It began in 1974 with Willie Nelson, a borrowed studio and a hunch that real music needed no glitter. Austin City Limits grew into the longest-running music program in television history, and turned a PBS stage in Austin into a cathedral where America’s greatest artists come to be purely themselves.
The original Studio 6A was named a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame landmark, and in 2011 the show moved downtown to the Moody Theater, the largest studio in Texas, where a statue of Willie watches over Willie Nelson Boulevard and tapings remain gloriously intimate: a few hundred fans, one band, no bad angles.
From Johnny Cash and Ray Charles to Billie Eilish and Chris Stapleton, the guest book reads like the history of American music itself. The little show also lent its name to a certain Zilker Park festival you may have heard of.
Happy City News grew up on these broadcasts. Fifty years on, the hunch still holds: give great musicians a quiet room and get out of the way.
