Deb E. Dee
Deb steps out into the light with this smokin' hot and cool as Barton Springs rock-country crossover C.D. from being one of the of the most familiar faces in Austin's underground musical community.Deb is a many award winning songwriter who has recieved praise from several luminaries in the Austin music community. She has performed at many benefits for the homeless and other causes in Austin. This CD is now avilable for purchase through CD Baby

DEB E. DEE: Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock This audio meal of a CD includes all the best flavors of the Texas hill country,with courses ranging from 'Wild Plum Jam' to the bloody'Backbone Blues'.If you don't like both strong and really sweet flavors or women, forget it.

Thank you for your patience while we get the website completed. It's still under construction, but here are a few items to read about the making of this CD , and about Deb E. Dee, independent producer, singer, musician and songwriter......
Making this CD was for Deb an extraordinary accomplishment, all things considered, and yeah, there are some stories behind it.
It began when Deb, who is disabled from botched leg surgery as a child, said to the counselors at the Texas Rehabilitation Commission,to whom she had gone for assistance in setiing up a small business, ""I am a musician and this is what I really do""(She had at first tried to get them to help her at a job for which she was poorly suited, making jewelery).She said to them very directly, ""I am a musician, and have marginally supported myself for 30 years this way"", and then she proceeded to climb up on the desk of the counselor, played a hard-rockin'
acoustical version of 'Backbobne Blues' for the delighted office staff, and said,""All I need is a CD and I can get by"", and so became the first person in the State of Texas to recieve a grant for their own work of art, which pissed a lot of people off. That was in 1994. Now it is finally being released, after much fol-de-rol.
The grant was recieved through the Texas Rehabilitation Commission(as Deb says,""on account of my gimpy legs"") but .......As the climate for the arts changed for the worse in Texas, and apparently, with the realization that at least one of the tracks on the CD (Rocks Along the Way) was critical of government policies toward Native Americans, the people at the Texas Rehabilitation Commission(T.R.C) changed from being supportive of Deb's efforts to flatly discouraging, 'not recieving', they said, the letters Deb sent time and again asking them to help her fix the C.D. on which she had spent the last four years, even writing her own grant for T.R.C.
The CD , called 'Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock', proved at first to be unmarkettable due to grievous manufacturing defects that made them impossible to sell.
The melted masterpieces didn't arrive until six weeks after the original date of the CD release, and the manufacturer,with rude language, flatly refused to help. The folks at TRC told Deb they didn't like the music, fought the release for about five years or so, and said they were having prayer meetings for Deb in their office. Deb greatly appreciates prayer, and still has her soul, thank you, she says.
On the fourth go-round in the federal circuit court of appeals , Deb won her case to have the damaged CDs remanufactured and re-released ( the State of Texas, the original manufacturing contractor through purchase order, refused to persue a remedy, leaving Deb with a band who could not be paid with nothing to sell, and a cancelled tour after four years of hard work). In spite of her best efforts, Deb was at first without recourse, but she learned through counseling that she could appeal her case with T.R.C.(who were handling it by trying to drop her as a client without fulfilling their responsibilities to deal with the manufacturer to get the CD remanufactured). While all this was going on, Deb still had in her possession some 800 of the CDs and eventually just gave many of the damaged CDs away as she busked here and played gigs there, saying to folks,'Your tax dollars paid for this, and it plays without skipping on thirty percent of players, so good luck.'
The State of Texas tried to have her produce all 1000 of the poorly manufactured CDs in court or be arrested for selling them without paying the taxes,even though the plan approved by TRC called for giving 300 of the CDs away as promo, but Deb remembered that there was a film record from a local news network in which she was interviewed and filmed, giving the CDs away on 'The Drag' in Austin . She won her case,finally,and although she recieved no monetary award for the loss of her time, and her band , and her opportunities,the State of Texas agreed to remaster and re-manufacture Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock', and here it is.
