美国国家公共电台 NPR Both The Food And The Music Are Made From Scratch At This Texas Joint

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Out on a lonesome highway in the Texas Hill Country, the night sky is awash with stars, the Angus cattle quietly ruminate 1, and there is a cafe where food and music are made from scratch. It's a seafood 2 place 90 miles west of Austin, and it's run by a veteran bluesman. Here's NPR's John Burnett on Johnny Nicholas' and his Hilltop Cafe.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE 4: In the middle of BBQ brisket country, a dinner crowd is throwing back crab 5 cakes, fried oysters 6, flounder and stuffed shrimp 7.

JOHNNY NICHOLAS: This song's for all of you...

BURNETT: On stage is the establishment's owner...

NICHOLAS: ...Who have ever had a nice new car or a nice new used car.

BURNETT: ...A 68-year-old Greek-American bluesman who's been performing for half a century.

NICHOLAS: It's called "I'm Broke Again But I Sure Got A Pretty Car."

(LAUGHTER)

BURNETT: The Hilltop opened in 1980. It used to be a gas station and beer joint 8. Johnny's wife, Brenda, was the genius in the kitchen. He handled the music.

NICHOLAS: (Singing) Well, I spent all my money on a real fine automobile 9.

BURNETT: Once a month, Nicholas books a dinner concert in the dining room. You're liable to hear Marcia Ball or Jimmy Vaughn or even Bonnie Raitt or Billy Gibbons. Nicholas plays with his regular group, Hellbent, made up of Austin all-stars.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, APPLAUSE)

NICHOLAS: Thank you so much.

BURNETT: The musicians and diners share a boot-scuffed wood floor surrounded by old cabaret posters and neon beer signs. While the Hilltop is in Austin's gravitational field, the tattoo-and-small-dog crowd is nowhere in sight.

MELANY CANFIELD: My name is Melany Canfield. I'm the high school counselor 10 in Mason, Texas, and I've been coming to the Hilltop since I was a little girl.

DICK WINTERS: Well, I'm Dick Winters. I'm from western central Texas. My wife, Susan, and I are both ranchers, started coming here right after Johnny and Brenda first opened it in the '80s. It was a convenient place to stop and have a cold brew 11 on a long drive.

BURNETT: It evolved into Zagat-rated restaurant with rigorous standards for freshness. Brenda Nicholas grew much of the produce in her own gardens, and they made six-hour runs to the Gulf 12 Coast to buy snapper, flounder and shrimp right off the docks. Brenda brought her Cajun-influenced seafood recipes from her hometown in southeast Texas and trained the cooks.

SAMMY FAVELLA: Darken the roux so much to where it's like a dark chocolate, and then we'll cool it down.

BURNETT: Sammy Favella has been chef here for the last three years.

FAVELLA: People would come for miles just to have her crawfish etouffee, shrimp, sausage.

BURNETT: Next to the kitchen, Johnny Nicholas takes a seat in the back room by the big stone fireplace. His gray hair is pulled into a ponytail. He has a soul patch under his lower lip, and his face bespeaks 13 the years he spent on the road. After he met Brenda, they made the decision to start a family and open the Hilltop.

NICHOLAS: Our primary motivation is to serve people food and music that we love, that we would like to eat or listen to. And that's what people get about it. That's what's special about Hilltop.

BURNETT: Last year, Brenda died after a long struggle against lymphoma and leukemia. To defray the medical expenses, Johnny's friend Eric Clapton donated his Stratocaster. It brought $45,000 at auction 14. With Brenda gone, Nicholas has turned the cafe over to his two sons so he can throw all of his energy back into his music career.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROLL ON MISSISSIPPI")

NICHOLAS: (Singing) Roll on Mississippi. We've passed this way before. Hear you in the wind, I can hear you moan. Your lonesome whistle trying to call me home.

BURNETT: Nicholas grew up in Rhode Island, drifted to Ann Arbor 15, Chicago, southwest Louisiana and finally Austin. His collaborations in the 1970s and '80s read like an encyclopedia 16 of American roots music, from blues 3 greats Johnny Shines, Big Walter Horton and Roosevelt Sykes to Cajun accordionist 17 Nathan Abshire. Nicholas also played with Asleep at the Wheel. Today, he's still known as a bluesman, but much of the time, he doesn't sound like.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHNNY NICHOLAS SONG, "FRESH AIR")

BURNETT: He puts things in his music, unexpected chord changes and a certain tenderness that you don't hear in the hard-driving blues-rock bands that dominate the genre 18 these days.

NICHOLAS: To me, I don't find it incongruous to have songs with lots of changes and different grooves 19 than your standard blues. That does not exclude them from being blues.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FRESH AIR")

NICHOLAS: (Singing) Will the circle be unbroken? What kind of words be spoken as windows start to open everywhere? Will the words that you can't find ever escape your mind and blossom in your garden of despair? Can't you use a little fresh air?

BURNETT: That's the title track from his critically acclaimed 20 latest album "Fresh Air." Most of the songs on it are his own. Nicholas says he began writing more after the death in 2009 of his friend Stephen Bruton. The revered 21 Austin musician was such a regular, the Hilltop named a dish after him - Oysters Bruton.

NICHOLAS: I've always written songs but never really focused on it and was a little afraid of it, too. And so when Stephen passed, and he was such a great writer, I just said, you know what? This is a wakeup call.

BURNETT: Even though he's back on the road singing and playing guitar and piano, he hasn't forgotten what his late wife told him on her deathbed.

NICHOLAS: We sat down. She said I've got to talk to you. This is very important, and she said, you have to promise me that if you can't keep Hilltop up to my standards that you'll lock the doors. And I said, I promise, absolutely.

BURNETT: And so while the chef is in the kitchen tenderizing beef cutlets for chicken-fried steak, Johnny Nicolas is out in the dining room pounding out his special brand of blues.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHNNY NICHOLAS SONG, "BLUES TIME")

BURNETT: John Burnett, NPR News, Austin.

NICHOLAS: (Singing) Working at the car wash in the Texas sun. Washing and waxing till my work in done. All the pretty women in the big Mercedes Benz, I need a hundred dollars just to pay my rent.