Brent Douglas Beare

Brent was born in Longview, Texas in 1972.

Brent was a natural born musician who started unexpectedly picking out the notes of church hymns on a church piano after Sunday services when he was four years old. The church pianist insisted that his parents, who did not even own a piano, get him piano lessons. He took lessons on the piano and organ through high school. Before he was of legal age he would show up and play at biker bars near Texarkana. After high school he set out for Nashville but never scored a gig there. He began playing at clubs in Texarkana and even played for President Clinton at a special banquet there.

Finally, Brent's odyssey as a traveling musician was launched as he joined a band that toured from Florida to the Northwest Territories of Canada. Brent eventually started playing big dancehalls and club circuits in Baltimore, St. Louis, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and San Antonio. He also played at several Austin venues on Sixth Street. Brent was known by his encyclopedic memory of musical scores from college fight songs to military hymns to virtually every country hit, which he could play and sing on demand. His career was cut short by a stroke while he was in Wisconsin meditating at a monastery. His musical voice may have been silenced but his bright engaging spirit burned brightly until the end.

Brent is survived by a son Blake Beare of College Station, his parents, Gloria and Douglas Beare of Lakeway and San Antonio, and a brother, Stephen Beare of Dallas.

Funeral services will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 1, 2016 at St. Christopher Episcopal Church, 8724 Travis Hills, Austin, TX 78736. Interment will be held on Monday, October 3, 2016 at Center Grove Cemetery in Linden, Texas.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (myhaam.org), a group which helps struggling musicians access affordable health care.