Sterling Morrison

Sterling Morrison was one of the most interesting and outspoken people ever to call Austin home. He moved to the Capitol City in 1971, working on his Ph.D. in medieval studies at UT, and lived here more than ten years before going to Houston to work on the tugboats in the Houston Ship Channel, picking up his captain's license and doctorate along the way. Whether he was teaching English literature to undergraduates, holding forth at bars, parties, and points in between, or playing guitar in our garage band the Bizarros, Sterling always spoke the truth, even if it was only his truth at that moment. He once reminded me that no matter what he said, he was prepared to change his mind on anything, and often did. It was an exercise in life for him to extend outrageous theories, watch his audience react, and then laugh them away like so many deluded souls.

I met Morrison innocently enough one day at the Cedar Door, when it was on 15th Street, across the street from the Austin Sun's first office. He was there passing the afternoon with his bartender buddy Marvin Williams, another UT doctoral candidate. It didn't take two sentences before I knew the man to my left was Morrison. There was something in the way he was slagging Frank Zappa that told me it had to be the ex-Velvet who had ended up in Austin. I introduced myself, and asked it he wanted to be interviewed for the Sun. Sterling was cautious; he'd been using his first name Holmes at the University, completely turning his back on the illustrious rock pedigree he'd earned in the Sixties. It took a few weeks, but finally we were sitting down in front of a tape recorder. I'll never forget turning in that piece and having editor Jeff Nightbyrd tell me it might be a bit over the top for the paper's audience. Still, he went ahead and printed it in its entirety, and my friendship with Sterling was off and running.

My happiest moment with Morrison was when he dusted off his Gibson guitar and joined the Bizarros. I thought for sure he had turned his back on music forever, but around '76 our band needed a guitarist and he threw in all the way. At the gigs, he'd always be there first, with his Fender Bandmaster amp already set up onstage while he sat at the bar waiting for the rest of the Bizarros to straggle in. He was a professional even in a semi-lowdown endeavor, adding a touch of class to a rather dusty crew.

Sterling's playing was a revelation for a group used to backbeats and blues. Rhythmically, he was all angles, adding a jagged edge to a rounded rock & roll style. I could instantly hear why Morrison was such an essential glue in the Velvet's chaotic swirl, as he laid out chords and lead accents with deftly precision. He'd always be to my right onstage watching the neck of his own guitar in endless fascination. He approached music with the same intense inquiry he did his academic studies, and practiced and played right up to the end. And while the Bizarros split with Sterling ended in acrimony - he didn't speak to me for five years, the ultimate Morrison punishment - I always got a huge kick out of the fact that for a couple of years, we'd had a Velvet in our midst, even if the only VU song he wanted to play was "Cool It Down." I can still see Sterling's beautiful leather guitar strap, with its jeweled designs sparkling everywhere from the Dom and Max's in New York to the Hole in the Wall and Soup Creek in Austin.

Sterling was the kind of man you always wanted on your side, and knew that if he was there, somehow everything was going to work out all right. To his eternal credit, Morrison never played the Velvet Underground card, which shows, I think, a bigness of soul I'll always admire. Sometimes, when we'd be especially alchecized, he'd get his twirly look on his face and say in total earnestness, "I don't know about you, but I'm Catholic, I'm going to heaven." The beauty of it all was that he really believed it, and now that Holmes S. Morrison is there, I'm starting to believe it too. - Bill Bentley