Maud Cuney-Hare (1874-1936)

Maud Cuney-Hare, African-American musician and writer, was born in Galveston on February 16, 1874, to Adelina (Dowdy) and Norris Wright Cuney. After graduating from Central High School in Galveston in 1890, she studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she successfully resisted the pressure that White students exerted on the school's administrators to have her barred from living in the dormitory. She graduated in 1895. She also studied privately with biographer Emil Ludwig and Edwin Klare and attended Lowell Institute at Harvard University. She taught music at the Texas Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute for Colored Youths in 1897 and 1898; at the settlement program of the Institutional Church of Chicago during 1900 and 1901; and at Prairie View State College (now Prairie View A&M University), Texas, in 1903 and 1904. In 1898 she married J. Frank McKinley, and they had a daughter. The marriage was short-lived and ended in divorce; their daughter died in childhood. She married William P. Hare on August 10, 1904.

As a folklorist and music historian she was especially interested in African and early American music. She collected songs in Mexico, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, and was the first music scholar to direct public attention to Creole music. She contributed to Musical Quarterly, Musical Observer, Musical America, and Christian Science Monitor and for years edited a column on music and the arts for The Crisis, the journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

After her marriage, she made her home in Boston and traveled in the East to give recitals and lectures. She participated in the artistic life of Boston and founded the Musical Art Studio to promote concerts and a little-theater movement in the Black community. Antar, her play about an Arabian Negro poet, was staged in Boston under her direction in 1926. In 1927 she established the Allied Arts Center in Boston to nurture musically-inclined and artistically-inclined African American children. She was the author of Creole Songs (1921); The Message of the Trees (1918), a collection of poetry; and Norris Wright Cuney: A Tribune of the Black People (1913), a biography of her father. She is best remembered for the highly regarded Negro Musicians and Their Music (1936). She died in Boston on February 13, 1936, and was buried beside her parents in Lake View Cemetery, Galveston.

Note: Maud Cuney-Hare's grave is unmarked. She lies to the right of her father Norris in the photo below.

Section B
Lake View Cemetery
Galveston

29° 16.366, -094° 49.609

Edwin Alan "Bud" Shrake (1931-2009)

Edwin Allen “Bud” Shrake, Jr., journalist, sportswriter, novelist, and screenwriter, was born on September 6, 1931, in Fort Worth, Texas. He was the son of Edwin Allen Shrake, Sr., and Ruth Lee (Swift) Shrake, their first born, and he showed an interest in writing and painting from an early age, writing his first short story in the fifth grade. He attended Paschal High School in Fort Worth where he met Dan Jenkins, another future sportswriter, who worked with him on the school newspaper, the Paschal Pantherette. After high school, he went to Texas Christian University (TCU) and the University of Texas at Austin and ultimately graduated from TCU with a degree in English and philosophy. At TCU he met his first wife, Joyce Elaine Rogers, a fellow English major and future Shakespeare scholar. They married in 1953, divorced that same year, and then remarried in 1955. The couple had two sons - Ben and Alan - before they divorced for good in 1961.

Shrake began his journalism career while he was at TCU, when he took a job at the Fort Worth Press and worked with his former schoolmate Dan Jenkins and sports editor Blackie Sherrod. In 1953, after graduating from TCU, he was called for active duty in the U. S. Army Reserves and served for two years before he returned to Fort Worth and his job at the Fort Worth Press, this time as a police reporter. In 1958 former Press colleague Blackie Sherrod convinced Shrake to write sports for the Dallas Times Herald. In 1961 he went to work for the Dallas Morning News. While working at the Times Herald and Morning News, he began writing fiction and published his first novel Blood Reckoning (1962), a Western set in Texas.

