Where it began…Alan “Moe” Monserrat and I had known each other for years. I played with his reggae band, The Lotions, during the 80’s. At one point our reggae bands sort of petered out. I had been writing Country songs with Erik Moll and Ron Hicks for a year or two. Moe called and said he was interested in writing with me. I had written a lot of “divorce” songs and had gotten pretty good at writing. (A couple of my songs written with Erik and Ron had been recored and gone platinum with a Norwegian Country singer, Steinar Albrigtsen). Honestly, when Moe and I got together it was pure magic….oil and water..and pure magic. Moe said “Write me song with three chords, where every line paints a picture….and has NOTHING to do with your personal life. 
Our first song was “Old Side of Town”, a title my son, Graham had given me. He explained that it was about walking around and feeling grounded in a place you knew well. Moe’s first line was “There’s an old man up workin’ late in his store. He only fixes things they don’t make anymore”…and we were off. We wrote madly, a bunch of songs. They just kept on coming, flowing like water.
We decided we should put a band together and start playing them out in public. I had just done a songwriter gig with one of my co-writers, Bill Colbert (R.I.P.-bless you, Bill), where the guitarist was “Boomer” Norman. Boomer was one of the top Western Swing lead guitarists in Austin. I asked him to play with us. I had also dome several songwriter gigs with Don Wickham, (an amazing harmonica player) a friend I had played with back in Baltimore if he was interested. I knew Wally Doggett (Drums) from Reggae and Country gigs. We all got together and it just clicked, right away.
Pretty soon we were gigging. We even got a standing Tuesday night at the LEGENDARY Broken Spoke, Austin’s most legit honky-tonk. We also played for 12 years at Cypress Creek Cafe in Wimberly. It turned out that Don also had some great songs and had some recording equipment in his garage so we decided to make a Cd. We named it after one of my Norway cuts…SUDDEN STOP (1995) because it looked good with the band’s name.
Those are my legs and python boots sticking out from under the Moe’s old Chevy truck.
That line-up lasted about 2 years and that Cd is one of the best sounding records we ever made. Don Wickham did a great job recording it on equipment he’d gotten from fine audio stores…like Goodwill!
The Crawfish Festival at Cypress Creek Cafe. Bruce Calkins (owner) on the rub board!
One day this tiny 70 year old woman showed up….Marilyn von Steiger. She changed our world…..She had corresponded with Country radio DJs in France and Spain In Lyon, France. Mike Penard was a real fan of our band and would play our songs on his radio show. Marilyn took upon herself to go to France (Lyon) and Spain (Barcelona) and book our band. She came back with some gigs. She didn’t go on tour with us but it NEVER would have happened without her.
Marilyn von Steiger
Michel “Mike, the Frenchy” Penard
We had just finished our 2nd Cd, THE TWO STEP PROGRAM. Don had left the group so we went in the studio for that one. We had some wonderful session help on that Cd, Floyd Domino on piano, Mary Muse on pedal steel, Darcie Deville on fiddle and Leeann Atherton on background vocals.
We did our first European gig at The Rail Theater, in Lyon, FR, Feb 2001. We were excited and a bit nervous because when we arrived at the Rail Theater…..it was a really big venue, a big open floor and a second level balcony. A bit intimidating. We did a day tour of Lyon with Mike and Christine, our hosts. We arrived at the venue early, for dinner. It was an empty cavern. They had made us “Chili” ( which is code for watery, but delicious, French soup with kidney beans in it!) dinner and Moe walked out to go downstairs and use the bathroom.
He came back in, eyes open wide, mouth open wide and said….”It’s SOLD OUT and there’s a line out the door!”. If we weren’t nervous before??….We played 2 sets and for the first set the crowd kind of stood arms crossed and stared. They didn’t really react to the songs much. During break we asked Mike “The Frenchy” what he thought. He beamed and said “They LOVE you!”. The second set was really different, people showing emotion and having a lot of fun. Some were even teary. Well, we got 2 encores to screaming fans at the end of the show. A guy named Philippe Lafont was at this gig and I will tell you more about him later.
To quote Moe (Alan Moe Monserrat)…..”I just remember thinking the hall was going to be big and empty when we got there. But it was sold out! Then when I sang the originals we played, the crowd sang them with me! I was in shock. We’d never been within 3,000 miles of there. They flat out loved us.” 
Stop the Truck at the Rail Theater. 
Now, these boys will tell ya…It didn’t hurt that I was travel agent for 10 years while we were making these trips! So, I took them everywhere…amazing places because I knew where cool things were! Never a dull moment when we weren’t playing
Bigorre, France
2000 year old Roman Theatre in Orange, Provence
Roman Pont du Gard 2000 year old aqueduct, Provence
Le Puy-en-Velay, volcanic one with Templar church built in the 900’s. Stones cut from the lava itself.
