George Nelson’s 1972 film on the street performer is available on YouTube.
Ask longtime San Antonians who recall George "Bongo Joe" Coleman, the street musician who was a downtown fixture for nearly two decades, and their eyes often light up. Across almost every social class and divide, Coleman was revered.
Yet, unlike our city's military or colonial heroes, there's no place to remember Bongo Joe — no monument, no statue, no institutional archive. His legacy largely rests in the collective memory of the hundreds of thousands he entertained in his decades in the Alamo City. He was at once an outsider artist and a virtuoso of his homemade instrument crafted from discarded oil drums.
"He had these metal pipes with various sizes of BB shot inside," recalled Quint Davis, director of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in Coleman's 1999 Express-News obituary. "They were taped onto his drumsticks, and he also had soft heads on his drumsticks. He could hit the drums, which were 55-gallon oil drums, and maintain a maraca rhythm with the pipes."
Accompanying himself using this unconventional percussion technique, Coleman improvised songs fusing humor, philosophy and an ineffable spontaneity, all sung through a DIY PA system. His spontaneous compositions could be withering critiques of hypocrisy, ruminations on human foibles or comments about random passersby.
They rang out from Alamo Plaza and later, down the Riverwalk and on the Commerce Street Bridge, from his arrival the city in 1968 until his retirement from the street performances after a 1987 tangle with the law.
"I rap — but not that bullshit they're putting down now. I play fundamental beat music," Bongo Joe told researcher Pat McMullen in 1991.
While primarily known as a street performer, it's a testament to his skill and accessibility that Coleman played New Orleans' Jazz Fest nine times, including a performance with jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie. He also recorded an album for revered roots label Arhoolie Records that's achieved cult status.
"He was a real talent. He wasn't just a curiosity," Jazz Fest's Davis said. "Since he was such an unusual character, I think people didn't realize how good a musician he really was. Dizzy Gillespie obviously did. Bongo Joe had this incredible drumming, incredible social commentary and this weird whistling. It had a real quality and depth to it."
San Antonio paper artist and conservation advocate Kathy Trenchard remains equally dazzled with Bongo Joe and is a key advocate for remembering his life, music and contributions to the city's culture.
"When I first heard him, I said, 'Hey, this is New Orleans music,'" she said. "I was immediately smitten and dancing in the street. ... He had the most amazing tenor voice. An amazing tenor voice came out of such a big man."
'No real history'
Despite his talent, Bongo Joe's story can be hard to track, like wading through a swamp of half-truth and legend. His output is scarce: his one LP for Arhoolie, two tracks on a Texas folk compilation released in the UK. Only a few scattered articles delve into his history.
"Myths and apocrypha are the coin of the realm," said Michael Mehl, a San Antonio composer and photographer who created an archive for the musician. "Of everything I have read, everyone is relying on an information source other than Bongo Joe."
Among the myths to which Mehl refers were rumors that Bongo Joe performed for JFK the night before his assassination, that he lived in a cabin on the grounds of the San Antonio Museum of Art and that Mohammed Ali once sought him out. The list goes on.
Author Rob Johnson, a literature professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, spent five years chasing down the Bongo Joe mythology. His book Did Beatniks Kill John F. Kennedy: Bongo Joe's Requiem for the President, released in 2018 by Beatdom Press, collects almost all existing research and exposes a fascinating untold chapter: Bongo Joe's time in Fort Worth.
"There was no real history of him," said Johnson in a phone interview. "I wrote the book I wanted to read."
The book catalogs some facts we know to be true. Coleman was born in Florida in 1923 and, after being orphaned at an early age, traveled the country during the Great Depression. Eventually, he landed in Detroit, where he regularly performed with a young, pre-fame Sammy Davis Jr.
After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Coleman ended up in Houston. He split his time between Houston and Galveston, working as a street performer, eventually doing a stint in Fort Worth before arriving in San Antonio in 1968. He lived here until his 1999 death due to complications from diabetes and kidney disease.
"I probably spent more time with him, talking, than anyone else he knew at that [later] stage in his life, and perhaps years before that," said Mehl, who featured Bongo Joe in his KLRN-TV show Almost Live From The Liberty Bar.
"The show was meant to shine a light on the more unusual, interesting people of San Antonio," Mehl said. "So, I hunted him up and found him. It was a convoluted process, because he had moved in with Helen Glau, a friend and partner of his. I had to do some sleuthing with assistance from Steve Henry, who at the time was a writer [and later editor] for the Current. In a nutshell, I was able to convince Bongo Joe to be part of the show and started a friendship with him."