About 1964 Shrake began work as an associate editor at Sports Illustrated in New York City. In 1966 he married Sports Illustrated colleague Charlene “Doatsy” Sedlmayr and lived in New York City until 1967, when they moved to Austin, Texas, when he was given the opportunity to work remotely. The couple later divorced in 1978. Shrake, who stayed with Sports Illustrated until 1979, worked on novels in his spare time and took advantage of traveling assignments, both nationally and abroad, to also research and write his novels. He completed some of his most famous works, But Not for Love (1964), Blessed McGill (1968), and Strange Peaches (1972), during his time as an editor at Sports Illustrated. Strange Peaches especially distinguished him, because it was about Dallas during and around the Kennedy assassination, and Shrake had unique insight into the event as he was working at the Dallas Morning News when the assassination took place. He was also a friend of Jack Ruby.

Larry McMurtry, in his controversial 1981 assessment of Texas literature, published in the October 23, 1981, issue of the Texas Observer, compared Blessed McGill to John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor in their shared “grandiloquent and stilted” style that became dated too soon, although he appraised Shrake’s Strange Peaches as a real achievement for its nuanced portrayal of modern, urban life in Texas, something that McMurtry believed was lacking from the literature of the state at large. Despite focusing on traditionally Texas subject matter, Shrake’s writing could also be experimental. His 1973 novel Peter Arbiter, for example, was a modern update to Satyricon, with the Texas oil barons playing the role of the decadent Romans that first-century writer Petronius satirized in his classic work. Shrake’s novels were often funny and displayed an “appreciation for the absurdities of existence,” according to critic A. C. Greene.

In 1969, after watching the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Shrake decided, after realizing he could make more money, to start writing scripts for Hollywood. His first screenplay, originally called Dime Box, was picked up by Twentieth Century Fox and turned into the film Kid Blue (1973), with Dennis Hopper in the title role. With his longtime friend, Gary Cartwright, Shrake also worked on the script for J.W. Coop (1972). He went on to write the scripts for Nightwing (1979), a horror film about bats; and Tom Horn (1980), a Western meant to revive the career of actor Steve McQueen. McQueen specifically chose Shrake for a rewrite of the script based on his appreciation for the writer’s Blessed McGill. Shrake also wrote Songwriter (1984), starring Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. His 1984 script Pancho Villa’s Wedding Day had successful runs as a stage play locally - at Austin’s Zachary Scott Theater and the Austin Opry House.

Years of hard drinking affected Shrake’s health, and in 1985 he became sober after finding out he had diabetes. He commented at the time that he could not write without a cigarette in his hand and a cocktail at the end of the day but, then sober, successfully completed the novel Night Never Falls (1987) without the use of either as a challenge to himself. In 1988 he published a biography of his friend Willie Nelson using the artist’s own words and interviews with his friends to construct a tapestry of his life. Willie became Shrake’s first commercial hit. Shrake used the same method for an “as-told-to” biography of the football coach Barry Switzer in 1990. That project introduced him to more opportunities for sports writing. He next wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings From a Lifetime in Golf (1992), a golf guide  that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history.

   

Shrake was a bachelor again in the late 1980s when he reconnected with his old friend and future governor Ann Richards. He was often seen by her side during her election campaign in 1990, and they remained close friends and companions until her death in 2006. He was not religious but became ordained in the Universal Life Church as a doctor of metaphysics in the early 1970s to allow himself to officiate at his friends’ weddings.

Shrake’s experiences of the social and political upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s were reflected in his writing. He experimented with drugs and alcohol and worked in a new medium of reporting that took the journalist’s subjective point of view more into consideration than traditional reporting. He also applied this technique to his “as-told-to” biographies, which relied on the subject and his or her associates to tell their biography from their own point of view. In that way, he was part of an overall movement at the time to emphasize subjective experiences over objective reporting, sometimes referred to as “gonzo” or “new” journalism. He did not reach the same national fame of some other writers from his generation, but, according to Larry McMurtry, he was the best of Texas’s “journalists-novelists,” and “an intriguing talent, far superior to most of his drinking buddies.”

Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake received a star on the Texas Walk of Fame in 1987. He received the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award in 2002 and the Lon Tinkle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2003. He was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2004. He continued to write for the rest of his life and worked on plays and novels up until his death. In the fall of 2008 he learned he had terminal lung cancer. He died on May 8, 2009, at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. He was buried next to Ann Richards in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Shrake’s book, Hollywood Mad Dogs, about his time working with Steve McQueen in Hollywood was published posthumously in 2020. Source

Monument Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

30° 15.934, -097° 43.614

Johnny "Clyde" Copeland (1937-1997)

Songwriter and blues guitarist Johnny Copeland was born in Haynesville, Louisiana, on March 27, 1937, the son of sharecroppers. Copeland developed an interest in the blues at an early age. His parents separated when he was six months old, and his mother took him to Magnolia, Arkansas. When his father died a few years later Copeland inherited a guitar and began learning to play it.

When Johnny was thirteen years old, the Copelands moved to Houston, where the boy first saw a performance by guitarist T-Bone Walker. In 1954, influenced by Walker, Copeland and his friend Joe "Guitar" Hughes formed a band, the Dukes of Rhythm. While his musical interest grew, Copeland engaged in boxing and acquired the nickname Clyde. The band played regularly in several leading Houston blues clubs, including Shady's Playhouse and the Eldorado Ballroom. While with the Dukes of Rhythm, Copeland also played back-up for such blues figures as Big Mama Thornton, Freddie King, and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

In 1958 he recorded his first single with Mercury Records, "Rock 'n' Roll Lily," which became a regional hit. In the 1960s he achieved only limited regional success as he recorded with various small and independent labels. His hits included "Please Let Me Know" and "Down on Bending Knees," recorded with the All Boy and the Golden Eagle labels, both based in Houston.

During the early 1970s Copeland toured the "Texas Triangle" - Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas - and developed a reputation as one of the most frenetic live performers in Texas-style blues. In 1974 he moved to New York City, where he worked at a Brew 'n' Burger during the day and performed in clubs at night. In a few years Copeland became a major draw, attracting receptive audiences at clubs in Harlem and Greenwich Village, and leaving his mark by "brandishing his sizzling guitar, like a slick, sharp weapon."

In 1981 he signed with Rounder Records, which released the album Copeland Special, recorded in 1979 with saxophonists Arthur Blythe and Byard Lancaster. This album inspired Copeland to cut a series of albums with the label in the 1980s, including Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat (1982) and Texas Twister (1983), which also featured guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. With this recording success, Copeland toured the United States and Europe. In 1986, while on a ten-city tour in West Africa, he recorded Bringing It All Back Home, using local musicians. The album included imaginative hybrids of blues mixed with African idioms. Copeland thus became the first American blues musician to record an album in Africa.

That same year he won a Grammy for the best traditional blues recording for Showdown! (1985), an album he recorded with fellow blues musicians Robert Cray and Albert Collins. His follow-up album, Ain't Nothing But a Party [Live], earned him a Grammy nomination in 1988. Throughout the decade he played and recorded with a furious Texas-style blues guitar, performing burning guitar licks that became his trademark and earned him another nickname, the "Fire Maker."

Despite adversity, Copeland continued to perform throughout the 1990s. He showed off his songwriting talents when he released his albums Flying High for Verve Records in 1992 and Catch Up With the Blues for Polygram in 1994. The albums included the hits "Life's Rainbow" and "Circumstances." In 1994 he was diagnosed with heart disease, and he spent the next few years checking in and out of hospitals and undergoing a series of open-heart operations. He had been placed on an L-VAD (left ventricular assist device), a battery-powered pump designed for patients suffering from congenital heart defects. He appeared on CNN and ABC-TV's Good Morning America wearing the L-VAD, an event that gave both Copeland and the medical device greater national exposure. He lived a remarkable length of time, twenty months, on the L-VAD.

On January 1, 1997, he received a successful heart transplant, and in a few months he resumed touring. During the summer his heart developed a defective valve, and he was admitted to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York for heart surgery. He died on July 3, 1997, of complications during surgery, and was buried in Paradise South Cemetery in Pearland, Brazoria County, Texas. He was survived by his wife, Sandra, and seven children.

