Credits
Freeman co-wrote "Baboom/Mama Said" on The Vaughan Brothers' 1990 album, Family Style
He played piano on Jimmie Vaughan's 1994 album, Strange Pleasure, and organ on his 1998 follow-up, Out There.
He co-wrote "Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom Room" on Blondie's 1999 No Exit album.
Freeman played guitar on Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band's Grammy Award winning live album, Shoutin' in Key (2000).
He played guitar on Percy Sledge's 2004 album, Shining Through the Rain, and co-wrote with Fontaine Brown the song "Love Come and Rescue Me".
He played guitar on Bob Dylan’s 2006 album Modern Times.
Freeman played guitar, organ and piano on Doyle Bramhall's 2007 album, Is It News.
He played guitar on two of Barry Goldberg's albums, Stoned Again (2002) and In the Groove (2018).
Discography
Blues Cruise (1986) – Amazing
Out of the Blue (1987) – Amazing
Denny Freeman (1991) – Amazing
A Tone for My Sins (1997) – Dallas Blues Society
Denny Freeman and the Cobras (live album) (2000) – Crosscut (Germany)
Twang Bang (2006) – V8 Records
Diggin on Dylan (2012) – V8 Records
Denny Freeman
August 7, 1944 - April 25, 2021
Known as the guitarists’ guitarist in Guitar Town, Denny Freeman died after a short fight with liver cancer. He was born August 7, 1944 in Orlando, Florida, and spent his growing up years in Dallas.
In the late 1960s he joined an exodus of blues and rock musicians from Dallas to Austin that included his friends Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Vaughan, Alex Napier, among others. Austin was inexpensive and accommodating enough for talented young musicians to woodshed and network.
His first Austin band was the Storm, which included Jimmie Vaughan, a solid blues band that became one of the best draws at the One Knite, a storied downtown dive where many of the young white blues player congregated.
Soon after, he rolled into the band Southern Feeling with Angela Strehli, and then with Paul Ray and the Cobras. Denny was a part of that band for most of the 1970s and into the late 80s. The first version of Paul Ray & the Cobras boasted a mixed-race lineup featuring Denny, his cohort from Dallas Alex Napier on bass, and locals John Henry Alexander on drums and Oscar "Bubu" Watson on percussion. Watson was replaced on drums by Rodney Craig, a very young Stevie Vaughan was added on second guitar, and Joe Sublett joined on saxophone. This classic Cobras lineup that won Band of the Year in the Austin Sun's 1977 Music Poll, a remarkable feat for a band known for its blues and rhythm and blues during Austin's Cosmic Cowboy days. The band launched Vaughan's explosive rise to stardom.
Denny was part of the Antone’s house band from that storied blues nightclub’s opening in 1975 through the mid 1980s. That group of musicians backed up blues masters like Albert King, Otis Rush, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Percy Sledge, and Lazy Lester, among others.
Although Denny Freeman is primarily known as a guitar player, Freeman also played piano and electronic organ, both in concert and on various recordings. As part of the Antone’s band, he supported Stevie Ray Vaughan, Angela Strehli, Jimmie Vaughan, and Lou Ann Barton on the club’s stage, in the studio, and on television’s Austin City Limits.
While living in Los Angeles from 1992 to 2004, he joined Taj Mahal’s and won a Grammy for the 2000 album Shoutin In Key. After moving back to Austin in 2004, Freeman was recruited to play lead guitar in Bob Dylan’s touring back for five years and record with Dylan on the Modern Times album.
In 2010 Denny was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame. When notified of the honor, he sent this note to his friend Margaret Moser, the Austin Music Awards director, letting her know what he intended to say:
“I was a part of something very special, and important, I think, in the 1970s and 1980s here in Austin, and there isn't much left of it now. A bunch of us moved here: me in 1970, followed by Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall, Paul Ray, then Stevie, Angela Strehli, Lou Ann Barton, Clifford Antone, and many others. Derek O'Brien was already here.
“Everyone knows about Jimmie and Stevie and Clifford, but there were many others. We came to play blues. Not many folks cared at the time, but of course Jimmie, Stevie, and Antone's all became pretty well known around the country and the world later on. There was much music going on in Austin at the time, and it was all good, but as is so often the case, blues can get ignored, forgotten about. There just isn't much left of what we were doing, even as special and magical as it was.”
The Denny Freeman Band – Denny, guitarist John X Reed, bassist Speedy Sparks, and drummer Rodney Craig – hosted a Friday evening residency at the Saxon Pub for seven years that wrapped in March 2020 when the pandemic ended live music in Austin as we knew it. They called themselves 2GBD (2 guitars, bass and drums) because that’s exactly what these no-nonsense players were. During this time Denny was also part of the Koolerators, for which he played lap steel and guitar, and the John X Reed band that held a regular Wednesday night gig at C-Boy’s Heart & Soul.
