Cheatham Street. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Just across the tracks from the downtown square, a stretch that connects Guadalupe Street to Hopkins with single-family housing, a few CPAs and other businesses, Rio Vista Park, and a small honky tonk established by Kent Finlay in 1974. A well-respected music venue in San Marcos, Cheatham Street Warehouse would come to be a staple for students, locals, visitors, and an incubator for developing some of the best musical talent to come out of Texas the fourth quarter of the 20th century.
Why? Because Kent Finlay had the courage to keep things simple, to make it all about the music, and to not worry about what was necessarily going to make a bunch of money, but what was going to create a special kind of culture in our community, greatly inspired by his mentor, Hondo Crouch, and the small town of Luckenbach, Texas.
Kent Finlay loved the Texas Hill Country and his hometown of Fife, that would lead to thousands of road trips exploring the unique beauty of every little town between here and there. Along the way, he discovered the magical hamlet of Luckenbach, long before you heard about Willie and Waylon and the boys. Kent and Hondo and the other dreamers who believed in a different kind of culture gathered in that small town to share stories and write songs and celebrate culture, a sense of who we are and where we are from.
