Often thought of as one of Austin, Texas’s favorite sons, Texas Music Hall of Famer DesChamps "Champ" Hood was born and raised in Spartanburg. Hood was a founding member of Uncle Walt’s Band, an acoustic trio that shifted locales from Spartanburg to Austin and by the late 1970s had become a popular and influential act in the Texas capital.

Described by Uncle Walt’s bandmate Walter Hyatt as "an inspired, natural musician," Hood wrote one of the band’s most requested songs, "High Hill," when he was only twenty years old. And when the trio decided a fiddle player would come in handy, he learned to play the fiddle as an adult. He also shifted from acoustic guitar to electric during his stint as a member of rock quintet The Contenders.

After Uncle Walt’s Band dissolved in the early 1980s, Hood stayed in Austin and became what a Texas Monthly magazine story called "one of the most talented sidemen… anywhere." He recorded with Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker, Walter Hyatt, and others, and he performed with artists including Guy Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Lyle Lovett, who called Hood "one of my heroes."

Hood died from cancer in 2001, at age forty-nine. His son, Warren Hood, has become an in-demand fiddle player, and nephew Marshall Hood played lead electric guitar in the popular Americana band The Belleville Outfit.

—Peter Cooper, author, professor, award-winning journalist, and Grammy-nominated artist