He was named a Buddy magazine Texas Tornado in 1983:

Stephen Bruton earned his national reputation playing with Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, and Kris Kristofferson. Photo ©2007 Chuck Flores

Stephen Bruton loses battle with cancer

Stephen Bruton was a guitarist, songwriter, producer and friend

By Tom Geddie

When Stephen Bruton was 13 or so, his big brother  Sumter used to drive him and his young friend to guitar lessons in  Fort Worth. Nothing unusual about that, until you know that Stephen and his friend, T Bone Burnett, were teaching, not taking, the lessons.

Bruton’s whole life, it turns out, was unusual. He was a fine player, sure, but after his death in May from two-and-a-half-year battle with throat cancer most of the people who knew him well talked about his caring and kindness more than his music. Bruton died May 9. He was 60 years old.

Bruton, who lived in Austin in recent years, was a noted guitarist and songwriter who also took up acting; produced career-defining albums for Alejandro Escovedo, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Marcia Ball; and earned his national reputation playing with Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, and Kris Kristofferson. Raitt, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Buffett, and numerous others recorded songs he wrote.

Kristofferson hired Bruton in 1971, and the two played together for 17 years.

“He was one of the bright spots in the lives of anyone who was close to him,” Kristofferson said.

The night after Bruton died, Raitt told an Austin audience that she’d cried all day and didn’t think she’d get through the show. She said she’d often avoid making eye contact with her bandmate and friend of more than 30 years because they would crack each other up during a song. For her encore, with tears streaming down her face, she played Bruton’s “Too Many Memories.”

Producer Don Was, who worked with Bruton on Kristofferson albums, said, “The great thing about Stephen was that he was a wonderful guy who valued making real music more than anything. He never once sacrificed the quality of this experience by bowing to the trends and fashions of the moment. As a result, he leaves behind a body of songs and recordings that reflect the integrity, joy, sense of humor and soul that characterized his life.”

“We owe a lot to Stephen Bruton,” said Saxon Pub owner Joe Ables, speaking for Austin as a whole. Bruton jammed most Sunday nights with The Resentments, a collection of Austin musicians who couldn’t get enough music. “The word I think of when I think of Stephen is ‘respect.’ Everyone respected him as a man of talent and integrity. He was the guy you looked up to.”

Most of the musicians in Fort Worth, it seems, showed up for Bruton’s memorial at Holy Family Catholic Church. More than 500 people including Burnett, Kristofferson, and Raitt joined his mother, Kathleen, wife Mary, and brother Sumter Bruton III. There was also a tribute concert at Bass Performance Hall’s McDavid Studio.

Bruton was born November 7, 1948, in Wilmington, Delaware, but the family moved to Fort Worth when he was about two years old. He was raised on R&B and country music in the family’s Record Town, and won bluegrass banjo contests before he was a teenager. In his late teens, he shifted his focus to guitar and country, blues and other musical styles in Fort Worth's diverse music scene.

He got a journalism degree from TCU before going on the road as a musician.

“Stephen Bruton was the soul of Texas music,” Burnett said. “He was my oldest friend and I loved him like a brother. I learned more from him than I can say. Much of what I know about music, I learned from his family. He was a friend who gave much and expected nothing in return, a great musician, great songwriter and great teacher who taught me to love as if there were no tomorrow.”

Burnett said it was Bruton who, at the age of 14, introduced him to the song “O Death” that became a key element of the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Sumter Bruton said Stephen “fought real hard. He’s tougher than me, that’s for sure…He didn’t want to tell me (about his cancer diagnosis) at first. It just kept going away and coming back. He was always taking these tests, and they’d tell him ‘OK, you’re clear’ and then, ‘No, you’ve got six weeks.’ But he kept fighting.”

©2009 Buddy Magazine/Tom Geddie

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