You gotta believe when the Good Lord and Dr. Frank Payne (who played quarterback with Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker on those great SMU football teams coached by Rusty Russell), got serious about saving Alan Brandon Aly’s life when he developed pneumonia at birth and was hanging on in an incubator, something big was in store for the “soon to be little drummer boy” somewhere down the line.
 I remember riding on the elevator at the hospital when the door opened and in stepped Dr. Payne. I glanced at his name tag and asked him if he was the guy who handed the football off to Doak when he made All American playing in the Cotton Bowl for the Mustangs. Then I introduced myself.
“Wow,” he said, “Brandon Aly must be your son. I just found what was causing his problems. He’s gonna be just fine. Wouldn’t surprise me if some day he turned out to be a pretty good football player, too.”
From that day on, Brandon seemed pre-destined for greatness. To celebrate his first birthday, a small United States “baby flag” flew over the capital in Washington, D.C. in his honor.
 A Dallas congressman told Brandon’s mom that every year a select number of babies are honored. It’s traditional. Eventually, the flag and a framed certificate verifying the flag flew over the capital in his honor was delivered to Brandon’s home. It was the first of many awards and citations he was to receive (which later included a platinum and gold record as a member of the musical group, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians).
Then there was the time he went to Beverly Hills, California to be honored at the ASCAP Music Awards, in 1991, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where he received an award as the co-writer of the “most played song” of the survey year 1990 (“What I Am”). In attendance were such personalities as Dick Clark and Rod Stewart.
“I knew I was going to be honored,” he told me, modestly, “but I was so in awe being there with all those great performers, (who were at a cocktail mixer before the show), when they called my name I was stunned. I had prepared an acceptance speech, but when I got up there on the podium, saw this monster picture of me on the TV screen, I was speechless.”
 In 1995, Brandon went to Washington, D.C. as an official ASCAP delegate to lobby for the Digital Home Recording Rights Act. He spent two days on the Hill meeting with Congressmen and State Representatives. The purpose of his visit was to try to put laws into place to protect the artist from any financial loses due to the then-new Digital technology.
“At that time, it was only ADAT tape machines that we were worried about,” Brandon recalled. “The MP3 and the Recordable Compact Disk had not even been invented then. But, we all knew that we had to pass the laws to protect everyone from any future developments that might occur.”
 It probably never dawned on Brandon or any other delegates at the Washington meetings that Digital technology would later almost single-handedly bring the whole record industry to its knees. But, on the other hand, maybe they had some kind of vision.
Whatever, it’s sorta frightening to think what might have happened if those delegates had been complacent and hadn’t gone to bat for their own interests as well as others in the music business today. Because of their insight and their determination to take affirmative action, a whole lot of composers and publishers in America owe them a great deal of gratitude.
 Funny how things work out. Like Dr. Frank Payne’s prediction, Brandon did play football at the same high school where his daddy played, but he re-injured the collarbone he broke while racing for a medal on the ski slopes of Vail, way before he ever became a teenager, and that brought an abrupt end to his budding athletic aspirations, and ushered in his musical career.
Actually, to no one’s surprise. Music runs deep in Brandon’s roots. His late grand mother, Alliene Brandon Webb, was an accomplished piano player, conductor and composer. During the 1950’s and 1960’s she had many published songs with major New York publishing houses, including the popular Christmas standard, “’Twas The Night Before Christmas” which she composed for Clement Moore’s poem.
 His mother, Carol Brandon, was next to carry on the musical tradition in the family. After years of formal piano training and choral music (and an appearance on the Arthur Godfrey TV Show), she stunned members of her Southern Baptist family by announcing that she planned to entertain professionally in nightclubs and “honky-tonks.”
 Brandon first joined her on stage at the age of six with a small set of cocktail drums. They performed together for many years, playing everything from disco to dixieland and everywhere from speakeasies to country clubs. Carol taught Brandon the “street smarts” of the music business and that, combined with his natural ability and flare, gave him the savvy he needed to eventually launch his own musical career. Small wonder then that he used his natural skills to become an entertainer just like his mother, albeit at an earlier age.
