HOUSTON'S WESTERN TRANSFORMATION

Rick Archer's Note:

Disco dancing was extremely popular throughout America thanks to John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever.  Houston was no exception.  Then came the bad news.  In February 1979, a Country-Western dance hall named Cowboy opened up in Houston's high rent district.  True blue to my passion for Disco, I refused to visit Cowboy.  However I heard it was the exact opposite of Gilley's, a rowdy local dance hall frequented by cowboys who liked to drink and brawl.  Gilley's set the standard for kicker bars.  The sign on the door said 'Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed'.  

Historically the few Western clubs that existed in the Houston area existed in blue collar parts of town.  So what is Cowboy doing in the high-rent district?  Not only that, rumor had it that $3 million had been spent in remodeling costs at Cowboy.  Three million?  For a kicker bar?  This was unheard of, so I concluded something very strange was going on.  Now I was hit with more bad news.  The opening of Cowboy marked the start of Houston's Western Transformation.  Over the next six months, practically every Disco in Houston followed Cowboy's lead.  They closed for a month, then reopened as a Country-Western club.  When the smoke cleared, Houston was down to three Discos.

None of this made a bit of sense.  While it was true that a large segment of the Houston population loved Country music, virtually no one was interested in Western dancing.  Indeed, no one in my Disco crowd had the slightest idea what it looked like.  That included me.  At best, maybe 1% of Houston's population knew how to dance Western.  Some were "Urban Cowboys", blue collar workers who learned to dance out in rural Texas, then moved to the Houston area looking for jobs.  The other Western dancers came from nearby Texas A&M.  They had learned how to dance Country during their college years.  After graduation, they moved to Houston to start their professions in oil, engineering, accounting, etc.  So what about the other 99%?  80% did not dance at all.  Everyone else preferred Disco, Rock and Soul music.  The point I am making is that Houston had no tradition of Western dancing, so why is everyone suddenly making such a big fuss?  That was the Great Mystery. 

Remodeling a club is very expensive.  So why do it?  Two reasons.  If people lose interest in the music, sometimes a dance club will try different music or consider becoming a sports bar.  More often the club simply closes rather than risk investing good money after bad. 

Another reason to remodel would be in reaction to increasing demand.  BUT THERE WAS NO DEMAND FOR WESTERN!!   Houston's Discos were thriving and Urban Cowboy had not even been filmed yet.  The debut was set for June 1980, well over a year away.  Considering the Discos were making money hand over fist, there was no urgency, no need to hurry.  Wouldn't it be prudent to wait and see how the movie does?  Apparently not.  The rush to turn 'Country' was overwhelming.

Prior to the opening of Cowboy, Houston had only one C&W club of any notoriety.  A dive known as the Winchester Club catered to blue collar workers.  Winchester had been around for ten years without serious competition.  Like I said, Houston was not interested in Western dancing.  Yet for no apparent reason, the moment Cowboy opened, every Disco in the city changed its spots.  By my estimate, over 30 Discos made the costly switch to Western.  Some claim there were even more clubs than that.  Here is an article that will help explain Houston's Western Transformation.

What a shame that article was not available to me in 1979.  I was at a total loss to understand what was going on.  Given that virtually no one in Houston was interested in Country-Western dancing prior to 1979, what possible reason could cause the chain reaction known as the 'Western Transformation'?  Okay, Cowboy turned out to be a roaring success.  But the owners of Cowboy had to know something in advance.  Who tipped them off?  Disco was a sure thing while there was no tradition of Western dancing in Houston.  So why the rush?  Their Disco format was making good money, so why make this expensive remodeling gamble?

To be quite frank, I suspected there had to be someone who was orchestrating these changes behind the scenes.  Totally in the dark as to his or her identity, I referred to my mystery person as the 'Wizard of Oz'. 

MAY 1979 THE GREAT 'SEQUEL' MYSTERY

First came Cowboy in February.  Then came the 'Western Transformation' in March-April.  Then came the Great 'Sequel' Mystery in May.

As I said, none of this monkey-see, monkey-do fuss over Country-Western made a bit of sense to me.  30 Disco clubs opened in Houston AFTER the debut of Saturday Night Fever.  Now 30 Country-Western clubs opened one year BEFORE the debut of Urban Cowboy.  I called it putting the cart before the horse.  There had been an avalanche of interest in Disco dancing when Saturday Night Fever hit Houston in 1978.  I know this for a fact because I saw it happen.  There was nothing of the sort for Western in 1979.  No clamoring, no fanfare, a total vacuum.  If there was a Western Stampede on its way, it must be taking the subway because no one saw it coming.  Given that the Transformation was costly and so well organized, I could tell these changes were not idle decisions.  For example, Cowboy was rumored to have cost three million dollars ($13 million in 2025).  A club owner would have to sell a lot of beer to get a three million dollar return on his investment.  Why would anyone take a gamble like this considering the lack of discernible demand?

