Singer-guitarist goes from rock star to lawyer
Discussing a most unusual career divided between practicing law and performing rock ’n’ roll, Al Staehely describes his path almost like Dorothy traipsing through Oz, with numerous surreal encounters along the way.
He remembers working for ASCAP, the musiclicensing organization, one summer in New York in the late 1960s when somebody offered two tickets to “The David Frost Show.” Staehely heard the Rolling Stones might appear. Turns out the guests instead were Linda Ronstadt and John Hartford. During the show, Frost asked Hartford about songwriting, and Hartford — a beloved roots-music square peg — asked if there were any songwriters in the audience.
“I put up my hand and said, ‘I do,’ and the camera swung over to me,” Staehely says. “I about (expletive) my britches.”
Staehely didn’t have a lot of songs to his name, but had one about New York that he thought was catchy. Hartford handed him his guitar and added some banjo.
“At the end the crowd was responsive. Frost gave me a thumbs up. An English journalist told me in the U.K. that would’ve made me an overnight sensation,” he recalls. “Linda Ronstadt came to the lobby to find me. But I didn’t have the presence of mind to get it all together and do something with it. I was just a greenhorn. By the time the show aired, I was back in Austin.”
In Austin, Staehely finished law school, which would provide security for him for most of his adult life. But not before he took a detour: finding his way into the renowned rock band Spirit.
Staehely grew up in Austin’s music scene in the 1960s. He describes that time as creatively fervent, but also jittery. Aspiring
musicians found themselves going to college in hopes of avoiding being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Staehely saw law school as a way to stay out of combat and also as a vocational safety net.
Staehely thought he might settle in New York. He even auditioned for “Hair” during the summer of 1969. But he had more connections out west and knew “I wasn’t going to practice law until I’d given
music a fulltime shot.”
In 1971, he headed to Los Angeles. He knew William “Curly” Smith, a drummer he’d played with, as well as several other Texans, like songwriter and Patti Dahlstrom and Linden native Don Henley.
He also had his brother. John had earned a reputation in Austin as “a hot (expletive) guitarist in Texas, where that’s a kind of currency.” John found himself in demand out west, too. After the psychedelic rock band Spirit released its landmark “Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus” in 1970, the lineup underwent an overhaul with the departure of three key members. Staehely became the singer and bassist, while his brother stepped in as guitarist.
The new Spirit released “Feedback” in 1972. With singer and guitarist Randy California gone, Spirit sounded quite different on standout tracks like “Cadillac Cowboys.”
“John and I brought a little Texas flavor to the band that didn’t exist before. It wasn’t anything we tried to do. It’s just the way we were.”
The album sold fairly well, and a subsequent tour was successful, but soon that version of Spirit splintered and the two siblings formed the Staehely Brothers, who released “Sta-hayLee” in 1973.
“We were the same two guys, but we weren’t using the Spirit name anymore,” Staehely says. “That’s when I learned the value of a brand name. The reality is we couldn’t make a living just being the Staehely Brothers. John got an offer to join Jo Jo Gunne, and I couldn’t say, ‘Don’t do that.’ That was the beginning of a bunch of interesting stuff that happened.”
“Interesting stuff” includes further close calls with success and record label misadventures. Staehely got a deal for a solo album, but halfway through recording, the label went under.
He came back to Texas to visit his parents and “to lick my wounds.”
Staehely was hoping to pitch songs to the music supervisor for what would become “Urban Cowboy.” While in Houston, he visited an old friend, Mike Hinton, a drummer turned attorney, who had advised Staehely to go to law school a decade earlier.
Even after switching careers, his old life tried to pull him back. A drummer he knew offered a European tour for Staehely with John Cipollina of the old psych-rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service and Nick Gravenitis of the blues rock band Electric Flag.
But by the mid-1980s, he had a family, and more of his time was dedicated to law than music.
Staehely dabbled in entertainment law as early as 1979. An old acquaintance, Cutter Brandenburg, was working as a roadie for Stevie Ray Vaughan, such that he urged Vaughan to hire an attorney to oversee his career. Staehely calls Vaughan, “my first client of any significance.”
From there, he built a law practice.
At 75, Staehely is also busy putting music into the world. He and his brother perform regularly as the Staehely Brothers. And Staehely has been digging out songs from his vault.
“There’s so much unreleased stuff, I just wanted to get it out,” he says. “There’s a lot of music from those years when I started to bear down on the law thing. Back then, I was just starting a family. Now I have two small granddaughters. If I get some of this music out there, I figure one day, when they’re grown up, they can see what their grandpa was doing.”