While still a junior high school student, Brandon found out about the Dallas Arts Magnet School when he went on a DISD-sponsored field trip to Booker T. Washington High School.
The Dallas Arts Magnet School was originally established to provide an educational and performance base for gifted high school singers, dancers and musicians, much like the performing arts high school featured in the movie “Fame.” (The Dallas Arts Magnet School had been in existence for over 15 years before Brandon auditioned as a drummer and was accepted).
Recently, the national press cited The Dallas Arts Magnet School for becoming “a hotbed of sorts” for producing national musical prodigies. Edie Brickell, John Bush and Kenny Withrow of the New Bohemians attended school there, as did Grammy Award-winners Erika Badu, trumpet player Roy Hargrove and Nora Jones.
It was at the Arts Magnet high school that Brandon first met Edie, who would later front the New Bohemians as its featured vocalist, and eventually marry music legend Paul Simon.
While attending the Arts Magnet school, Brandon polished his skills in jazz improvisation, music theory and composition. He later attended Richland College, where he studied under the late Paul Guerrero, who had played drums with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman. It was at Richland that Brandon combined efforts with fellow music student Brad Houser to form the band known as the New Bohemians.
 You may have heard the story about the night the band was playing in a small club in Dallas, and Edie (then an art student at SMU), was among the fans of the band sitting at the bar. It’s true, but it has been slightly embellished a number of times over the years by journalists from around the world.
The way I first heard it, after perhaps “one too many” sips of a Jack Daniels, Edie took her friend’s dare, and casually walked out on stage and began making up lyrics and singing with the band. The guys were a little bewildered and in awe, to say the least, of the tall young lady whose raspy voice reminded them somewhat of Rickie Lee Jones.
 It was only a matter of time before these kids became the talk of the town as a club band and later stunned the music world when they signed with Geffen Records and later went to Wales, England to record their first album, “Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars” which shot them to stardom in the process.
Eventually, when the band broke up and Edie embarked on a solo career, while juggling her duties as a mother, the guys in the band went their separate musical directions.
After five years or so of touring and later recording with Jamaican-born singer Leroy Shakespeare, and the band Ship of Vibes, Brandon developed an interest in exploring the musical styles of African, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music. Soon he found himself performing in several drum and dance ensembles such as Fire Heart Gypsy Tribe. Later, he moved to the Texas Hill Country in Blanco in 1995.
 He continued to study hand drumming as an apprentice to West African Drum Master Alseny Syla, originally from Boke, Guinea. (Until recently, Brandon was a member of the drum and dance troupe Llannaya led by Syla). He also participates in frequent workshops with other master drummers such as Yamoussa Camara (formerly of Ballet African) and Mohamed Camara (formerly of Percussion de Guinea).
In October of 1998 Brandon reunited with his old New Bohemian band mates to write and record two songs for a “Best Of” CD on Geffen Records. The two songs, “Boys in the Band” and “Time” were not initially released, but lead to the reformation of the original band, the New Bohemians.
 In 1999, the band met in Montauk, New York, to write and record the album “the Montauk Sessions.” (The “Best Of” CD was released in September, 2002 on Hip-o-Records).
 Meanwhile, back in Blanco, where it’s not unusual to look out the window while eating breakfast and see deer trotting around on the property, Brandon has remained active in the music business by performing regularly with the Blanco-based Zydeco Blanco band, taking care of business on his Brandon Aly Music internet website and operating his own Riverbend Studio, nestled under the trees.
 It was at his Riverbend Studio that Zydeco Blanco recorded its first CD which was released to critical acclaim in 2003. One of the tracks on the CD begins and ends in an unusual way. The story I got was that when the guys were recording, one member of the group had to stand outside under the trees with a microphone, because there wasn’t enough room in the intimate studio for all the equipment and the musicians. When they listened to the recordings, the guys were astounded by a weird sound on one of the tracks.
 It was determined later that the “noises” they heard was actually the sounds of crickets “playing around” in the trees. “It sounded kinda funky,” Brandon said, “sorta like a small little rhythm section.” And so they left it on the track and you can hear it on the CD.
It could only happen in Blanco, I guess, where young girls and even cowboys like zydeco.
Well, that’s show biz, baby.
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