Jim Remembers Dix Bruce
I am full of fond memories of Dix Bruce. I grew to appreciate the depth of this wonderful person through years of side by side experience, we had our music duo beginning in 1994.
While on tour you learn a lot about a person, you also learn if they are a good person. A lot of what I learned about Dix was on those tours. He was a dedicated husband and father. He would reminisce about his wife Kathi and daughter Gennie and how important were to him, what fun he had being a dad, great stories. He would talk about how Kathi was such a dedicated mother. He truly loved that part of his life the most.
His second love was music for sure. He dedicated most of his life to it. He was a real working musician, hustling gigs wherever he could find them. He also worked at Arhoolie Records and many other music related jobs; recording engineer, music teacher, song writer, music columnist for many publications, and one of his primary writing jobs was for the Mel Bay Publishing company, with whom he published around 60 music instruction books
Dix and I recorded 4 duo CDs together. On our second CD “The Way Things Are” we recorded an original song of Dix’s called “When I Die”. I can’t express the deep connection between that song and the way I feel now. I wish he could somehow tell us all now that he knows…
Lyrics - When I Die
(Dix Bruce)
Will I float with the clouds up above when I die?
With the stars in the heavens, will I fly?
Will I shine with the sun, bound to the earth as one,
When I die, when I die?
Will my soul be set free to walk the shallow stream
Of the sweet thoughts and dreams in my mind?
Will my heart beat as one with the earth and the sun?
When I die, when I die.
Will I roam through the fields, down the mountains, ‘cross the land,
Wade the rivers down to the ocean sand?
Will I touch trusted friends in a whisper of the wind?
When I die, when I die.
Can I be with my family, can I visit with my friends,
As they spend the short time they were lent?
Will they quietly know that I really did not go,
When I die, when I die
Will the ones that I love someday join me up above?
Will we laugh, will we sing, will we cry?
Together will we be through all eternity,
When I die, when I die?
Will I grow in the hearts of those I have known?
Will they think of me fondly now and then?
Will I live on and on when my life on earth is done,
When I die, when I die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-zVNPqc1E
I loved playing that song with him from the first time he played it to me and every show we performed it on. People connect to that song. One of the other CDs we recorded is called Brothers At Heart, which sums up how we felt about each other, truly brothers at heart.
In the early 2000’s Martin Guitar Rep. Joe McNamera contacted us and asked if we would be interested in becoming Clinicians for Martin Guitar Company. Joe asked many of his clients whom they would recommend to demo Martin Guitars, he said time after time our names came up. Of course we took the job, what better fit could there be than having two Martin Guitar fans demo guitars for their company? The job, if one could call it that, was to go to stores or events that feature Martin Guitars and play them for the attendees, is that a dream job or what? We worked primarily with Joe in California and Nevada, and with Larry Barnwell in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah. Dix loved that gig, appreciation for his talent coming to him without him having to go out and hustle for it.
We toured from San Diego California to Talkeetna Alaska, all over and in between. We played all around the midwest. Dix is from Madison Wisconsin, so he had connections there. While he was in college he would go hear the local favorites The Goose Island Ramblers. Dix made friends with the band members, did interviews with them and greatly appreciated the wealth of traditional music they played, which helped Dix on his path to loving acoustic music.
It was that connection that lead me to meeting the band members of the Ramblers while we were on tour and that lead to playing a very special guitar I was to acquire 21 years later. When I was hanging out with Wendy Whitford (the Ramblers guitarist) at a party, he swapped guitars with me and jammed a bit. The guitar is a 1944 D-28. Wendy’s wife gave it to him as a wedding gift in 1944. Wendy passed away in 2000, the accordionist in the band, Bruce Bollerud, called Dix and told him the guitar might be for sale and he should call them. Dix didn’t feel like he needed another guitar at that time and told me I should call. It took me 17 years, but I called while passing through on another tour. They still had the guitar and kindly sold it to me. That would have never happened without my old buddy Dix Bruce.
We recorded a tribute to Wendy on our 3rd CD Brothers at Heart. The song was written by Wendy Whitford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-zVNPqc1E
We recorded it last year as a tribute to Wendy and his song writing. Dix was always giving tribute to those who came before.
In this world you can only hope to ever have a kind, loving, honest, fair, super talented, and funny friend in your life, I am fortunate to have had that with Dix Bruce. Goodbye Ole Pal, gone but not forgotten.
You will live on through your music and great great great grand children - forever.
Jim Nunally
Feb. 2nd, 2023