Lyon, Roman Amphitheater 2000 years old
Boomer, 2000 year old Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain
Tarascon Castle
Carcassonne
STT in Carcassonne. 
We played our first gig in Spain in the beautiful river town of Girona, SP. One of the most beautiful places if ever seen, arcaded stone buildings, really cool! Moe in Girona w sweeping lady. (below)eeping lady. (below)
Marilyn’s Spanish DJ connection was Luis Sala. He got those gigs going.He had us over to a small castle (Is there such a thing?) for a great Paella. Luis is opposite Moe in this photo. 
Then it was off to the Jambalaya Club in El Masnou, north of Barcelona. One of the best clubs EVER! Owned by Hanny and Andreu Nello. They had this group of regulars, The Costa Brava Cowboys. Moe wrote “Costa Brava Cowboys” a great song. for them!” The lyrics were framed on the wall when we went back the second time. We made friends there that have never slipped away (Adam, Luis, Marta and Hani and Andreu)
Boomer, Wally and Andreu Nello-lo Puigdevall at The Jambalaya Club. 
How we got to do this next one…I’ll never know. We were flown to the tiny island of Menora, 100+ miles off the east coast of Spain, to play at the Akelare club. It was amazing. There are 5000 year old tombs scattered around the island…and I LOVE history!
Boomer Norman, Menorca Airport. 
Waiting’ on a plane…
The waterfront Akelare Club, in Mahon, is the one with the big palm tree.
Our second trip to Europe was Holland and Spain. We took Brian Sebastian on drums for that trip. We called it the “TOO STUPID TO STAY HOME TOUR. Because it was 2 days after 911…..It was stressful. People cried everywhere we went.
One really funny part of that trip was, one the plane over, which was basically empty, We flew through Newark and across the river Manhattan was still on fire. There was this flight attendant, blonde, HUGE, like a gorilla, flat top haircut, who had obviously never poured a drink in his life. We figured he was really an Air Marshall.
We did about 5 gigs in Holland, staying in Gouda and were driven and hosted by Kees Deehan. They were fun shows but it was really a treat to get back to our friends in Spain, including Menorca..again!. That tour was hosted by Evilio, a great guy, a small ex-boxer who drove us everywhere. We played in Girona, El Masnou, Mahon, Lleida, Zaragosa and Madrid. Evilio took us down into the bodegas, wine cellars honeycombing the rocks below the town of Arranda de Duero, his home town. The Duero is THE wine river of Spain and Portugal and had, arguably, the best red wine I’ve ver tasted. He had lunch prepared for us about 4 stories down into the rock with HUGE barrels old wine built into the walls. There were long tables down there, like really long picnic tables. We had 4 legs of lamb, 5 big flat breads, like thick pizza crust but softer and one brown crock pitcher full of wine too share. It was like Roman times. We ate lamb with our hands until we got too greasy, then wiped our faces with the bread, ate that, and shared the crock of wine. Whoever drank the last sip had to go to the wall and fill it back up from the giant barrel. 
That night we played at the Town Center in the middle of the square and it was packed with people of all ages. I had taken the crock pitcher as a souvenir from our lunch. Evilio had filled it, too. I had set it down next to my amp. Right about midway through our show, Moe was thirsty and picked up the pitcher and took a drink. The audience audibly gasped and when he handed it to me..THEY ERUPTED and screamed, because the KNEW we had been to the bodegas. It still feels emotional to me just to think of it.
I should mention that our Austin friend and sound man, Mike Koetting, road managed all of these trip and has been with us every time we’ve played in Europe.
Mike Koetting and Catherine Allen-Powers in Bergerac, France 2010
Back ins the States the gigs rolled on and on. We made our third Cd..”LIVE! from Austin Texas” with producer Eugene Brown.( R.I.P Bless his soul. He made 2 great Cds with the band ) It was made at our residence gig at Gino’s Italian Grill, great food and great times. We loved it there and we had a great crowd of regulars there. This Cd featured Don Raby (fiddle) and Kevin Hall (drums)
At this time there were some serious and solid changes in the band. After Wally left a few drummers played with us for a while, We asked Mike (Miguel) Pankratz, the drummer from our reggae band, Mau Mau Chaplains, to try us out. Miguel, Moe and I had already been singing together for years. It was really the best choice we ever made. The 3 of us already locked up in the reggae band, as a rhythm section and his singing and playing were just what Stop the Truck needed.
