Storytellers at The Kessler: Jeffrey Liles Will Give a Masterclass on Dallas Music History

Few things are agreed upon. Jeffrey Liles' place in Dallas is an exception. For decades, Liles has seen the city’s music industry from a constantly shifting perspective. In the ‘90s, as an artist with Cottonmouth, Texas, originally a solo spoken-word vehicle for Liles' short stories that morphed into a full backing band that added trip-hop instrumentation behind it. Liles also wrote for the Dallas Observer, continuing to stay connected with the local music scene from the other side of the stage. In more recent years, he’s assumed artistic director duties at The Kessler Theater, where he leverages what The Kessler does best: promoting as much local music as national touring acts, a perfect duality.

On Saturday, July 5, he’s combining the eras of his life into one all-encompassing showcase of Dallas history. He’ll be taking the stage at The Kessler and resurrecting the Cottonmouth persona to tell stories from his life in Dallas music. Each person who enters will write down a subject on a notecard, whether it be a particular person, band, radio station or record label, and Liles will read from the card and tell its story from his perspective. He put together a similar event at The Kessler in 2017.

“This time I’m trying something new,” Liles says. “It will be sort of like a live podcast set up, with Robert Wilonsky moderating and hosting the show. No band or musical component this time, just a lot of storytelling about music and pop culture.”

Liles was quick to praise Wilonsky, the legendary journalist who might be the only other Dallasite as qualified as Liles to give such a presentation.

“I’ve known Robert for 35 years,” he says. “He and I shared a lot of these experiences in real time. When it comes to really laying out the proper trajectory of popular music in Dallas, Robert is a walking encyclopedia. He can tell you exactly what the weather was like when the Rolling Stones played the Cotton Bowl in 1981.”

Maybe that’ll come up, as could anything from decades of Dallas music. The show’s format is rooted in storytelling, but it will conclude with a curveball. Before the show ends, the house lights will turn on and Liles will sift through the crowd to tell the individual stories of those in attendance. It’s a bold move to place on himself, but Liles is confident.

“Everybody is known for doing something or carrying themselves in a certain way,” he says. “The real objective will be to actually reveal something about these people that they don’t already know about each other.”

The live element is an exciting twist on an event that could otherwise be a bit too academic in the wrong hands.

“When you’re working in a venue every night, people love to come up and just pour their heart out to you,” he says. “They’ll tell me about their friends and family members, their pets, their politics, favorite music and favorite moments here at The Kessler. I just try to remember as much of it as I can.”

There’s an important thing to remember about Liles. As much as he’s the appointed music historian of Dallas, he remains just as involved in the contemporary scene as ever. As he operates in the present, are there any indicators of when art might last through to the future?

“I can tell just by seeing the way that a musician handles their instrument,” he says. “I’ll never forget the first time that I ever saw Emily Elbert playing 'Whipping Post' on an acoustic guitar. She was like 15 years old, and she just attacked the instrument. You could just tell that she had already put in her 10,000 hours in the shed. Not a single bum note or misplaced chord. Not even looking at the neck of the guitar, she just totally owned that thing.”

Now, Elbert is the guitarist for Leon Bridges and made a cameo as the guitarist for Beyoncé during her “Beyoncé Bowl” hometown halftime show on Netflix.

“You could just tell that Emily Elbert was going to make Dallas proud of her, probably sooner rather than later,” Liles says.

Of course, it’ll be impossible to cover a lifetime of stories into a bite-sized evening at The Kessler. Many Dallasites have requested that Liles write a book, and it’s certainly one that we would read. But it appears that, by design, Cottonmouth is the closest thing we’ll ever get.

“I’m encouraging people to bring their video cameras or use their cell phones to record it in real time,” he says. “A book is kind of one-dimensional. A lot of times, you’ll read it once and then put it back on the shelf and never pick it up again. I'd rather people have a video document that they can keep on their desktop computer, something that they can have on in the background while they're checking their email. I've tried writing a book, but I just didn't have the discipline to carve out a year of my life to do it right. I like this idea better. One night. Boom. Done. Plus, doing this in a live setting makes a lot more sense. If I'm telling a story about something that happened at The Kessler, then you're right there in the room where it happened.”

Storytellers at The Kessler: Cottonmouth, Texas will be held on Saturday, July 5, at 7 p.m. at The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis St. Tickets are available starting at $32.42 on Prekindle.