When all her hard work on 'Chief Rock' seemed to came to naught and legal recourse was nowhere to be found for the impoverished, it was a really hard thing to bear and Deb was lucky enough and tough enough to be able to just run off to the woods for a coupla years ,finally healing enough to be able to persistantly persue the remedy,continueing to battle the T.R.C.in
court, seeking legal advice and filing paperwork,etc. by traveling 50 miles into Austin ,sometimes walking two miles down the rural dirt road to the highway to catch a ride into town, which left her already barely usable legs in a bad way.
On the day of her last try in court, Deb awoke at dawn to find an old friend from just down the road, tapping on her window , because he had heard through the grapevine that she had a court date and knew that after so many tries, she was in danger of blowing it off and thus risked being jailed on bogus charges of selling her CD without paying taxes. This man kept banging on the window, and got her up to go to hitchike with her to Austin to make her court date. Deb won her case that day.No money was awarded by the court , just the right to what the state had originally contracted to help finance, and to have the CD re-mastered.
Deb says to the people of Texas a heartfelt thank you, and has given away lots of CDs to the hardworking taxpaying people of Texas, and it's time to sell a few to help meet her small needs, but one of the biggest reasons for this website is just to reach out and say Howdy to the people of the world, and share the Love.
Percussionists Rashad Iginga and Jeff Hogan, who has also backed Peter Rowan and Jimmy Carl Black of the Grandmothers, and Spencer Perskin of Shiva's Headband, who was a co-owner of the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin,Texas, and one of the great rock violinists of our time, are also featured on this CD. Georgina Van Ris is a small intense person who plays an enormously rock-solid bass groove, and has also played bass for Shiva's.The reknowned grammy award winner Martin Banks, now deceased, played trumpet and flugelhorn on several cuts on this CD, and theres a story about him you need to read, later in this bio, that shows his shining character.
Rashsd Iginga from Trinidad plays pans on
the rhumba, Boomerang Sweet, as well as playing percussion all the songs recorded in Blanco county. He was fantastic on ""I Ride An Old Paint"", and the pans he plays on 'Boomerang Sweet' are absolutely hauntingly beautiful.
Two Chicks who are really two verifiable divas from the dynomite wimmin' club, are Susan MacIntosh and Lisa Miles, both also talented writers as well as ringing harmony vocals like bells. Lisa, who was also a cantor in her home synagogue in L.A. ,will be greatly and most mightily missed,as she joins The Golden Choir, as has Mr. Martin Banks. Lisa and Susan add rich and rockin' sweetness to the everlovin Texas rhythm and blues of Moonlight Tower, a song that Deb wrote as one that she wished to have been written for her by one the rogues and outlaws in her gallery of fine handsome hunks of heartbreak. This is Texas roadhouse rockin' R and B
at its finest, and on Backbone Blues Deb tears it up on fuzzed out lead guitar with the Chicks wailin' again sweet and Deb playing some classic boogie woogie piano.It was recorded mostly live, with two minor overdubbed tracks, as was most of this CD .
Drummer Gary De Vries, who could often be found backing Christine Albert and Chris Gage at Dons' Depot downtown on the lake in Austin, lays down a solid groove with finess.
A hearty Thank you and Muchos Gracias to all the wonderful musicians who are represented on ""Chief Rock""
On the cover is the remarkable portrait by reknowned surrealistic artist Tim Andries, now deceased.
Tim and Deb were co-members of The Dallas Artists Co-op, an organization for surrealistic artists of all media, including music. Deb performed at the opening of his(Tim's) studio/gallery on Dallas' Elm Street(Deep Ellum) and he finished this painting during the performance. Afterward he presented her with the painting, saying to Deb ,""This Is You"".
Deb says that she feels most grateful for this great gift and honored the memory of Tim by putting it on the cover, in hopes that the work of this fine artist and loving person will be furthur appreciated.
