HOME WITH THE ARMADILLO was where Gary P. Nunn wanted to be in the early 1970s — any place but the cold London apartment where he was stuck for several weeks while his band completed a record deal. Today, home is along the Canadian River in eastern Oklahoma, where Nunn runs a herd of cows on old family land and worries whether there will be too much winter left at the end of the hay. Fortunately for him, he still has his night job.

Nunn, Once Homesick In London,
Now At Home On Oklahoma Range

By David Bowser

"I want to go home with the armadillo,
good country music from Amarillo and Abilene,
the friendliest people and the prettiest women you've
ever seen."

The London Homesick Blues — Gary P. Nunn

HANNA, Okla. — He may want to go to Amarillo and Abilene, but he lives on a ranch in Oklahoma with his wife, his son, a herd of mama cows and a cowdog named Tramp.

It's early November and the oak trees are beginning to turn a fiery red in anticipation of the first freeze that's forecast for tonight. Nunn, his wife Ruth, and a neighbor, Andy Whiedel, are running Nunn's cows through the chute.

Tramp is running up and down the chute next to the pens.

"He thinks we're going to cut some bull calves," Ruth says, smiling down at the dog. "He likes that. He gets something to eat."

Tramp is disappointed. He and Ruth turn to chores at the AO Ranch while Nunn and Whiedel load their horses and head down the road to David Whiedel's, Andy's father's place, to preg check first-calf heifers.

The heifers are gathered, penned and checked as Andy's mom announces lunch.

After finishing up what may well be the best pecan pie in the world, the crew saddles up and heads down the road to gather some cows and calves for weaning.

"This place right in here," Nunn says, motioning across the sandy road, "used to belong to my uncle."

Nunn's family settled here on what at one time was Creek Indian land. Cut up into quarter-section plots a century ago, much of the land has since been bought, sold and consolidated into economically viable ranches. The meadows along the Canadian River where it flows into Lake Eufaula are subirrigated, but Nunn, like most ranchers, worries that there won't be enough hay to make it through the winter.

When Nunn was in the sixth grade, his family moved to the farming community of Brownfield, Texas, near Lubbock, but Nunn would return each summer to help his grandparents and uncle.

"From Memorial Day to Labor Day, I was baling hay," Nunn says. "Eight, nine, 10, 11 years old. Every summer. They worked me to death, but I loved it."

He said he liked working as a kid.

"I thought I could do a man's job, and I was proud of that," Nunn said. "I worked daylight to dark."

Nunn feels at home here. This is where he belongs with his horses, his cattle and his music.

"I always wanted a horse," says Nunn. "Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were my heroes. I thought that's the way life ought to be. You were supposed to sing and ride horses and get the bad guys and get the girl. I'm almost there. The

only thing is, we haven't gotten the bad guys yet."

As a youth in West Texas, Nunn was active in sports and was a good student.

"I was a full-time jock," he says. "My mother and dad were school teachers, so I had to make good grades, or I got a whupping when I got home."

He played ball and played in a band, too.

"I played football and then we'd go have a dance, and I'd go play the dance after the football game," Nunn says.

On Friday nights during the fall, he'd change out of him football uniform and go play with his band for the post-game dance.

"Back then, a friend of mine — actually, I didn't even know him then — I heard he bought a guitar, and I spent the next six years of my life over at his house," Nunn says. "We put a little band together and played all during high

school."

After graduating from Brownfield High School in 1964, Nunn headed for Texas Tech in Lubbock and South Plains College in Levelland, where he was a pharmacy major.

While he was in college, he had classes four days a week and was off on Fridays.

"Sometimes we'd go to Austin on the weekend," he says.

He played with a band called The Sparkles.

"We were making good money," Nunn says. "Shoot, I was buying brand new cars and paying cash for them."

In the fall of 1967, he transferred to the University of Texas.

"I got me a band down there," Nunn says. "I was in the pharmacy school down there. I did that for about two more years. Finally, I realized that pharmacy wasn't my cup of tea. I did well in school, but I just couldn't wait to get

out of class and get to the nightclub where the gig was."

The "Austin sound" was just beginning to develop, and Nunn was present at its creation.

His big break came when Michael Martin Murphy moved to the Texas state capitol.

In 1972, when Murphy came to Austin, he offered Nunn a job.

"He was pretty famous in the folky songwriting crowd for his writing ability, so I was pretty flattered," Nunn says. "We made a couple of records, 'Geronomo's Cadillac' and 'Cosmic Cowboy.'"

The pictures from the album covers were taken at Hanna.

"We used to come up here and sit out there in that old bunkhouse and write songs," Nunn says. "Then Jerry Jeff Walker came to town, and we started playing with him."

