Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Don Sanders were notable artists who wrote, performed, and sometimes lived at the coffee house.
In their senior year at Spring Branch High School, John Carrick and Steve Gladson decided that Houston needed a space for teens to listen to folk music.
[1] At the time, the only real space for folk music was in the clubs, coffee houses, and the Jewish Community Center where the Houston Folklore Society held its monthly meetings.
“There was a big involvement in music.”[3] Musicians exchanged sets at the coffee house for room and board, helping Mrs. Carrick manage the building when her son was out of town on gigs of his own.
She took on the role of adoptive mother to the crowds of musicians and kids who swarmed the place, supporting them and keeping up with them even after they left Houston in search of fame.
[9] George Ensle and Jay Boy Adams both separately described Sand Mountain Coffee House as a quiet, respectful venue.
In tribute to their many performances, the back room was decorated with a large mural of Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt, Don Sanders, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Mickey Newbury.
“Everybody was into being esoteric over coffee.”[8] The sober, listening audiences gave artists a kind of attention they would not find at other music clubs and halls with alcohol licenses.
When Guy Clark returned from a failed foray into the Peace Corps several years later, he met his first wife, Susan Spaw, and connected with Van Zandt at Sand Mountain.
The customers left, but I hired her back again because she was good and needed encouragement.”[1] In January 1975, the ten-piece Texas Southern University Jazz Ensemble performed every Sunday from three to six in the afternoon.