Jessica Waffles
Audio By Carbonatix
Fort Worth troubadour Tommy Luke has had a rough birthday week as a series of seizures possibly stemming from a 2017 head injury landed him in John Peter Smith Hospital for a few days. Luke’s sister, Dallas-based music industry guru Callie Dee, has posted updates on Facebook to keep fans and friends abreast of the situation.
On Monday, Oct. 21, Dee wrote about Luke’s condition: “So he’s not good. He’s not super terrible but also not coherent.”
She added that there had been no recent traceable cause to Luke’s seizures beyond a 2017 head injury he sustained falling off a roof.
On Tuesday, his birthday, Dee reported that Luke was getting better. He was a bit shaken up, however, for having “lost 2 days out of nowhere” because of the neurological complications he experienced. On Thursday, Luke was discharged from the hospital to continue his recovery at home. The local favorite singer-songwriter is springing back into action with a performance planned for Downtown Cantina tomorrow night in Weatherford.
Steve Steward of the Fort Worth Weekly calls Luke “an unsung hero legend of Fort Worth’s music scene,” writing: “I have a lot of respect for Tommy Luke. The guy can pretty much play any instrument that has strings and probably a bunch more that don’t. Music is his life, and he plays it as easy as breathing.”
Dee also shared that Luke’s beloved sidekick and stage partner, a fluffy white pup named Dippy, was doing just fine during the ordeal. Luke and Dippy did a run of Tennessee and Kentucky shows with a stop in New Orleans in early May.
Luke has built an underground following throughout the South on the strength of his DIY work ethic, gravelly voice, skilled guitar-picking melodies and songwriting that rings true to the old-school tradition of folksy country. His storytelling prowess covers everything from mental health in “Here Come the Bipolar Bears” to jaunty toe-tapping love songs in “East Texas Blues.”
Luke’s 2018 release Life Ain’t Hard is an everyman’s slice-of-life. Steward described the songsmith’s “shoulder-shrugging drawl sound, like he’s been plying his guitar pickin’ trade across the highways and byways for decades.” The album is available to stream on Spotify.