Deb is considering going to Europe to play music there, and is working on a new rock and roll CD to finance the tour. She wants to eat scallops swimming in butter in Ireland,where many of her ancestors are from, and pancakes in Amsterdam and chocolate truffles in Belgium without getting fat, she says- hmmm.If she keeps playing and performing with the same high energy, getting fat is not likely. But you know there has to be some fine enticement to get Deb to leave the Texas hill country she calls home, and the friendly people of Europe are in for a treat, too, as she is planning a tour to coincide with the release of the CD she is currently working on, 'The Kimamas', which features songs such as ""Rock you Down in Texas Like the Wind"" from this hard rockin' rollin' band of Texas gals.
Deb has always been playing and singing. Inside the cover of 'Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock',among the pictures of the other performers on the album, is a picture of Deb pulling up to the piano keys at age 9 months, before she could walk.Yes, she did 'play' the piano then, and she never stopped.She began learning the guitar on one her mom Shirley got her for Christmas at age 11, a spanish style Goya classical ,then got lessons at the downtown Dallas Y.M.C.A.
At age, 15, Deb, who grew up in Dallas, Texas, was regularly performing at Popsicle Toes, a popular Dallas Jazz venue .She performed with a garage band called Time in a Bottle.She sang covers of everyone's songs from Janis to The Airplane, to the Beatles, Stones, Spirit and Muddy Waters. She had long blonde hair and white go-go boots, and lied about her age to drink during the first few gigs, because she had terrible stage fright that was instantly cured by a Singapore Sling.Soon she no longer needed the booze(for shame, oh management!)and was feeling at home under the stage lights.
After stints as a housewife, college student ,
daycare provider, kitchen aide, charging systems mechanic at Sears(for which as a part time employee workink 38 hours a week she was paid $1.98 an hour in 1974), and landscape designer, Deb recovered her senses(she refers to those days in the early 70's as ""the insane years""), and as soon as motherhood permitted, went back actively to music. She says the key inspiration for her return to music was a comment by
Kayra, the deacon's wife in the church she attended, that she should be playing honkey-tonk piano in a bar somewhere, and so she did.
When her two children ,Sarai and Luke, were small, Deb began writing a lot of her own material and occassionaly performing at a club called 'The Saloon' on Dallas' Greenville Avenue in a blues/new wave fusion band called 'Deb E. Dee and The Daddycats'.The band featured Deb as lead vocalist and songwriter on guitar and keys, and Kevin Valentine on lead guitar as well as Ken Grimes of Dallas' Belladi Ensemble on Drums. Deb also later moonlighted as 'Jaynette Bird' on bass with the adventurous and original band Buck Nacked and the Jaybirds, who frequently performed at meetings of ""The Church of the Subgenius"".""It happened somewhwere in Oz, of course"", says Deb, who then dyed her long light green hair a bright cobalt blue, cut it off and in 1984 moved to Bastrop, a few miles east of Austin with her two children and skateboard champion Lee Morrison, whom she met and fell in love with at a Black Flag concert and art show at the Twilite Room on Commerce in downtown Dallas, where she had paintings displayed and frequently performed.
In 1984 ,with another band, she recorded '909', a rock album of her own compositions, with Leo King on guitar and Larry Allen on bass and Noah Ramirez on drums.The album band was named 'Deb E. DeE. and the Daddycats', although the band members were different from the band by the same name that she had often performed with on Dallas' Greenville Avenue in the late 70's and early 80's.This album remains unreleased, except for a few cassettes.It was another effort that came back from the manufacturer inexplicably damaged, preventing release- and she had to go to court this time, too, to get her master tapes back from the manufacturer,for they kept them for over a year and refused to return them after sending her vinyl back unplayable.Those tapes are now lost to old age,but the newer technology however, will make this album available soon as well. Updates to be posted on debedee.com.
This was the battle of the the major labels versus the indies that Deb got caught in the middle of, she just didn't know it at the time.
Deb first began writing songs prolifically in the mid 1970s, at a time when she had a guitar and piano, but no T.V. or stereo, and two young children to entertain.