And with Willie Nelson.

That's when the progressive country trend broke out of Austin.

"I was there from day one," Nunn says. "I greeted Murphy. He's kind of the one that got it started. Then I was there to greet Jerry Jeff and Willie. I played with Willie when he first came to town. At one time I was playing with Willie, Jerry Jeff and Murphy."

Nunn had always dabbled at writing songs, but never got much encouragement from the people he was around.

"But Murphy, when he came, he encouraged me to write," Nunn said. "Just him saying it kind of turned my whole life around. I didn't care what anybody said after that."

Nunn says he's always tried to be a positive influence on other people.

"When they've talked to me, I've told them to keep writing rather than saying this is no good," Nunn says. "The right word from the right person can turn the whole face of society around."

Nunn's life turned around in Europe. I was there that he wrote "The London Homesick Blues," and it was there that he met his wife.

"I was working with Michael Murphy, and he got an English record deal," Nunn recalls.

Murphy's wife was English. When he and the band went to the British Isles, Murphy spent a lot of time touring the country with his wife.

"He put me up in the third floor flat with his brother-in-law, this English guy," Nunn says. "They were pretty well-to-do young businessmen and students."

Nunn spent several weeks in the third floor flat with little heat during the day.

"Over there the heat goes off in the morning and comes on in the evening," he says. "It'd get pretty cold in that place. It'd average about 60 degrees in that house during the daytime. One day I had my guitar in my hand and was

wandering around that room."

A song was born.

Nunn met his wife in Switzerland.

"I was touring in Europe quite a bit, and we had this one stop in Zurich where they keep you busy for about three or four weeks at a time," Nunn says.

You play seven nights a week for about three or four weeks. You play four 50-minute sets, starting at 8 p.m. and finishing at midnight. You have 10-minute breaks. As soon as you finish at midnight, they run everybody out and they

have a dinner. They serve the band dinner. As long as you wanted to eat and drink, they'd serve you. Sometimes we wouldn't get to bed until four or five in the morning. We'd play and jam."

One night a lovely Swiss lass was there, and they began bantering. He told her he couldn't find any girls at home to marry. She wanted to know if she moved to Texas, could she ride horses?

"She finally said, 'Okay, stand up and turn around. I want to see what I'm getting here,'" Nunn laughs.

They were married, and in 1986, they moved to Hanna.

Nunn quips that he started out with 80 acres, six cows and a bull.

"My brother kept going to the bank and borrowing this money every year," Nunn says. "He'd borrow $1000 each year, and he did this about five or six years. I'd buy the feed for these cattle. When the note would come due, I'd pay it. After about three years of that I told him I'd pay the note, but these cows are mine. Dadgum if he didn't go mortgage them again. I got a note from the bank. I went and paid it. The next fall, he went and gathered my calves! I

probably had about $10,000 in those six cows. I had some expensive cows."

Although the herd grew, Nunn's taken advantage of the market the last few years to cull deeply. He only has about 64 cows left.

"It's hard," he says. "I don't know how farmers and ranchers get by. Expenses are so high, materials, feed. I don't see how anybody can make a living off of it."

This last summer hit Nunn like most ranchers across Oklahoma and Texas.

"It didn't rain until the middle of September," he says. "From the 15th of June to the 15th of September, it didn't rain."

They had 100 days of 100-degree weather.

"It's a little bit more than I can handle," he says.

Over the years, he's swapped, traded and bought about 800 acres along the river.

These days, it's not unusual for ranchers to have a day job. In Nunn's case, it's a night job.

On weekends, he can usually be found on the road with his band, playing at a Texas hill country honky-tonk or private party. He's a regular at The Broken Spoke, an Austin institution.

"What I like about the hill country," he says, "are the German Catholics. The whole family comes to the dance hall and has a good time."

During the week, he's usually back at his place at Hanna, building fence, checking cattle or riding the river looking for lost calves.

Right now, he says, he's trying to balance his life between his music and family. He's spending more time with the publishing end of the music business, helping new artists along the sometimes rocky road, and debating about changes to the AO Ranch. He thinks maybe he'll get a registered herd and spend some time developing and breeding some good ranch horses.

"Horses are doing pretty good now," he says. "For a well trained horse, you can get quite a bit. For a weanling colt, you can get $1000. I've been giving them away for $500, just trying to get rid of them."

He says he doesn't plan on giving up his night job yet, acknowledging that ranching can sometimes be more risky than the music business.

"When a Texan fancies he'll take his chances,

Chances will be taken." The London Homesick Blues — Gary P. Nunn