I was watching PBS one evening and I came across this program in black and white. It was Willie Nelson, Texas premier fiddle player, Johnny Gimble and this guy with glasses and a floppy, leather motorcycle cap playing the most amazing set of old Swing standards, Sweet Sue, Avalon, After You’ve Gone, song like that. They were rippin’.
About a year later, a friend, Lee Duffy, called me up and said Freddy Powers needs a bass player and you need to come out to his house, and meet him, right away. She was adamant. Freddy had lost his bass player, who happened to be a friend of mine. B.B. Morse. (I have been a bass player since my teens but am known around Austin for playing rhythm guitar)
Well, I walked into his living room and saw “That Guy”, the one with the hat, sitting there, and I thought “I can’t hang with this. This guy plays “Western Swing” and, much as I loved it, I didn’t know how to play it.
Lee had told me Freddy was Willie’s best friend since 1954 and that he had written over 40 Merle Haggard songs. Now Willie and Merle. I could play. Our country band, Stop The Truck, played several Merle Haggard songs and I had been playing Willie’s song for years, but I was a novice swing player, at best. Lee knew that I was, primarily, a rhythm guitarist but told Freddy I was a bass payer, I didn’t realize that she had set me up with a true mentor, a teacher, who would elevate me, as a musician.
I played with Freddy and Django Porter, that afternoon and to my surprise, he called me the next day and asked if I could come back. Over that summer, Freddy, Django and I played 5 days a week. We recorded every day. He and Django asked me if I would play with a pick. I thought (arrogantly) “Real bass players don’t play with a pick!”. Then Django said…..”like Rick Danko or Paul McCartney”. That changed the way I thought. It gave me a whole different tone to go after.
Over time Freddy found out that I was really a rhythm guitar player. I had been studying how he played, seriously studying, asking him about chord structure and when to use the “passing” chords, how to get from one place to another, musically. He always took his time and showed me.
We played and recorded for about a year. We put together Cd called Homemade Jam. 7 of the tracks included Willie Nelson, who had dropped by one day when we were playing. How about that?
Then came the hard part, the hardest part for Freddy. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. It came on fairly quickly and it broke his heart when he couldn’t play. We would try and he would break down crying. At that point I suggested that my band mate, in Stop The Truck, Moe Monserrat, take my place and I would play rhythm guitar. I told Freddy he didn’t have to stop performing, he could still sing.
It was a hard concept for Freddy. This was HIS chair, he was a band leader, not a singer. A musician, first. We plied him with the idea of going to France to play at Equiblues rodeo. I told him “We’ve got your back.” That brought him around. He got excited. But France with Freddy is a whole different chapter that I will touch on later.
One day the band went to a museum to see 2 frozen Wooly Mammoths, from Siberia. We pakred Freddy’s wheelcahir by the wall and when we turned around the whole band went “Oh my God!!” Freddy said “What are y’all lookin’ at?” 
I want to end this by telling you that B.B. Morse and I were driving up to play a gig with Freddy. B.B. and Freddy had long since reconciled and he was filling in for Moe on this gig. B.B. said to me “Steve it is providence that Freddy found you when I left. He could have always found another bass player but he could not have found someone who did what you have done. You became Freddy’s hands…..you play like him. It’s a miracle, really.”
I call Freddy Powers my “Masters Degree”. Because of Freddy, when I hear a Louis Armstrong song or a Billie Holiday song or, even, God Only Knows by Brian Wilson, I can just play them. Because I know those chords. I have that vocabulary in my head.
My best and proudest accomplishment, as a musician, was becoming his band leader and taking him a little further when he might have just given up. He trusted me. Thank you “Papa”.
This is how I learned those jazz chords. One finger at a time!
My Entertaining Life-Steve Carter 