Houston Chronicle; Oct 22, 2010

@LWjetta wrote:

@Lafayette wrote:

Would love to know more about this time period in Lu’s career.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi … 60265.html (includes photo)
Where songs matter: In praise of Anderson Fair

OK, Lafayette let’s move from Houston to Austin for this one.
Armadillo World Headquarters / Annual Christmas Bazaar
Guess what Lu suggested in November, 1974 at the tender young age of 21.[attachment=0:1kj8xtso]Armadillo Christmas Bazaar Austin, TX.gif[/attachment:1kj8xtso]

Here is the story line.
Armadillo Christmas Bazaarshop with local musicAustin Music Hall, 208 Nueces St, Austin, Texas Bazaar Home Page, Map, History, Live Music December 13-24, 11am-11pm

The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, first held in the Armadillo World Headquarters, was scheduled to last for 2 days in 1976. It went so well it was extended. The first poster for the Bazaar is shown at left (click it for enlarged view). It was started as a means to expand the ‘Dillo’s cultural outreach and to ensure December cash flow and it guaranteed a warm, dry space and alternative selling experience for artists who regularly sold at the Austin Renaissance Market, known as “the Drag”, on 23rd Street across from the University of Texas. Lucinda Williams conceived of the market in Nov. 1974 as a way to get the artists out of the bad weather on the Drag during the Christmas season. Today, the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar is one of the top-ranked arts and craft shows in the nation. In 1997, it was ranked #22 by the Art Fair Source Book, a highly respected reference source for artists in which artists themselves provide the feedback which is used to evaluate all the major shows in the US. The Bazaar now has a long waiting list of artists who wish to be given the opportunity to show their work in this premier holiday arts and music festival. In its 25th year, the ‘Dillo demonstrates that a tradition which is infused with the love and intense efforts of literally hundreds of participants over the years can remain fresh, vibrant and contemporary. This Christmas season, shoppers all over the nation will go to the ubiquitous shopping mall and essentially have the same experience everywhere, but there is only one Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, and it is one of Austin’s truly unique cultural treasures.A great place to shop.

Our gal Lu never ceases to amaze.
lwj
p.s. Lafayette, ok now I suppose y’all will want me to research Luology even earlier—say in Mexico City or Santiago, Chile. 😆
OK let’s read the following about Lu’s kindness to the street people in Austin in 1974.
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Bruce Willenzik
December 16th, 2008 by Bree

When we handed Bruce Willenzik, mastermind behind the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, a copy of our paper, he happily informed us we were in fact third generation thieves. Our slogan, “We’re here cause we’re not all there” was first stolen by him years ago when he was in Washington. We found out this is only one of many “firsts” he can take credit for. Check it out.

AUSTIN DAZE: Where did you originally get it from?

BRUCE WILLENZIK: A record store in Port Townsend, Washington. If you were going down the main drag of Port Townsend it’s on the water side of the street about two-thirds of the way down. That’s where it came from.

AD: Let’s talk about the Christmas Bazaar. How did you get involved in doing this?

BW: The first thing I did was get a job at Armadillo World Headquarters in 1974 in the kitchen. I had cooked vegetarian beans for one of the staff people and I didn’t even know that she worked at Armadillo. And all these people at Armadillo said, “Oh man yours are better than mine can you come down tomorrow and show us how to do this?” I went and showed them how to cook them and a week later I was running the kitchen. In the later days I started the t-shirt branch, did merchandise, did security—all of operations. I had a real good friend, Lucinda Williams, who used to live under the card table at the foot of my bed when she first came to town. I ran into her and we got to talking. I went to get cigarettes and she said, “Get me two packs.” I had sent her down to the drag to get some presence and asked her, “Where’s your money?” She is such a kind person, she was giving it to an artist on the drag who had a new baby and was having health problems and she didn’t want this lady out in the weather so she gave her all her guitar case money. So she was telling me this story and said, “It’s a shame that they have to be in that crummy weather when they could be in a nice dry hall like this. What do you all have in December?” I told her we were basically closed and she said, “Well if you had all those artists in here you could sell nachos, you could sell beer, you could have money, and they would have a place to be.” That night I wrote a five year plan to build a Christmas show. I took it the next day to the management who said, “Nah, we’re not in the business.” That was 74’. By 75’ there was a bad cash crunch and by 76’ we were going to into bankruptcy and we needed a way to save it. Christmas Bazaar! Christmas Bazaar! Christmas Bazaar! By 1980 we paid off the bankruptcy with five days left to operate, through the Christmas Bazaar. It became this cash flow thing.