Wednesday Folk Festival Celebrating A Most Merry 2023 Birthday of Bright Spirited Troubadour Brian Cutean (QTN)
by Robert Wilkinson
June 28 is the birthday of an amazing folk singer with a great sense of humor!
I first met Brian in the late 70s in Austin when I was producing the Texas Festivals of Metaphysics and Music, a remarkable experiment in creating a free 4 day multi-location rolling festival combining every possible musical genre, philosophical and metaphysical talks, poetry, dinners, kid’s events, Tai Chi Sword form performances, Native American and South Indian temple dancing, and more! It was an amazing annual party between 1978-1982, and a good time was had by all.! “Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end….
Those years I made a lot of friends in various musical communities, one of which was the national folk community who frequently passed through or lived in central Texas. Brian is a remarkable folk singer-songwriter, but more than that, he's a genuinely spiritual man of deep awareness coupled with a playful disposition. I re-connected with him during my 2011 trip to the Kerrville Folk Festival. It was great establishing orbital sequencing with him, along with other great musicians I've been tight with but haven't seen in over 25 years, including multi-instrumentalist and supremo musicologist David Amram, the "Shakespeare of the American West" Bobby Bridger, Frank Hill, Bill Oliver, and quite a few more "Kerrverts." If you want to check out the work of Doctor of Hangoutology David Amram, when you’re done here please check out the article Happy 2021 Birthday to Jersey Boy Bob Gaudio and Original Hipster David Amram in the archives of last November.
Brian coordinated the songwriters performing on Chapel Hill at Kerrville when I was there, and there were some great performances from folkies who came in from all over North America. If you can ever get to Kerrville in late May and early June, you should make the pilgrimage to Rod's Quiet Valley Ranch. It's a trip everyone should experience at least once in their lives!
Today I found some videos of various performances, so enjoy the unique talent of a dear friend, good Brother, and metaphysical man, Mister Brian QTN.
This just surfaced, and clearly it’s an ACTV producer! This was recorded at the 8th Annual Austin Music Umbrella Songwriters Competition in the Summer of 1986 when Brian won the Charles Kirkley Memorial award. For your enjoyment, courtesy of the wayback machine, here’s the playful “The Little Package.”
From the KUTX archives, Brian at Zilker Park at the Annie Street Arts Collective Secret Concert performing “Next Big Thing”
From May 1991 at the Kerrville Folk Festival Ballad Tree (2 years before the 500 year old tree was hit by lightning), Brian and Ky Hote giving us “All I Can Do When the Music Comes Out of Me is Take Up My Guitar and Play”
From 2004, from Hearthearthearth, “Everywhere I Need to Be”
At Kerrville 2006, a blurry but great set of intros and performances by Brian of
From a performance Brian gave in January 2011 in Portland, Oregon, we have: "Mad In The Heavens"
Here's Brian doing the very jazzy "Three Little Letters."
We finish this trifecta with "Glimpse (a Lorca)"
From a gig in Vancouver, WA with Linky Dickson, Adam and Kris, Bluegrass Dave, Anne Feeney, and others, here's "Single Payer."
Here’s an audio-only track from “Road Trip Summer 2011,” the beautiful “Strong Wind”
I found this audio only performance at the 2012 Kerrville Folk Festival Crow’s Nest Campfire of his famous tune “The “Secret Cow”
This year his performance with Spoo Willoughby in Paul Henry’s Art Gallery in Hammond Indiana in October 2013 is gone, which is just as well. He and Spoo did one of the most tortured versions of “Please Please Me,” along with “Train Song” and “Needs Fixing,” making it clear that Spoo should not try out for the Voice.
From the 2012 Kerrville Folk Festival, Brian and friends giving us the sweet ballad titled “Daybroughtlove”
From November 2013, Brian’s take on the iconic Bob Dylan/Band song at the Next Waltz 2013 at the Alberta Rose Theatre! “This Wheel’s On Fire”
At the 2014 Robert Vignaud memorial show, “Some of our Parts” and “Small Word.”
And finally, something from July 2020 at Alberta Rose Theater. Still the storyteller! ”The Kings of Time
For the encore, Brian at the 2022 Kerrville Folk Festival 50th Anniversary Crow’s Nest in the Round, June 2, 2022. For your enjoyment, “Darkness Comes”
Here’s a strange slice of Austin back in the day! I helped found this Co-op, and this minidocumentary with crummy audio features Brian’s guitar in the background. This was done around the time I was producing and directing television at the same facility (but with better sound and camera work!)
Wheatsville Coop – Austin Texas (1986)
He also has a lot going right now! Check out Brian Cutean Band Camp
By all means, if you want to know more, check out Brian's website. You can find him at QTNRG.org along with cds he’s selling and all kinds of random philosophical Zen gems. He also has created "Bite Sized Mantras" subtitled "fifty-two contemplations to chew on." Three to whet your appetite:
"You are in the driver's seat listening to directions from your clarity. Who is driving really? Your wheels are true."
"Situations, beings and seasons are constant in change. No use getting comfortable with how things are - kaleidoscopic, panoramic, cascading and careening. Fusion and confusion, swift and never totally stable - all moving dunes of sand."
"You are hereby an unlimited being, extremely capable of all you came to do. You will be assisted by other exceptional beings who magnify the resonance of your tones in the Grande Chord. Work together to move many stones."
By all means go on over to his site and check out even more songs and the wonderful shape shifting world of Brian Cutean. You may want to buy a deck of 52 Bite Sized Mantras while you're there!
So here's a very Happy and Merry Solar Return and Birthday to you, Brian, and may you have many more jokes and songs to offer the world. I'll close with a quote you sent me: "June 28 is the day I reentered the earthly sphere and the only thing there is to atmosphere is sphere itself!"
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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