Deb has written over 400 songs and continues to be one of the Texas hill country music communities' best and most prolific songwriters.
Paul Sessums, owner of the famous Black Cat club on 6th street, where she had performed, called her 1986 cassette release, '909'(available soon),'the best music to come out of Austin this year'. Deb has performed at many of Austin's finer clubs for original music, inculding showcases and benefits, at clubs such as The Cactus Cafe, The Blue Flamingo, and Ruta Maya, as well as being featured several times at the Staff concerts of the Kerrville Folk Festival. Performing for the Love of it and helping to feed herself and sometimes others,Deb has for more than twenty years busked on Sixth street and the corner of Fourth and Colorado or for the U.T. students and others on 'The Drag' on Austin's Guadalupe Street. She reasoned that she could hone her chops, reach thousands more people, enliven and bring joy to the steets, and the people,and feed herself, as well as enjoy a healthy range of freedom. Sometimes it was really hard, sometimes just incredibly fun, she says.It was really a lot of work, too, and hard for a woman, which made her all the more determined to exercise her constitutional right to free speech, as she said to the rookie police officers who often tried to interact with her in a negative way, until they really began to see her as the real working musician that she was, and even enjoying and supporting her performances.Even the police officers began to dance to her music.'That was a sight',she says, 'the three of them line dancing on the corner of Fourth and Colorado'.
Deb has retired from the street gig with mostly fond memories. Now she sings and plays around the hill country and grows lemons and peaches and tries not to scare the townsfolk or annoy the livestock, but she refuses to give up rock and roll. She couldn't if she tried.
The third song on 'Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock', called Backbone Blues, deals with the adventures of a mountain lion who told Deb, kinda psychicly, she thinks, that her name was, and I quote,""I Am Walking in your Path ""
Deb calls this lion, who comes to her place to drink from a natural pool,'Walkin'for short.
The first song on the album, 'Wild Plum Jam', is a true story about an event that now takes place semi-annually
(whenever the plums make a good crop) in the deep summer dog days of late July, when the wild plums get ripe out at Debs place , a campout where wild plum jam and biscuits are made over an open fire to the musical accompaniment of many local artists.This event is as good as it gets, folks. Spencers' violin shines on this rollikin' 'rockin country tune.Saturday after Friday night guests go a few miles to cool off in the river at Blanco State Park.
It's the Real Deal.
Song 2 on the album,'Lion and Lamb was recorded in Austin
at Jeff Moeller's Audio Arts studios on South Congress. Austin Character and Person of some reknown Oat Willie, now known by his given, Walli Stopher, former gubernatorial candidate and former member of the Armadillo era band ""Conqueroo"", plays one of the guitar solos on this 'Pat Garret and Billy the Kid' style tune,and Deb plays the other.
Martin Banks sweet as honey flugelhorn on ""Boomerang Sweet will amaze you, especially when you realize that he is calmly playing his solo while a swarm of wild bees , who had entered the rural Blanco studio of Jeff Hogan,circled his head as he played .Then a few left and followed him out to his car, and we made sure none remained to hitchikeback to austin with Mr Banks. A song about the wild bees....
Rashad Iginga plays the pans on Boomerang and the clip clop temple blocks, the horse's hooves, on the old cowboy song
'I Ride an Old Paint"".
'Moonlight Tower is a strutting on down R and B number that features Deb on Piano was recorded in Austin live at Audio Arts on South Congress.
All the songs are done live ,though a few have some minimal overdubbing. Moonlight Tower was originally written for another band, but when they were unable to complete their recording project, Deb recorded it on this album ,and encourages other artists who can do it justice to cover it as well. Just ask, she says
The heartsong of Deb's called simply 'Flying' on the 'Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock Album was originally titled and is still subtitled 'Song for the Enchanted Rock'
This beautiful pink granite dome at Enchanted Rock
State Natural Area just a few miles North of Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill country is one of Deb's favorite places and she is pictured on the back cover of the C.D.fresh from Dallas, with the blue finally beginning to wash out of her hair,healing, sitting on some of the beautiful granite at the park. She went natural and her hair is now a long reddish brown and she lives like a tribal medicine woman in the woods, on top of a hill with guitars, red dragonflies and cool animals that are not in any books,yet. Her hobbies are painting a tarot deck and growing Peach and Lemon Trees.She even cultivates her own variety of peach, still in the agricultural testing phase.