Copeland had a lasting impact on Texas-style blues and played a major part in the blues boom of the 1980s. In his career he earned a Grammy, four W.C. Handy awards, and the album of the year award from the French National Academy of Jazz (1995). In 1984 he also became one of the few blues musicians to perform behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

Block 3

Paradise South Cemetery

Pearland

29° 34.076, -095° 20.912

Lloyd Millard Bentsen (1921-2006)

Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr., businessman, United States representative and senator, and secretary of the treasury, was born on February 11, 1921, in Mission, Texas. He was the son of Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Sr. (informally known as Big Lloyd), and Edna Ruth Colbath (informally known as Dolly). Bentsen grew up on the Arrowhead Ranch, one of the largest ranches in the Rio Grande Valley, where his father was in the ranching, oil, and banking businesses.

The younger Bentsen graduated from Sharyland High School and later earned a law degree in 1942 at the University of Texas at Austin. He married Beryl Ann Longino (informally known as B. A.) of Lufkin in 1943. Bentsen served as a B-24 pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces and flew combat missions over Europe during World War II. He earned the rank of colonel and received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

A Democrat, Bentsen was elected Hildago county judge and served in that role from 1946 to 1948. In 1948 Bentsen was elected to serve in the U. S. House of Representatives, where he was a protégé of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. (Rayburn would autograph a photo of himself to Bentsen with the inscription, "For Lloyd Bentsen, who likes ugly things." The keepsake photo was eventually given to the Sam Rayburn Library in Rayburn's hometown of Bonham.) In 1955 Bentsen stood down from elective politics and moved his family to Houston, where he worked in the financial industry and solidified his financial position. During this time he founded Consolidated American Life Insurance Company. By the late 1960s he was chairman of Lincoln Consolidated Inc., a financial holdings company. While Bentsen was not seeking office during these years, he remained in touch with Democratic Party politics.

In 1970 Bentsen decided to reenter politics, this time as a candidate for the United States Senate. He won an upset victory over incumbent U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough in the Democratic primary and then went on to win the general election over the Republican nominee, U. S. Rep. George H.W. Bush. Bentsen was reelected to the Senate in 1976, 1982, and 1988, eventually serving as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 but lost. In the Senate, he was known for his pro-business stance and was a supporter of the oil and gas industry, free trade, and the real estate industry.

In 1988 Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis won the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency. Dukakis chose Bentsen to be his vice presidential running mate in the general election. Thanks to Texas election law, Bentsen was able to seek both the vice presidency and his Senate seat, which was up for reelection, that year. Bentsen was easily reelected to his Senate seat. However, the Republican ticket of Vice President George H.W. Bush and U.S. Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana won the presidential election.

Despite the loss of the Dukakis–Bentsen ticket, Bentsen received notoriety for his performance in the nationally-broadcast vice presidential debate. When Quayle compared his political experience to that of President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, Bentsen replied, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

In 1992 Bentsen was urged to seek the presidency but chose not to make the race. The Democratic nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, won the election. Clinton asked Bentsen to serve as secretary of the treasury. The Senate confirmed Bentsen to that post, and he resigned his Senate seat. As secretary, Bentsen played an important role in the formation of the Clinton Administration's early fiscal policies.

Bentsen served as secretary from 1993 to 1994, and left, he said, because he had planned to retire from politics in 1994, upon the conclusion of what would have been his fourth Senate term. Clinton recalled Bentsen as a "conservative Democrat, a fiscal conservative who thought more prosperous people like him should pay taxes so that those who were less fortunate should be able to get a good education and have some opportunities in life." In 1999 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Bentsen, who had suffered a stroke in 1998, died in Houston on May 23, 2006, at the age of eighty-five. He was survived by his wife, two sons, a daughter, two brothers, a sister, and seven grandchildren. He was a Presbyterian. Bentsen was buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston.

Section 30
Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery
Houston

29° 42.946, -095° 18.261