Saturday Night Fever had been good for business.  A night of fast and furious Disco dancing worked up quite a thirst.  Could the same be said for the old-style Texas Twostep, an uncomplicated dance that plodded along at the pace of a turtle?  Each club owner was destroying a booming, profitable Disco business to remodel their club in Western motif, but for what reason???  This decision was so undeniably risky, I believed these club owners had to know something.  There had to be some sort of Insider Knowledge, some sort of guru-type Wizard feeding them a convincing Country-Western pie in the sky fantasy.  

No one would spend that kind of money unless they were sure that Disco was doomed.  If so, this was bad news for me.  Without Disco dancing, I was out of a job.  How about switching to Ballroom?  I despised the music, so forget it.  Why not teach Western?  No way.  I hated the music, but that was the least of my problem.  The dancing was so primitive, no one needed lessons.  Cowboy opened in February.  Over the next six months, not one person asked me for a Country-Western dance lesson.  That is the absolute truth.  The reason no one asked me to teach Country was the utter simplicity of the dancing.  I decided it was called 'Twostep' because it had two steps and could be learned in two minutes.  There was no way I could make a living by teaching something this simple.

Okay, I think you get the picture.  If this disturbing trend continued to its expected conclusion, I was about to lose the most important thing in the world to me, my job as a Disco dance teacher.  That was hard enough, but even more troubling was my inability to understand what was going on.  It's one thing to lose your job, but to lose it and not know why was maddening.  If I could just figure it out, maybe I could find a way to cope.  No such luck.  As one Disco after another closed, I remained in the dark frantic with worry.

May 1979 marked the heyday of the Saturday Night Fever Disco Era that swept the continent.  May was the peak of Disco Fever, the summit, the absolute pinnacle.  I had countless Disco students, somewhere around 400 spread over 15 classes per week.  Balanced against that were rumors of big crowds at Cowboy.   This was ridiculous!  Houston's Disco Era was simultaneously thriving and disintegrating before my very eyes.  Haunted by fear of the unknown, I was plagued by a constant sense of dread.

Then one day in mid-May I finally got a clue.  A lady named Carol was talking to me at the studio.  She mentioned a rumor about some movie project called Urban Cowboy.  Carol saw it on the news last night.  According to Carol, the movie would be filmed in Houston and nearby Pasadena over the summer.  I yawned.  Big deal.  Who cares?  However, when Carol mentioned the movie would star John Travolta, my heart stopped beating.  

John Travolta was the biggest movie star on the planet! 

Was this the answer to my torment?  Barely able to breathe, I whispered, "Carol, are you sure about that?"

"Yes, Rick, I'm serious.  That's what they said on the news.  Urban Cowboy is supposed to be a sequel to Saturday Night Fever.  Not only that, John Travolta will be kicker dancing in the movie.  They expect Travolta will do the same thing for Country Dancing that he did for Disco Dancing.  They predict John will revolutionize Country dancing."

My heart pounded so hard, I thought I was having a heart attack.  Only news of the Second Coming could have shocked me more.  This had to be the strangest thing I had ever heard in my life.  No wonder all these clubs are turning Western.  They think Travolta is going to work a miracle.  As for revolutionizing the dancing, ugh, good luck with that.  From what I heard, women danced the Twostep backwards all night long.  The thought of watching John Travolta plow some poor woman backwards for an entire song was utterly ludicrous.  Why would anyone pay a dime to see that?

On the other hand, maybe there was more to Country dancing than I knew.  I crossed my fingers.  Let's hope so.  But it still made no sense!!!  Try as I might, I could not visualize the star of Saturday Night Fever and Grease in a Western movie.

Just then Carol snapped me out of my trance.  "Oh, one more thing.  I forgot to tell you that this country movie is supposed to be a sequel to Saturday Night Fever."

What?!?!

I shook my head in consternation.  Sequel?  Sequel to what?  What kind of Sequel are we talking about?  I was really confused.  What drug-addicted script writer would dream of moving Saturday Night Fever Superstar Tony Manero from Brooklyn, New York, to Pasadena, Texas?  A more logical sequel would have Travolta's Disco character take his dancing from Brooklyn to Broadway.  I had heard of 'creativity' and 'thinking outside the box', but this was ridiculous.  I tried to imagine a plausible plot.  Why would Tony Manero move to Texas?  And why would he give up Disco to become a dancing cowboy?

