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

XIV. Rumor of My Demise

66 XIV RumorofMyDemise The rumor of my demise certainly spread far. Larry Monroe, who has been a mainstay of the University of Texas’ radio station for over 25 years, remembers, “I had been working at KUT foralittleoverayearandahalfonDecember20,1982.Thatwasmylast night of work for a few days because I was flying back to my hometown for the Christmas holidays. I finished my blues program, ‘Blue Monday ,’ at midnight and, early in the morning of the 21st, left the station. I pulled my old blue Chevy onto I-35 southbound and as I pulled off the freeway at the Riverside exit I could see several emergency vehicles with their lights flashing. A police car was blocking the lanes and an officer was diverting traffic. As I made my turn I could see the aftermath of a very nasty automobile accident. I only had a moment to look, but I could tell from the debris that it had been a pretty bad crash. I went on home and packed for my trip to Indiana. “I got to the airport a few hours later and bought an Austin American-Statesman and slipped it into my carry-on bag. After I boarded the plane, I pulled out the paper as I sat waiting for takeoff. I remembered the accident that I had seen and I looked to see if it had made the early edition. And there it was in the headline: ‘Austin Mu- Rumor of My Demise � 67 sician Vince Bell Killed In Auto Accident.’ I read the piece just as the jet rolled down the runway and lifted off the tarmac into the sky. The article was about the accident that I had seen, and said Vince Bell had died at the scene from severe injuries. I looked to my right, out the window, at Austin receding as the plane climbed and thought about what I had just read. Vince was a prominent singer-songwriter in Austin and I had seen the aftermath of the car crash that had killed him. “After I returned to Austin a week or so later I told a friend that I had seen the accident that Vince Bell had died in, and he interrupted me, ‘Vince didn’t die. He’s in bad shape, but he is alive.’ I said I had read in the paper the next morning that he had died at the scene, but my friend confirmed that Vince had, indeed, survived the accident and the report in the paper was incorrect. The paper I had bought at the airport was the earliest edition of the day, and all editions after that one omitted the mention. I was one of the few who had seen the incorrect report, and since I had read it on the way out of town I didn’t learn the truth for several days.” Shary remembers, “From what I understood, Vince was dead at the scene and then revived. His liver was cut almost in half and he had a bad, bad closed-head injury. That car was mangled. EMS was on the scene a minute and a half later and was able to revive him. He was in surgery all night long.” In Houston, Tim Leatherwood, the owner of Anderson Fair and an old friend, was notified. “Eric Taylor called me and said in a hysterical voice that Vince had been killed in a car wreck. Of course, your first comment is, ‘You’re kidding?’ Stupid comment, but nonetheless it usually comes out. “Eric said, ‘No, I just talked to somebody in Austin, and they’ve taken him to Brackenridge and he’s dead.’ 68 � One Man’s Music: The Life and Times of Texas Songwriter Vince Bell “I don’t remember who I was with that night but we immediately broke out a bottle of Jack Daniels and began to drink—drink a fond farewell to the wild and wacky Vince Bell. And then, I believe it was within a couple of hours because we hadn’t finished the damn bottle, I got another phone call. Hold everything, stop the presses.” My long-time and close friend Bill Browder concludes with his story, “The rumors were flying around Austin that Vince was dead. I figured that Don Sanders would know. I called Don in Houston and he said Vince wasn’t dead but had been in a bad wreck. He told me where he was...