Bishop Arts District honors Oak Cliff musician Darren Eubank
Darren Eubank has died of COVID-19. He was 29 years old.
DALLAS — If music is medicine, there are plenty of them in Dallas.
Music for what ails you in a dose of vinyl, or dessert jam on the street.
Some notes even mix in the morning air before the shops open in the Bishop Arts District.
It wasn’t always like this.
“They were sort of like pioneers here at Bishop Arts. They started partying on the corner of 7th and Bishop,” Brecia Eubank said.
She recalls a few years ago her husband, Darren Eubank, helping bring music to the streets of the Bishop Arts District. As she remembers, she shows her wedding ring.
In fact, Darren performed first on the small stage outside the Laughing Willow store.
Melody Ginn owns the Laughing Willow. She said her husband built the scene and Darren was like a son to them, he was like family.
This is where Eubank still comes to listen to her husband.
Darren passed away from COVID-19. He was 29 years old.
Eubank said that after Darren passed away, the owner of Laughing Willow came over and asked what they could do to honor Darren.
For Eubank, sitting on the bench near the stage is one of the only prescriptions for his grief.
“The next thing you know there’s a patch of his face on the stage. I can come and talk to him, because I would come and watch him play… I can’t watch him play anymore, but I can come talk to him, which is cool,” Eubank said.
When you lose someone, it’s the memories. Like all those Tuesdays for years when Darren and Cameron Ray played at the Opening Bell cafe.
It was hard for Ray to lose his best friend.
But Darren left behind more than memories. He left musical stories of hope and a brand new album with fellow musician Chima Ijeh. It’s called “…And it’s as if.”
Ray said people saw a lot of hope in the new record.
“It was hard losing someone you loved so much,” Ginn said.
For Eubank, this is the new record, and something else.
“The butterfly was actually just for fun,” she said, pointing to the tattoo on her finger next to her wedding ring tattoo.
“I think he visits me in butterflies now, because I notice them everywhere I go when I miss him,” she continued.
Sometimes we don’t even realize what feeds us.
It could be notes falling from a loudspeaker above an empty stage – on the corner of Bishop and Melba in Dallas, Texas.
