Story via David Menconi, Down on Copperline, Orange County Arts Commission
Dexter Romweber died over a year ago, at the way-too-young age of 57. But traces of the late great roots-music giant remain around his old Orange County stomping grounds, like a mural in the alley behind Chapel Hill nightclub Local 506. Painted by Davis Davis and Scott Nurkin, it shows Dexter and his equally iconic late sister Sara Romweber, drummer in Let’s Active, Snatches of Pink and Dex Romweber Duo.
Last month, Local 506 was among the local venues hosting “Dex Fest,” four nights of Romweber’s friends, fans and peers gathering to pay tribute with music and stories going back to his days with Flat Duo Jets four decades ago. Another posthumous tribute will come Romweber’s way in October, with his induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame as part of its 2025 class.
In October 2025, Dex Romweber will be inducted into the NC Music Hall of Fame.
“It’s sad he had to die for this to happen, but that’s sort of how it goes,” says Dexter’s surviving sister Monica Romweber. “It will be fun and exciting. Our mom would have been so happy to see this, if she hadn’t gone first. But I feel like they’re all watching.”
It should come as no surprise that Dexter died from a cardiac event, because the closing stretch of his life before he died in February 2024 was one heartbreak after another. It started with his sister Sara’s death from Glioblastoma in the spring of 2019. A year later, two of his brothers died less than a month apart, followed by the death of family matriarch “Big Sara” Romweber in October 2023.
If Dexter is gone, at least a lot of his art is out in the world, a sprawling discography of everything from rockabilly to classical piano that influenced a wide range of popular musicians including Jack White, Black Keys and Chan “Cat Power” Marshall. He also left behind a huge cache of unreleased recordings, writings and artwork, which Monica and estate executor Jefferson Holt are cataloging with the goal of eventually releasing as much of it as possible.
“When people would see Dex being interviewed, they’d say they saw a crazy guy,” says Holt, who released Romweber’s final album “Good Thing Goin’” on his Propeller Sound Recordings label in 2023. “But that was so based on his authentic, absolute love for the Great American Songbook and real roots music. That’s why so many great artists are absolutely drawn to Dex’s music. I don’t think that will ever stop. People will still be digging into Dex after you and I are long gone.”
Mural of Dex and Sara Romweber, created by Davis Davis and Scott Nurkin. Photographed by Michael Benson.
Perhaps the most ambitious Romweber project currently taking shape is a book by Mike Cook, a longtime friend of Dexter’s. Cook interviewed Dexter extensively going back more than 20 years, a project that began when Cook needed material to put online to promote Dexter’s solo career after Flat Duo Jets broke up in 1999.
“Dexter had no web presence and I told him I’d do it, but I needed content,” says Cook, a librarian at Cornell University. “’Tell me your life story,’ I said, and I recorded him as we kept talking. We’d talk on the phone every Sunday for about a decade, off and on, and I always felt like someone really needed to write a book about him.”
After Romweber’s death, Cook took a leave of absence from his day job as head of collections at Cornell’s Albert R. Mann Library to work on the book fulltime. He guesses he’s “maybe halfway” through an interview list of over 100 people. So it’s very much a long-term project that will take years to come to fruition. In addition to interviews and research, Cook is also working with the estate to digitize Romweber’s many recordings.
“You know, there was the memorial for Dexter last year, and this year a very successful ‘Dex Fest’ and the Hall of Fame coming up,” Cook says. “It feels like 1990 again, when Flat Duo Jets went from no one having heard of them to playing ‘Letterman.’ It seemed like they were about to explode, but it never took off. With everything going on with him now, maybe he’ll finally get his due.”
Maybe so. In a lot of ways, it seems like the legacy of Romweber’s music has never felt more current than it does right now.
“It’s Dex’s world and he let us be a part of it,” says Monica. “And what a fantastical world it is. He never said no to anything, always showed up and never held back. He lived it to the end.”
(story and photos via Orange County Arts Commission)
Chapelboro.com has partnered with the Orange County Arts Commission to bring more arts-focused content to our readers through columns written by local people about some of the fantastic things happening in our local arts scene! Since 1985, the OCAC has worked to to promote and strengthen the artistic and cultural development of Orange County, North Carolina.