Bongo Joe could be seen in Almost Live From The Liberty Bar's opening credits, performing outside the storied drinking and dining spot's original location on Josephine Street. The tantalizing glimpse only deepens the mystery.
But it wasn't the only time Coleman's magic was captured on camera.
In 1972, San Antonio filmmaker George Nelson shot Bongo Joe, a 22-minute 16mm short that won the Silver Award at the International Film and Television Festival in New York. Long presumed lost or damaged, the clip was recently unearthed from the Institute of Texan Cultures' archives. The film shows Bongo Joe performing at the height of his powers and talking about his craft. During those discussions, he talks about his music's connection with young children.
"One thing I take great pleasure in is entertaining children under 12," Coleman explains in the film. "I get a great charge from them."
Origin story
As with many of Texas' great folk musicians, Bongo Joe's discovery began with iconic Texas folklorist Mack McCormick.
McCormick notoriously cut the power during Bob Dylan's legendary electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival — not Pete Seeger with an axe, as the legend went. Also flying in the face of legend, the decision stemmed not from Dylan's decision to "go electric" but because the singer had exceeded his set time, carving into that of the following act — a group of Texas prison singers McCormick had assembled.
A correspondent for Downbeat Magazine, McCormick became enamored with Texas music, specifically its unique take on the blues. Alongside Pete Seeger, John Lomax Jr. and Ed Badeaux, McCormick formed the Houston Folklore Group, which helped fabled blues artists Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and others to a wider audience.
A Treasury of Field Recordings. Vol. 2: Regional and Personalised Song, released in 1960 on the UK's 77 Records, compiles the Houston Folklore Group's field recordings. It was there that Bongo Joe made his first recorded appearance, albeit under his birth name.
Review site AllMusic.com calls Coleman's contribution to the album — the track "This Old World is in a Terrible Condition" — a field-recording masterpiece. "An accidentally postmodern rant on the state of the world that would have made Rahsaan Roland Kirk proud, and the kind of neighborhood that Tom Waits has been renting a place in for years," the reviewer gushed.
McCormick's accompanying essay on Coleman, the first of its kind, avoids the reductive dismissals found in later profiles and proves as interesting as the recording itself, especially for those in search of the elusive Bongo Joe.
"His manner defies any attempt to learn anything of his background," McCormick wrote in that difficult-to-find essay. "He will hold out his arm, gaze at the black skin and say, 'If you think I was ever a Negro, it is only because you are color-blind and do not see my true color.' ... Or he will end all discussion of music by saying, "Drums are a universal language — I can speak to anyone living or dead."
McCormick added: "He is in suspicious retreat from the society around him, and his response to the world is anonymity mingled with exhibitionism. However much he encourages one to laugh at him, it is impossible to overlook the fact that his expression and his personality have a courageously sharp definition."
"This Old World is in a Terrible Condition" was later reissued on a Document Records collection of Lomax field recordings, Field Recordings, Vol. 6: Texas (1933-1958), alongside "Late Night Improvisation," featuring Coleman shredding on the piano, his trained instrument. The piece is Coleman's only known piano recording and an enticing hint of the virtuosity that lay behind the persona.
The JFK connection
While in Galveston, performing under the moniker "Calypso Joe," Coleman caught the eye of Fort Worth businessman Pat Kirkwood, who'd opened Fort Worth venue The Cellar in 1959, purported to be the first self-styled "beatnik" coffee shop outside San Francisco and New York City. From there, Coleman became The Cellar's house musician.
At the time, Fort Worth retained a lawless, Wild West atmosphere, especially along Jacksboro Highway, where The Cellar was located. The establishment's "coffee house" tag was partially a ruse to circumvent alcohol laws.
"We think of Fort Worth as a dusty cowtown, but at that time it had this subterranean population that had never existed before or since," said Johnson, UT-Rio Grande Valley professor and Bongo Joe biographer. "And there was no more radical club anywhere in America than The Cellar."
The Cellar became notorious for all-night debauchery, scantily clad waitresses and unusual décor that included black walls, graffiti and dim lighting. A young George Carlin reportedly did stand-up there. Despite the club's whites-only door policy, Coleman was allowed entry, as entertainment, under the racist moniker "Cannibal Joe."
