Rooted in Song

For 50 years, Cheatham Street Warehouse and its Bobcat community have nurtured local music 

By Anthony Head

Randy Rogers. Photo courtesy of Christopher McCoy

Fifty years later, Cheatham Street remains in the TXST family. Renowned country musician Randy Rogers, a 2001 TXST graduate, bought the club in 2017 to keep Finlay’s legacy alive. Finlay, who died in 2015, was a mentor to Rogers when Rogers was a student and budding songwriter. Cheatham Street Warehouse “was like a time machine,” Rogers says of his first experiences visiting the club. “It felt like walking back into the 1970s. It had a warm feeling to it. One of my goals [as owner] was to not change it too much.”

Diana Hendricks, another TXST alum, was among the first fans of Cheatham Street, attending shows back in 1974 when Austin redneck rock acts would travel south to play Finlay’s club. “When we first started going there, it was like Christmas every day,” Hendricks recalls. “Progressive country music was taking off — this was the music of ‘us.’” 

Hendricks pitched in with bartending, publicity, payroll, and “just about anything else that needed to get done.” By the time she and Finlay got married in 1978, she’d already realized, “I had a backstage pass to Texas music history.” (Hendricks and Finlay had three children; they divorced in 2002.)

Cheatham Street made history from the start. In 1975, a Texas State undergrad named George Strait auditioned to be the vocalist of a local country group. With Strait at the helm, the Ace in the Hole Band debuted at Cheatham Street on October 13, 1975. Many acclaimed performers followed, either shaking the old warehouse with full bands or playing solo for the weekly songwriters night  —an intimate listening experience at the heart of Finlay’s legacy.

Stevie Ray Vaughn. Photo courtesy of Hal Odom

“Songwriters night is almost reverential, like being in a church,” says Gregg Andrews, a retired TXST history professor and cofounder of the Center for Texas Music History. Also a songwriter, Andrews participated in songwriters nights, and with Finlay’s production, released three albums. Andrews even owned Cheatham Street for a couple of years, investing during a rocky period to help to keep the doors open. 

Andrews says Finlay was a nurturing musical teacher. During the late 1970s and then again in the 2000s, Finlay taught a country music history course at Texas State. “He had the passion for it,” Andrews says. “Of course, he loved his subject matter.”

Finlay died of cancer on March 2, 2015. About two years later, Rogers became Cheatham Street’s new owner. “There are times I enjoy getting things done on the business side as much as I love being on stage,” notes Rogers, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in public relations and a minor in business in 2001.

Texas Legends

Some of Texas’ most famous musicians have played Cheatham Street Warehouse over the years. Here’s a partial list: