Lyle Lovett, Austin Sayre To Discuss The Life Of Steven Fromholz With Free Screening Of ‘The Man With The Big Hat’ On Sept. 2
Sayre’s documentary will start at 6:30 p.m. at Geren Auditorium as part of Lovett’s Hagler Fellow residency with the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.
Filmmaker Austin Sayre will join Lyle Lovett ’79 for a free screening and discussion of “The Man With the Big Hat,” which chronicles the life and music of influential Texas singer-songwriter Steven Fromholz, on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Sayre’s documentary will start at 6:30 p.m. at Geren Auditorium in the Langford Architecture Center, Building B, as part of Lovett’s Hagler Fellow residency with the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.
The documentary features interviews with Fromholz’s family members and artists including Lovett, Ray Benson, Darden Smith, Larry Joe Taylor and Butch Hancock, along with archival footage of Willie Nelson, Joni Mitchell and Michael Martin Murphey. It premiered at the SXSW Film and TV Festival in March and won best documentary feature at the San Antonio Film Festival in July.
Fromholz, who was named Texas poet laureate by the Texas Legislature in 2007, has long been admired by fellow singer-songwriters. Nelson’s cover of Fromholz’s “I’d Have to Be Crazy” was a hit in 1976. John Denver’s debut album included a cover of Fromholz’s “Yellow Cat” in 1969. “The Man With the Big Hat” was a concert staple for Jerry Jeff Walker.
Lovett’s appreciation of Fromholz’s work was best represented on his 1998 double album “Step Inside This House,” a tribute to Texas singer-songwriters including Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Willis Alan Ramsey and fellow Aggie Robert Earl Keen. The album kicks off with Fromholz’s “Bears,” and the second disc begins with “Texas Trilogy,” Fromholz’s three-song suite subtitled “Daybreak,” “Train Ride” and “Bosque County Romance.”
Fromholz died in 2014 at age 68.
