From Traces of Texas
Long but worth the read
So we’ve all heard Guy Clark’s song “LA Freeway,” with its famous intro:
Pack up all your dishes
Make note of all good wishes
Say goodbye to the landlord for me
That sum-bitch has always bored me
Throw out them old LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete
Gonna get me some dirt road back street
[Chorus]
If I can just get off of that L.A. Freeway etc…
Later on the narrator sings:
Here’s to you old skinny Dennis
The only one I think I will miss
I can hear that old bass singin’
Sweet and low like a gift you’re bringin’
Play it for me one more time now
Got to give it all we can now
I believe everything you're saying
Just keep on, keep on playing
There’s a lot of space here in Texas and driving around out there gives a man a lot of time to ponderate about things. I kept hearing “LA Freeway” on my IPOD shuffle and began to wonder who “Skinny Dennis” was. It became a pebble in the shoe of my consciousness til finally I got around to looking it up.
It turns out that “Skinny Dennis” was “Skinny Dennis” Sanchez, a stand-up bass player who hung around with Guy Clark (who wrote the song) in Los Angeles in the early 1970’s. According to Wikipedia, he was 6′11″, weighed 135 .lbs and (like Abraham Lincoln) had Marfan’s Syndrome. He died at the age of 28 while playing onstage at a small club in Los Angeles.
Here’s a photo of “Skinny Dennis” Sanchez. I apologize for the quality but it was the only one I could find. This is taken from a DVD called “Heartworn Highways,” a documentary about Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Roddy Crowell etc… and that nucleus of songwriters that lived all together in Nashville during the 1970’s.
