry. As artists took to the stage, he could pin- point who would go on to stardom. “It’s just instinct,” Jackson says. “It’s just knowing who’s got it, who’s got the persona on stage, who’s got the writing skills that can put a song together that’s catchy, that’s hooky and that people are going to know and are going to be singing next week, not just when they leave the venue.” The first time he recognized a star, it was Garrett Owen, a folk-rock-country songwrit- ing phenom who came to Opening Bell’s stage for his first open mic ever. “The kid could play stylized playing, fin- ger picking that was just beyond anything that I had heard from anybody else, and he has this unique voice that really works with a falsetto as well,” Jackson says. “And you just knew this kid was going to do something.” That night, Jackson suggested Owen visit Poor David’s Pub’s open mic and introduced him to Dallas indie artist Glitter and to pro- ducer Taylor Tatsch, who would be instru- mental in Owen’s development. “It’s the end of an era,” Tatsch says of Jackson’s departure. >> p16 115 dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 AUGUST 18–24, 2022
