Interview with Mike Boldt

AS: What was the most happy “Alamo” experience you’ve ever taken part in? Most exciting?

MB: Both the most exciting and happy experience had to be when Tony Pasqua and I performed inside the Alamo for the Alamo Descendants Ceremony on March 5th 1995. We performed a song we had written with Tony’s brother Willie called, Memories of the Alamo. This is included in the At The Alamo CD. We had our wives there, Nancy Boldt and Linda Pasqua, as well as many Alamo friends. I wasn’t nervous…until it was over. Than we played at The Menger Hotel Bar till about three in the morning. It was a night I will never forget.
A close second is the night we spent with Walter Lord at the Alamo restaurant in New York City. You can’t go no better.

My interview with Mike Boldt, Alamo artist and composer, took place in late December of 2005.

AS: How were you introduced to the Alamo?

MB: As was the case with many of my generation. Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett was the first exposure to The Alamo. I remember seeing the coming attractions for D.C. At The Alamo and something just clicked when I saw all those ladders going up the walls. I still feel a thrill when I watch that trailer.
Of Course, John Wayne, my favorite actor,playing my favorite historical character, Davy Crockett, in my favorite battle, The Alamo really put the zap on me in 1960. By that time I was hooked good and proper. After that it was finding memorabilia, books and toys about the Alamo through the years that helped keep the interest alive. But the biggist boost was meeting all the great Alamo people over the years. Tony Pasqua, Bill Chemerka, Murray Wiessmann, Frank Thompson,Tom Feely,Bill Groneman, Phil Milani, Ned Huthmacher, Kevin Young, Phil Rosenthal,Mikey Zunno, Mike Waters and Wade Dillon and I’m leaving out about one hundred others. This is what helped sustain my Alamo interest all these years.

AS: How has the Alamo involved in your creativity, influence, and interest in music and art?

MB: The very first art commission that came my way was a layout of the Alamo compound for the endpapers for Roll Call At The Alamo. A wonderful book by Phil Rosenthal and Bill Groneman. After that I had a few other books, another compound sketch for Bill Groneman’s Alamo Defenders, a portrait of Fess Parker in The Davy Crockett Craze, a young Davy in Bill Chemerka’s Davy Crockett Almanac and Book of Lists and a fanciful drawing in Frank Thompson’s, The Alamo, A Cultural History. Musically, I was privileged to write the new score for Martyrs of The Alamo now on DVD, release two Cd’s, Alamo inspired, A Tribute to John Wayne’s The Alamo and At The Alamo. And one of the most interesting projects was the soundtrack for Tom Feely’s diorama,Crockett’s Last Stand. That involved writing music,blending actors in with the story and sounds effects into a ten minute sound painting. I was also proud to have drawn the portrait of Tom in the back of Crockett’s Last Stand monograph.

AS: How many drawings and songs have you made surrounding the Alamo?

MB: I think I covered this one in the previous question. But let me know if I didn’t.

AS: What was the most happy “Alamo” experience you’ve ever taken part in? Most exciting?

MB: Both the most exciting and happy experience had to be when Tony Pasqua and I performed inside the Alamo for the Alamo Descendants Ceremony on March 5th 1995. We performed a song we had written with Tony’s brother Willie called, Memories of the Alamo. This is included in the At The Alamo CD. We had our wives there, Nancy Boldt and Linda Pasqua, as well as many Alamo friends. I wasn’t nervous…until it was over. Than we played at The Menger Hotel Bar till about three in the morning. It was a night I will never forget.
A close second is the night we spent with Walter Lord at the Alamo restaurant in New York City. You can’t go no better.

AS: What do you do every year on March 6th to “Remember the Alamo”?

MB: Being an old fart, I usually start a Alamo Film Festival of my own on February 21st.This was the night, in 1961, that I first saw Wayne’s Alamo. From then on I watch every Alamo film or history program for thirteen days. Ending with John Lee Hancock’s The Alamo. Sometimes, Bill Chemerka will scare up all the Alamo guys in the tri state area and we will have a dinner and old home talk fest. This is always a great way to spend March 6th.

AS: Any Alamo plans for the future?

MB: Not much on the burner right now. Although Alamo stuff pops up when you least expect it to.

Thanks to Mike Boldt for taking part in the interview! I was glad to have met him during Tom Feely’s Alamo Gathering on August 16th, 2004.