This story is published as part of a partnership between The Nation and the Texas Observer.
It’s a gloomy, overcast Sunday evening in August, and Albert Old Crow pulls a collapsible crate on wheels that held two giant CD binders from his maroon truck. Old Crow, 66, is host of the “Beyond Bows and Arrows” radio program in Dallas. He’s tall with long, graying hair tied into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, dressed in a Head Start T-shirt and black basketball shorts, and holding a 44-ounce drink from Sonic. Old Crow, who is Cheyenne and originally from Hammon, Oklahoma, has brought hundreds of CDs with him to the KNON 89.3 FM station, as he’s done this every Sunday since October 1996.
“Beyond Bows and Arrows” has been on-air since the inception of the KNON radio station in 1983. The show was founded by volunteers, Frank McLemore and Dennis Wahkinney. At first, it was only 30 minutes long, and the hosts only had one cassette tape. Old Crow doesn’t remember what the first cassette was, but he says the second was a Chief Dan George album.