The name of the album derives from Debs' given name as a girl, Deborah Marie Doolan, as a gift to her mom, and from a rock onto which is carved two words, ""Have Mercy"", and that chunk of limestone is Chief Rock.
The band Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock, which included Deb E. Dee, Spencer Perskin, Georgina Van Ris and Martin Banks disbanded shortly after the initial release of the C.D. in 1997 due to manufacturing problems which prevented marketing the CD to finance the planned tour, and musicians and their families all have to eat and move onward through the frogs.
Now, several years later, is the C.D. album, remastered by Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova in Austin, ready for re-release. Deb is currently hard at work on her next Album, the hot goddess rock of The Kimamas.
Deb's two talented children Luke and Sarai Fletcher have often performed on stage with her. Luke plays guitar, bass and tuba, and sings and writes, and daughter Sarai plays keyboard,congas and percussion, and assists on harmony vocals and sometimes lead duets with her mom as well. Now a happy rural resident, 50 miles west of Austin, Deb offers this musical tribute to her home in the beautiful Texas hill country of Blanco County.
Her lack of travel, as well as her outspokenness, has somewhat hindered her musical career, but having gotten to the Texas Hill country by a spate of miracles, she really never wants to leave, or at least there's got to be some real fancy enticement. She rocks hard, and gets country right on down, and also loves to play and is proficient in many other styles of music (The song 'Boomerang Sweet' on Deborah Marie Doolan and Chief Rock is a Rhumba) . Deb says that too much fun is better than not enough, but she has always found time to share plants she propagates in Blanco County, and her main goal other than to play a lot of music and take showers in the summer rain and eat chocolate and peaches, is to help people gow their own food, like melons and salsa and gourmet salad greens. She grew up listening to Tex Ritter, Patsy Cline and Aretha Franklin and Hendrix and The Beatles and Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed down on the Jacksborough Highway between Dallas and Fort Worth, and she and Stevie Ray Vaughn lived two blocks away from each other as small children in Dallas' South Oak Cliff,in a working class neighborhood with small salt box houses with ongoing card games in the front yards, a crawdad pond just down the block,and dixieland and country bands in the back yards.Deb's dad Ted Doolan was also a musician, a piano player who often supplemented his income by repairing the musical instruments of other jazz musicians. If you like Brittany Spears, you probably will hate this effort, but it's sweet, too, like bluebonnets, and victory after long struggle. Deb is always hard at work on her next cd, and the next one will be a blazing rock and roll collection called 'The Kimamas', kimama is a Cree word for 'butterfly'. We're gona rock you down in Texas, says Deb. Lots more to come from Deb E. Dee and The Kimamas.
The Kimamas will feature rock and roll like they play it down in Texas. They will rock you enough to shake the foundations , with three part harmony from a group of big beautiful Texas women that will make you cry out the blues like a wolves down in Texas on a sunset hilltop.
And who is Chief Rock? Well, Chief Rock is the Chief of the Garden Tribe, a big limestone Rock on whom is carved these two words, and it's all the chief ever has to say.Those two words are ""Have Mercy"". Stay tuned, and don't forget to pray.

© 2006 Deb E. Dee

	Lion and Lamb This is a song that sounds like Austin in all it's cosmic cowboy and cowgirl glory, cause it is.		Texas Folk Rock
	Wild Plum Jam Oh LOVE, this is really rockin hard get on down foot stompin finger lickin jelly jam HOT HOT HOT with real butter drippin from a campfire buttermilk biscuit full of heaven. BITE IT!We did.....		Country

Comments                                                Add new Comment   View All