(March 27, 2026) I am very gutted tonight by the loss of Jon Dee Graham. When I first moved to Austin, my new buddy Cornbread took me to see JDG at the Continental one night. He said, “You’re gonna like this guy”. I was sold by the end of the first chorus.
“I’m on the airplane…I’m on the airplane now…gettin’ smaller and smaller as it flies away”.
This was early 2002. For almost 8 years I was there and Jon Dee was an absolute institution in my life, and that of so many others. I bought amps to try and get his tone (I hadn’t learned yet that it’s actually in the hands). When I first got with Kim I made her a CD with all of my favorite JD songs. We still have it. Jon Dee felt to Austin TX like Bruce Springsteen is to the entire state of New Jersey. And the question so many of us always had was – how the hell is this guy not renowned the world over? If there were any justice in this world… Over years and years I managed to worm myself in and become friends with him, to where he even came and played on my record on a song I wrote for his young son who had a bad bone disease in his leg. I probably saw him over 100 Wednesday nights at The Continental, and another 50 Sundays at Saxon with The Resentments. I still didn’t know him all that well, but when I told him I was moving to Nashville he took me out for coffee and tried to talk me into staying. He did make me think twice. I lost contact with a lot of my Austin life after some time, especially after my boy was born and the dividing line was truly drawn. But I never let go of James’ and Jon Dee’s music, the two most towering figures from those years of my life (and who happened to both play the same night at the same club each week for a grand total $7 US dollars??). Great art is eternal.
Well slowly over the years I began to reconnect with a lot of my Austin past, and 2 years ago I was down for some shows and went to see Jon Dee. Lord if it didn’t feel I had walked through the looking glass into my past, a past where nothing had changed and it was every bit as magical as I’d spent the intervening years dreaming about. And I’ll be damned if he didn’t see me walk in and call me out from the stage, hand me his number after and tell him to call him the next day. This turned into a very memorable week. He was maybe not in the best place right then and we got together over another coffee and we talked. I found myself wanting to be there for him and he let me. Maybe something about a friend who’s kind of not in the middle of it all. He told me he’d really love to meet Henry. The day after that he came over and we hung out all night, just he and I and Kim and Henry. He’d just found out about some new health issues and he was worried. I told him we would always be there for him, anything he needed. He talked openly. Every night before Henry goes to sleep, Kim and I sing “Comes A Time” together with him as a trio. This has gone on for at least 7 or 8 years (when I’m not home we do it on FaceTime). That night Jon Dee became the only person before or since to ever sit in and we became a quartet. He said what key do you do it in and I said whatever key Kim starts it in, and he just jumped in with the baritone. We walked out into the hall and he had a tear in his eye. I’ll never forget this. Then we went out back and swapped songs on our guitars for two hours. I’ll cherish that night for as long as I live, and all the time I got to spend in the presence of both he and his music. A few days later I went back to the Continental with my friend Vanessa, on the final Mojo Nixon day at SXSW (doubling as a Mojo tribute since he had just passed), and we watched one of the most powerful and triumphant Jon Dee Graham performances I’ve ever seen. He ended with Home and it rattled my DNA to its core. Maybe it was because I’d missed it for so long. Or maybe it was just that great. At his best, Jon Dee Graham’s songs stood shoulder to shoulder with anyone’s. They are rugged and tough (like him) but also extremely vulnerable and sentimental (like him). James McMurtry once told him something like, “I wish I could be you but I don’t think I could bleed to death every night on stage”. He was the definition of an artist who worked out his demons and his gratitude through songs. He was so self aware, and so thankful for everything and everybody he loved. He was a special being. On my last European run this past summer I played a number of rooms that had old tour posters on the wall. Shining in the middle of them were Jon Dee Graham posters from tours gone by. I would tell them all “He’s my friend! I saw him last year and he was amazing!”, and they would reminisce with some stories. One venue in Germany was on top of a train station, the owner told me how Jon Dee was like a little kid over the fact that the club was right on top of a train station. Ha… I couldn’t believe it. I told him this in Austin and he almost cut me off, “Oh yeah, the TRAIN STATION CLUB – IT WAS RIGHT ON TOP OF IT!!” I told him Jon Dee, they all still remember you over there. I stayed at one couple’s house in Holland and they had a juke box with a Resentments 45 of Faithless. His existence had an impact. I was hoping he’d get back to regale them all again one day.
Jon Dee Graham was a truly unique artist and human being. He was so smart, was gifted with a brain on a higher plane and he used it to marvel at the ironies and the beauty of the world, as he saw it by way of the rock hard musician life he was required to live by divine instruction. He seems to have cheated death at least a half dozen times over the years, and lost and gained everything at least a couple times of top of that. It’s hard to believe he’s gone, but he left us with an inspiring body of work that will continue to impact us as it did when he was with us. I mourn especially for William, Roy, and Gretchen, the 3 people who meant the most to him in this entire universe. This morning they lost a husband and father, while Austin TX lost one of the flagships of its identity. It won’t be the same without him. I am glad we all got to be on the big ball at the same time as Jon Dee. He was a great one. I know he’s headed up there to reminisce with TS Bruton, Mojo, and all the others now, on the airplane that’s getting smaller and smaller as it flies away. I believe he’s in no pain and creating new memories that will in actual fact never end. RIP Jon Dee, we’ll miss you.