On his new album Full, Jon Dee Graham promises that "something very wonderful is going to happen." He turned that promise into a challenge when met to talk about the album over espresso shakes at Flipnotics, a coffee shop near Austin's Zilker Park.

"If you pay attention in the course of the day, I guarantee you six very wonderful things will happen," he said. Beginners like me have to start small, so he asked me to find three wonderful things the next day.

Challenge accepted. But before I set out to complete the challenge, Graham made sure I knew that something wonderful doesn't necessarily have to be something conventionally beautiful.

"This morning, I walked out the front door and my dog was laughing. I swear to you he was laughing. He was making this little chuffing sound with a smile from here to here. It was fucking wonderful."

Full is itself something wonderful (review). What turned into Graham's fifth studio album was recorded as a series of demo tracks. "It was never really intended to be an album," he said. "It was supposed to be just demos and work tapes." But when the three-day session ended and Graham listened to the recordings, he realized the raw tracks just might constitute the best record of his career.

Critics agree. Writing in the Austin Chronicle, Andy Langer said the album might as well be called Graham's Greatest Hits. And No Depression awarded Graham the cover along with ex-True Believer Alejandro Escovedo.

Many of the songs are at least semi-biographical, reflecting some of the trials Graham and his family have endured since 2004's The Great Battle. He was audited by the IRS. He parted ways with long-time label New West Records. His youngest son Willie was diagnosed with Legg-Perthes disease, a rare childhood disorder that causes bones in the hips to disintegrate.

"After the last few years I've just felt full with everything. And not just full like satisfied and complacent, but full with thorny, hurtful things and with really beautiful things, and just generally full to the brim."

With songs like the escapist fantasy "Swept Away" and the real-life pirate tale "Tie a Knot," there's the darkness many have come to expect from Graham's work.

But through that darkness one can also detect a strong thread of hope.

One of Graham's favorite songs is "Remain," which explores the complicated realities of enduring love. It takes more than sex to keep a relationship alive, he argues. Each partner must make a conscious decision to remain — through the good and the bad.

"There's that brilliant chemical flash of first love. Clearly it's biochemical because it fades within 3 to 6 months. But it's what remains after that. Are you willing to hold their hair while they throw up? Are you willing to get up in the middle of the night when the baby is sick? That's love. It's the kind of love you choose."

Hope also comes in the form of strangers. Though Graham has a decent following here in the States, he's perhaps more widely recognized across the Atlantic. On a recent trip to Amsterdam with Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Jon Dee and Scrappy admired the freedom of the Dutch natives.

"I started noticing how all the kids were unafraid — little kids, like 6 or 7 years old walking home from school through the middle of a huge city, and young girls on bikes," he said. "And I looked at Scrappy and said, 'How can it not be alright? Look around, here's some people that figured it out.' Not to say they're not without problems, but they've come up with elegant solutions to many of life's thorny problems."

Graham uses his music to explore some of those thorny problems. The fact Full exists is a testament to the therapeutic power of songwriting.

"The songs were written over the course of a month and it was recorded in two and a half days. Obviously, I had something to get out."

Live performances provide a similar release. Graham's Wednesday night shows at the Continental Club have become something of an Austin institution over the last 6 years. He usually recognizes half the faces in the crowd, and that comfort level gives Graham and his full band the creative space they need to try out new songs and explore new sounds.

"We basically rehearse on Wednesday nights, in front of a live crowd, and that's part of the fun of the gig. When I start into a new song, either they get it and it's the most exhilarating thing on earth, or it's a train wreck and it's hilarious watching these guys try to figure out what's coming next."

Sunday nights at the Saxon Pub then provide a bookend to Graham's workweek. Here he plays with the Resentments, which includes friends Stephen Bruton, Bruce Hughes, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, and John Chipman. Once dubbed "the best bar band in America," the Resentments have released two studio albums and one live recording.

Whether playing the Continental Club or the Saxon Pub, Graham has come a long way from his West Texas roots.

He was born in Levelland but raised mostly in the border town of Quemado. His father was a farmer, and his mother a 3rd grade teacher with a doctorate in education. They met at a Bob Wills dance in Abilene.

Music was central to the household. Jon Dee grew up listening to Wills, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard — plus the classical music favored by his mother. Around age 13, he discovered his older brother's classic rock albums and fell for Led Zeppelin and Santana. At school functions, he danced to border music from the likes of Sonny and the Sunliners.

Then as a student at the University of Texas he discovered punk rock. "When I heard the Clash and the Ramones, it was like, 'I'm done. I've heard what I need to hear. I want a lot more of this.'"

Graham eventually dropped out of college and joined the Skunks, a seminal Austin punk band that eventually opened for both the Clash and the Ramones. After a tumultuous year, he left the Skunks for a stint with Lou Ann Barton's blues band, and then formed the True Believers with Alejandro and Javier Escovedo.

Graham's musical tastes evolved along with his penchant for shifting styles. Once the shine began to fade from punk, he worked his way to Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, then Paul Simon and early Simon & Garfunkel for songwriting and lyrics, and Tom Waits as model for an all-around singer/songwriter.

Now he's established his own formidable career, Graham rarely looks to contemporaries for inspiration.

"I've been doing this for 25 years, and it's really hard for me to hear a band without saying, 'Oh, that's just like so-and-so back in '83.' Or 'Wow, that's so good, I'll never be that good, I'm going to quit.' Or 'I'm so much better than this, so why do they have a major label deal and I don't?' It's all comparison and judgment. I don't have time for that."

These days it's mostly jazz and classical music played in the Graham household. And if you listen closely, you can hear the jazz influence in Graham's guitar work. "I play as atonal as [Ornette] Coleman a lot of times," he said. "I love the wrong note. It makes people question what they're hearing."

The other music drifting through the Graham home is the sound of Willie busily buzzing about, despite the disease attacking his hips.

"I'll ask him, 'Does your hip hurt?' And he's like, 'Oh yeah, it hurts.' And then he gets up and runs to the tree and starts climbing it."

Graham credits his son's unflagging energy for helping keep him mobile while others with Legg-Perthes struggle simply to walk. Instead of letting the pain slow him down, he somehow musters the strength and perseverance to keep up the activities most 6-year-olds take for granted.

"It's almost like he sees the bigger picture," he said of his young warrior. "All he wants to know is that this will be over some day."

And it will be over some day. Legg-Perthes typically lasts around four years in children Willie's age. He may not grow as tall as most of his peers, but chances are he'll enter adolescence with few lasting effects.

All things considered, Graham couldn't be happier. He loves living in Austin. He's proud of his new album. He's surrounded by a loving, supportive family.

"Everyone would like to make a little more money, but I have a really good life. I get to do what I want. I get to play where I want. I tour enough to keep it going in other parts of the country. I'm happy being a cult artist."

Widespread fame and fortune may not be in the cards, but that's just fine with Graham. After all, he's plenty full as it is, and he'll keep treasuring all the wonderful things that make up everyday life.

I didn't forget about Jon Dee challenging me to identify three wonderful things from today:

1) My 5-year-old daughter awoke in an unusually playful mood this morning.
2) The wonderful aromas of freshly baked banana bread and chocolate chip cookies greeted me when I returned home from the office.
3) And then as my wife and I readied our children for bed, my 4-year-old son excitedly beckoned me into his room, where he had positioned his favorite stuffed animal to look as though it was reading a picture book.

Challenge completed.

Patrick Nichols (email)
This Is Texas Music
May 2006