In a wild twist that's long deepened the Bongo Joe mystique, The Cellar — and, by proximity, Coleman himself — played a bit part in the history of the JFK assassination. According to accounts, the night before the president's shooting in Dallas, Secret Service agents took the night off and drank at The Cellar until 5 a.m., suggesting to some they might have been unprepared to fulfill their security duties. One of the agent's badges also reportedly went missing that night, fueling further conspiracy theories.
Though unconfirmed, Coleman himself has claimed that he was whisked to JFK's room at the Hotel Texas for a private performance.
In another strange coincidence, The Cellar had previously opened a San Antonio branch at which Coleman provided musical entertainment. Future Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was reported to have worked as a dishwasher at the establishment.
After his colorful time in Fort Worth, Coleman returned to perform in Galveston, only to be lured away by another businessman — this time to perform in Acapulco. The working papers he received from his new employer were forgeries, however, and the musician spent months in an Acapulco jail through no fault of his own, according to Johnson's book.
The streets of San Antonio
After his release, Coleman made his way to San Antonio in 1968, drawn by the crowds thronging to the city for Hemisfair. In an incident initially reported by longtime local music journalist Sam Kindrick, the performer was booted from the Hemisfair Grounds — ironically, he would end up playing a private party for Hemisfair President Marshall Steves within a year.
From there, Coleman set up in front of the Alamo, where he found himself the subject of a noise complaint, according to Johnson.
"The responding officer said, 'I don't think he's disturbing the peace. In fact, I think he's pretty good!'" the author said, laughing. "It's really a credit to San Antonio that, at that time, they embraced him."
After his permanent relocation to the city, Coleman assumed the "Bongo Joe" moniker and connected with Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz.
"The first time I heard him, I'd heard that song 'The World Is in a Terrible Condition,'" said Strachwitz, now 90. "It was an amazing thing. I'll never forget it. I was enamored."
Strachwitz set about recording Bongo Joe live in his downtown element. However, faced with a broken tape machine, Strachwitz called San Antonio folklorist Larry Skoog, who suggested a recording session in his home.
"He told me, 'My kids are here, so at least there'll be a small audience for him,'" Strachwitz recalled.
The resultant 1969 album Bongo Joe remains a cult classic and proof positive that compelling music doesn't require fancy equipment. At the time, Broadside Magazine, the bible of the folk movement, praised the record. "What a satirical and social observer Bongo Joe is ... In 'Innocent Little Doggie' ... the ruthlessness and inhumanity of man to his fellow man is captured by the observant eye, quick wit and biting tongue of Mr. Coleman," the reviewer noted.
Indeed, "Innocent Little Doggy" even became an unexpected radio hit, picking up airplay both on underground U.S. radio and the BBC.
Subsequently, Bongo Joe found acceptance in San Antonio, even among its upper crust. He appeared in a 1978 TV ad with SA Symphony director Francois Huybrechts and was sought out by President Gerald Ford to perform for a 10-city stint during Ford's 1976 reelection campaign.
"What has always been interesting to me is that it was the old families, the San Antonio Swells, the Heightsters, that more readily adopted him and hired him to perform at their private events," composer and photographer Mehl said. "A more frequent occurrence than one would think."
Relegated to a curiosity
Despite his acceptance in some SA circles and the cult status of his recordings, Coleman's stature never matched that of some of his contemporaries. For example, New York street musician Moondog, whose rhythmic, witty compositions occupy a similar musical space, found fame and respect in his lifetime. Composer Phillip Glass became a notable devotee.
By and large, Bongo Joe's creativity flew over the heads of the Alamo City's musical establishment.
"Nobody took him seriously," Arhoolie's Strachwitz said. "He was just a street entertainer. But he was absolutely brilliant."
To that point, street music has long been viewed as "low art," and Bongo Joe, by that virtue, falls into the genre we now know as "outsider music."
"It's funny how societies will treat an individual that does not always fit in with the group or is different from the group," Coleman said in the 1972 documentary focused on him.
For Mehl, Bongo Joe's relative obscurity doesn't detract from the enormity of his work. Indeed, outsider art forms are worthy of respect, he added.
"It's a more honest endeavor, a truer expression. That's why I don't think he needs to be validated by someone saying that Bongo Joe performed with so-and-so, or he performed for so-and-so," Mehl said. "This completely negates the total of his formative experiences, however deep or shallow they may be. The need to institutionalize something to afford it credibility is a huge mistake that is constantly perpetuated by academics with papers to publish. And the public buys it, which is a sad corollary."
