NIOSA's beloved one-man band won't be there for the first...

A Night in Old San Antonio won't be quite the same when it opens Tuesday evening at La Villita.

Yes, the lines will be long at Maria's Tortillas, aromatic anticuchos will still sizzle on the grill in the Mexican Market and the beer will flow as the oompah music plays in Sauerkraut Bend.

But Lonesome Louie won't be there for the first time in 30 years.

Fiesta's beloved one-man band — Louie sings and plays a Fender Mustang electric guitar adapted with bass strings, harmonica, bass drum, hi-hat cymbal and kazoo, often simultaneously — has been a fixture at NIOSA since 1984.

“I haven't missed any of them,” said Lonesome Louie, whose real name is Louis Whitehead Jr. He's staying close to home in Thelma this year to help his wife, Allegra, who is being treated for cancer. She was diagnosed in September.

“She's doing much better,” Whitehead said in a soft drawl. “But I have to be on standby. I couldn't take a chance on booking down there. That's why I canceled out.”

He misses NIOSA already, but may not be back even as his wife recovers, he admitted. He had hoped to play until he was 80, but he thinks he might just retire a year early.

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The 79-year-old honky-tonk musician, known for his trademark cowboy hat and colorful shirts, could always be found on a porch facing the afternoon sun near Maria's Tortillas along the International Walkway at La Villita, singing country western, rock 'n' roll, blues and Mexican songs in English, German and Spanish.

Chuck Berry's “Fraulein” was always a show stopper from the musician, who was born in a small house on Rose Lane in 1935 and whose first instrument was a guitar his father fashioned out of a cigar box.

He joins a list of other longtime acts no longer at NIOSA in recent years: Small World, the Mo-Dels, the Cones Sisters and Bene Medina.

“They left it open for me,” Whitehead said. “But I told them, no. I just hate to make a promise and then not show up. It's sad for me because I really feel it. I miss the people and talking with them. I miss being at NIOSA because they were really nice to me all these years.”

NIOSA organizers hope it's not the end of an era. “We're really going to miss him,” said Jackie Fellers, NIOSA treasurer. “He can (sing) anything, and he draws quite a bit of a crowd when he plays. He's one of the mainstays. We were disappointed. But we understand.”

Guitarist Steve Owens sometimes caught Lonesome Louie when his band the Mo-Dels were on break. He praised his “great ingenuity.”

“You could see the talent. He embodied the whole thing of being a musician,” Owens said. “He'd be there in that humble setting, that little porch. There's the real deal.”

That setting was not so unlike the front porch at his parents' farmhouse, where in the early 1940s he'd sing country western songs with his father and younger brother.

Jackie Cones and the Cones Sisters played at NIOSA for 18 years. She loves Lonesome Louie's “fantastic” style but is more impressed with his character.

“God bless him for taking the time to spend with his wife and take care of her. That means more than anything,” she said. “There will be many stones in his crown.”

Musician Joe Reyes, who played NIOSA many years with Mark Rubenstein and Greg Norris in the Sabas Trio, groaned a little upon hearing the news that Lonesome Louie wouldn't be there.

“Musically, he's a solid artist,” Reyes said. “He's himself. When you see an honest performer there, it doesn't matter that it's a (Fiesta) event; it just sort of transcends it. He's kind of a character, but he's real. There's no pretense to it. It's sad, man. We didn't get to say bye.”

hsaldana@express-news.net