One Man's Music: The Life and Times of Texas Songwriter Vince Bell

XXVIII. Give Chance a Chance

190 XXVIII GiveChanceaChance Sarah, My memories of the West Indies are fresh and nostalgic. I think I’ll always believe it was a charmed time, even through all the cancellations. One of the best parts was talking to you. I remember the flower tree full of birds next to a green sea with no waves. I’ll never forget negotiating the price of bread in those Caribbean towns, and drinking the local rum. Two days gone from the islands and my memories glow, but not as brightly as my thoughts of you. Vince Bob Sturtevant remembers, “The time in the Virgin Islands was not easy for Vince, but I felt it would be good for him to go out there and get stretched. Of course, I didn’t know that he was going to have nothing to eat but bread for a month. But when he came back, he had had an adventure, and I think he felt more independent. And he did make enough money to pay Fitz back, which is Vince from A to Z—he settles his accounts.” Sarah, Seeing you was the best. We’ve been apart for years. It’s like no time has elapsed. This last weekend was magic. I don’t feel like a victim anymore. I wanna be a star in your movie. Vince Give Chance a Chance � 191 More long-distance phone calls and two weeks later, I packed up my belongings for the drive to San Francisco. I was moving. My first few weeks were spent at a good friend’s, Hobart Taylor. HobartandIhadmetinHoustonover15yearsago.Wehadhadmany friends in common over those years, which helped us conceive a new business relationship. Hobart became my manager, and with the tact of a statesman, he announced my renaissance into music. “I was living in San Francisco when Vince had his accident,” says Hobart, “and working with Lucinda Williams at the time. I came to Texas once or twice a year, and Vince and I would visit for an hour or two, or a lunch. Because I didn’t see him regularly, I could watch the changes like snapshots. In the early days, he was definitely tentative, a wounded puppy. I was convinced from the first, because of his arrogance and strength, that he’d whip it. “A couple of the earliest memories I have of Vince are of how much he loved dogs, and the incredible relationship he had with them. Another is one of the first times I met Vince before the accident. It was upstairs in the backroom at Houlihan’s in Houston. He was really full of himself, energetic and powerful. The impression I had was that this was someone who definitely thought he was a legend in his own time. Of course then I got to know and love him. “A major difference after the accident was that he really focused on you and what you said rather than talking about himself all the time. “I had always wanted to work with Vince. I had told a friend years before that Vince was one of the great songwriters in Houston, that he was also a great performer and had star quality. I was a little intimidated by him and wanted to work with Lucinda for a while and see how that went before I approached Vince about working together. When he came to San Francisco, I was really happy to see him, and gladIhadasituationthatlethimlivewithmeforawhile.Ireallyloved him. I didn’t know quite what we were going to do, but I thought he 192 � One Man’s Music: The Life and Times of Texas Songwriter Vince Bell had written some of the best songs ever and that it would be great to get them known—to show them to some of the people I had been meeting, if nothing else. He convinced me to be his manager. His wry wit and strong sense of irony also convinced me that he still had it. “It wasn’t easy, though. When you start managing someone you always see the optimal outcome, but the experience is often different. You have to go on and hope that some of the world will see what you are trying to do and be ever-so-slowly influenced. There were three things I thought that Vince needed to do at that point, after being away from the business for so long: He needed to perform, he needed...