Okay, here's an idea.  Tony Manero witnesses a Mafia hit in the Disco.  He identifies the perp, testifies, then enters witness protection.  He hides out as a refinery worker in Pasadena and learns the Texas Twostep on his lunch break. 

Does anyone want to see this movie?  No, I don't think so.  The outrage I felt was unbearable.  My dance career has to die for this?  This had to be the stupidest movie Sequel I had ever heard of.  What kind of Hollywood idiot thought this one up?  Oh, and one more thing.  Travolta is going to revolutionize country dancing?  Give me a break.

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO TOWN?

At least I finally understood the strange mystery of the Western Club Transformation.  Someone had convinced the smartest guys in the room that John Travolta would do the same for Western that he had done for Disco.  However, the irony was overwhelming.  At this very moment the 'Disco Sucks' crowd was burning 'Ravolta' images and stomping on Disco records.  What would these haters think when they discovered the object of their disgust had gone country?  And what would the Disco crowd think?  Traitor! 

Travolta made sense in Grease.  He was awesome.  But no one ever suggested that Grease was a SEQUEL to Saturday Night Fever.  Besides, Travolta was completely wrong for a starring role in Urban Cowboy.  John was so soft and pretty, who would believe he could win a fist fight?  Travolta was indelibly etched in my imagination as the least likely actor in Hollywood to star as a Cowboy.  Furthermore, no one but me seemed to object to the absurdity of the Sequel claim.  Apparently I was the only person in the city who thought the idea was preposterous.  Everyone else was too excited about 'John' coming to town to give it a second thought.  I decided the world had flipped on its axis.

Overnight Houston went nuts over John Travolta sightings.  The newspapers and TV stations could not get enough of him.  There were so many reports I assumed the Houston media tailed him wherever he went.  I was still baffled by the suddenness of it all, but at least I had my explanation.  John Travolta and Urban Cowboy explained why the club owners were so confident about making these expensive changes.  What else could it be?  But that did not mean I was happy.  Quite the opposite.  Disco was in serious trouble here in Houston and there was not a damn thing I could do about it.

THE URBAN COWBOY FASHION SHOW

During the summer, another mystery popped up.  I called it the 'Urban Cowboy Fashion Show'.  In addition to daily updates on Travolta's film activities and bad news about the latest Disco gone Western, a lot Houstonians began wearing Western apparel.  Not the normal crowd, mind you.  I gasped when pictures of fashionable, well-heeled socialites wearing gaudy Western outfits began appearing in the Houston Chronicle.  Even stranger, I started seeing women wearing these outfits in public.  Considering they stuck out like a sore thumb, where did they get the nerve? 

Like I said, lots of Houstonians liked Country music.  They also embraced the Country-Western lifestyle.  Houston's freeways were jammed with countless pickup trucks.  And lots of people liked to dress Western.  You know what I mean... cowboy hat, blue jeans, boots, denim shirt.  That was normal attire for many Texans.  Nevertheless, it was creepy to see women wearing the most outlandish Western outfits.  I am not talking normal Western apparel, I am referring to gaudy, expensive, highly inappropriate clothing in public.  Good grief, these outfits were better suited for a fashion show or a costume party.  Don't get me wrong.  Some of these fancy outfits were downright beautiful.  But they did not belong!  Maybe you could strut that stuff in Hollywood or L.A. where eccentricity abounds, but this was not the kind of clothing Houstonians would wear in everyday life.  Fortunately the general population agreed with me, probably because they couldn't afford the clothes.  Whatever the reason, I did not see many examples in public.  But when I did, invariably my jaw dropped in open amazement at the audacity.

Seeing these weird outfits made me mad.  To me this Urban Cowboy nonsense had gone too far.  But it went deeper than that.  I had just received my fifth clue that something really weird was going on.  First Cowboy.  Second, the Western Transformation.  Third, this bizarre Sequel nonsense.  Fourth, the obsession of the Houston media with John.  And now the coincidence of Urban Cowboy being filmed in the Houston area and all the strange outfits showing up.  These clues had to be connected.  Yet again I suspected a mysterious Wizard of Oz was responsible.

Who had the ability to persuade John Travolta, the hottest star on the planet, to accept a role he clearly was not suited for?  Who had the ability to persuade Houston's Disco owners to change their stripes based on a movie 18 months away from its debut?  Who had the power to persuade the Houston media to hype John Travolta and this stupid movie on endless loop?  Who had the power to coordinate the New York-based Fashion Industry to base their Fall fashions on a movie that had not even been filmed yet?  Who had the power to initiate Houston's city-wide mass hysteria over C&W when every other city in the country was still enthralled by Saturday Night Fever? 

Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on in my hometown?