We had a great friend and guitarist, Ed Ferguson, who had played in I-Tex (Moe and Miguel’s Country-Reggae band). Ed would always sub for Boomer if he was booked elsewhere so he was natural choice.
Sadly, Boomer had a stroke and lost the use of his left arm and had to leave the band. (PS..he’s back and playing piano!) It was really one of the saddest times in my life in bands. ( That and Freddy Powers dying. )
Ed already knew the material and well well oiled to play with us. What we didn’t know was that we also acquired an excellent recording producer. Thank to Ed, we never missed a beat. 
Equiblues Rodeo 2002 , now about Philppe Lafont.
Stop the truck has played his rodeo 4 times! In 2002, Our fist time there, in 2008 with Freddy Powers, 2010 with Freddy Powers and Ruby Jane Smith and 2013 with Sonny Throckmorton and Mary Sarah Gross ( May-Say ) ( I also played 2011 with HOUSE OF WILLS , and 2012 with AUSTIN COUNTRY ALL-STARS )
Philippe Lafont-a genuine French cowboy! Philippe had given me some of the finest memories in my career. Thanks, Man! 
Freddy Powers and Ruby Jane 2010
Ruby Jane Smith and Stop the Truck 2010
Mary Sarah Gross (May-Say), Mina Carter, ummm sum guy and Miguel Pankratz 2013
Sonny Throckmorton 2013
Our 4th Cd was SENDERO. Also with Eugene Brown
And then there was FREDDY POWERS…..
I became Freddy Powers’ bass player about 17 years ago. I had no idea whose house I was going to when my friend, Lee Duffy said “Freddy Powers needs a bass player and you need to go out to see him…NOW!” Freddy is a Hall of Fame songwriter who happened to be Willie Nelson’s best friend since 1954 (the year I was born) and Merle Haggard’s best friend as well. Freddy wrote 41 Merle Haggard songs.
After I had been with Freddy for a couple of years he found out he had Parkinson’s disease. It was devastating for him. But it turned out that Moe, Ed and I had all been playing jam sessions on Freddy’s living room for a couple of years. When Freddy lost the ability to play I took over on rhythm guitar. I was studying him the whole time I was playing bass and knew his songs and knew his style. Moe was right there to play bass and Ed to play lead guitar.
The funny things was….Freddy didn’t really like to play with drummers. He liked to set the rhythm, himself, and BE the drummer. He said “It only took me 25 years to form the perfect band…NO DRUMMER!”, We are doing our weekly jams and Miguel approached him and said “Mr. Powers, I’d love to play with you. I won’t play too loud and I’ll respect your songs.” It turned out that Miguel was Freddy’s favorite drummer, ever. Freddy loved our band and we loved him. He was really our proudest moment as as group, I think.
When Freddy couldn’t play anymore, we talked to Philippe Lafont about getting him to do a show at Equiblues Rodeo. Philippe loved the idea, he is such a Country music fan, he knew who Freddy was. We were in the process of making our final Cd, LEGACY: The Songs of Freddy Powers. I wanted to make a collection of our favorite Freddy Powers songs, performed by our band. Ed Ferguson did a fine job recording this Cd in his home studio and I feel that it is my best effort, to date, as a producer. We were extremely honored to have “guests”, Merle Haggard and Ray Benson, to each do a track for the Cd. We also welcomed Freddy’s old bandmates Floyd Domino (piano), Joe Manuel (guitar) and Price Porter (pedal steel) to play on some tracks. Our old buddy, Don Raby played fiddle, guitar and mandolin on a few tracks, too!
We had the 2010 France gig, with Freddy, lined up so my co-producer, Ed, and I made a mix of the record without Moe and my vocals on it so Freddy could sing all 17 songs and get strong for the trip. It was brilliant, really, and Freddy sang and sang for weeks….
When we played at Equiblues it was just magical. People screamed, people cried. They absolutely LOVED Freddy. It was very moving.
Freddy Powers singing autographs at Equiblues Rodeo, France
Phillipe realized Freddy was waning and, wisely, booked him back in 2012. Again, Freddy was huge hit and we were proud to add a few years to his musical life, after he could no longer play guitar.
Stop the Truck, Freddy Powers (With Pat McCann-L.) Pat played with Freddy and went to France with us.
As Freddy got weaker we realized we were running out of time with him, As it happened the band was also coming too a close. In our last years we had become more Freddy’s band than Stop the Truck, not really booking our own gigs anymore and devoting more time to The Mau Mau Chaplains, the reggae band that all of us, me, Moe, Miguel, Ed and Boomer also played with…..and so…..we drifted off into the sunset like all good Country bands should……
Rest in Peace “Papa”…we love you.
My Entertaining Life-Steve Carter 