This outsider status is precisely what drew Johnson to write Bongo Joe's biography.
"Post-modern history deals not with the senators, billionaires or war heroes but looking at history from the widest margins, bringing in those characters," the professor said. "And Joe is about as extreme an outsider as you could imagine. After years of researching both JFK and Bongo Joe, I found, in my opinion, Bongo Joe way more fascinating. And that's post-modern history — taking the margins and putting them at the center."
Street performer no more
In 1987, a violent confrontation forced Bongo Joe to retreat from downtown. Like much of the musician's life, it too is shrouded in mystery. Every version of the story seems to be different.
During the incident, a heckler pulled a knife and Bongo Joe, in self-defense, shot the man in the shoulder, according to artist and conservationist Trenchard.
"[Coleman] was released, claimed self-defense, but after that incident, police would not protect him," she added. "So, at the end of the day, after performing, thugs would gang up on him and take his money. He had to get off the street."
Mehl remembers things differently, saying a friend on the San Antonio Police Department told him the charges were blown out of proportion — another part of the Bongo Joe myth. Meanwhile, Johnson said his research suggests that Coleman was defending himself from a robbery.
Whatever the case, the damage was done. Bongo Joe stopped performing downtown.
"It was perceived as good as long as it was cute," Mehl said.
The black hole of history
Around the time of the shooting, Bongo Joe's health faltered. Mehl sought to cement the performer's legacy, assembling his archives and facilitating a 1992 special achievement award from the Current.
Other SA institutions weren't as taken by Bongo Joe. Some saw his presence as a blight on downtown business and tourism, Mehl explained.
"In the later stages of his illness I tried to get both the Carver [Center] and UTSA to become repositories of his archives," Mehl said. "At the time, the Carver folks were very clear that Bongo Joe was not the kind of person they would like to uphold as an example for the community, and the UTSA folks could not be bothered because there was no academic gravitas to his persona. I was dumbfounded."
UTSA's Institute of Texan Cultures did, however, stage a posthumous exhibit, "Bongo Joe: An Artist Before His Time," featuring his painted oil drums and bicycle alongside photography, film and other contextual material. The 2003 exhibit was only temporary, however, and the Bongo Joe artifacts, on loan, were returned. As of this writing, their location is unclear.
Banging out a legacy
After Bongo Joe's 1999 death, Kathy Trenchard fought to keep his memory alive, creating Day of the Dead altars in his memory, one of which even included Nelson's Bongo Joe documentary.
Trenchard didn't stop there. She created a tribute to Coleman in a piece that was on permanent display at the AT&T Center. However, she was frustrated that city officials didn't seize on a 2011 proposal she created for a public works project honoring Bongo Joe.
"Put his drums up, or a simulation, play his music and let people pretend they're Bongo Joe!" she said of the proposal. "The city never did anything with it. I proposed this with children in mind, so they could grow up knowing about this icon. ... Children adored him."
The city's disinterest frustrated Trenchard, who's also advocated a return of street performances to enliven downtown.
"I think that Bongo Joe was the last gasp of performance artists in San Antonio," she said. "I went to a city meeting and said, 'It's dead, downtown is dead.' We were talking about the need for public performance, to liven things up. And the city didn't want it. They wanted nothing to do with it. But [they have] no problems with evangelicals lecturing folks with a megaphone in front of the Alamo."ns
To Trenchard's point, busking is allowed in San Antonio, just not on the grounds of the River Walk, Alamo Plaza, Main Plaza, the Convention Center, Alamodome, City Hall, Market Square, La Villita or Commerce Street Bridge. In other words: downtown spaces where people are most likely to congregate.
"He was the centerpiece of downtown for a couple of decades. He gave a soundtrack to the Alamo," Johnson said of Bongo Joe's downtown presence. "He really was the soundtrack of San Antonio for all that time. And I don't know why he hasn't been honored, given a statue or a plaque or ... anything."
Without institutional support for the preservation of Bongo Joe's legacy, San Antonio residents must rely on the musician's scant recordings, his few interviews and the memories of those who knew him best.
At its core, Bongo Joe's message was about embracing life.
"If a thing is not elevating or progressing, it ain't alive," Coleman said the 1972 film. "You ain't living if you ain't doing ... and if you ain't progressing, you ain't living. And, of course, if you ain't doing, you're dead. You'd be surprised at the walking dead we stumble across daily."
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