What makes Austin the most musical city in the U.S.?

This week I’m in Austin, Texas for the first time, enjoying the sights and definitely the sounds of the funky musical city in the heart of Texas. I’m finding that this city is dripping with good music, on popular clubs on 6^th street to ancient watering holes to world-renowned festivals and street performers. In between my nightly ritual of beers and bands and buying way too many overpriced t-shirts because they have my favorite band on them, I decided to dig into the musical history of the city with the mantra, “Keep Austin Weird.”

The musical roots started in the late 1800’s when the Germans who settled in and around Austin started playing music in German Beer Gardens like Dessau Hall. As time went on and big band and blues turned into the birth of rock and roll, Dessau Hall was hole to visiting bands like Glenn Miller and his orchestra, country legend Hank Williams, and a cocky kid with a guitar who liked gyrating his hips to make the girls scream named Elvis Presley.

Meanwhile, on the African American side of Austin – the east in the still-racially segregated south – smaller musical venues like Ernie’s Chicken Shack, Charlie’s Playhouse, and Big Mary’s were part of the "chitlin circuit," which featured big bands, jazz and blues. Within a decade, Austin’s East Side and West side of town were hosting some of the biggest acts in the country like Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, B.B. King, and Tina Turner as they bused their way towards California.

Country music exploded in Austin in the late 1960’s, when a young Willie Nelson and others made Austin their adopted musical home. The Vulcan Gas Company – later evolving into the Armadillo World Headquarters – brought acts as diverse as reggae, ska, punk, indie, country, and rock in the 1970’s.

Punk and New Wave took Austin by storm in the late 1970’s and three local bands – the Skunks, the Violators, and the Big Boys – worked tirelessly to bring some anti-establishment coolness to the city. Their musical underground credibility brought in bands like the Police, Joe Jackson, Blondie and Talking Heads, the Clash, Elvis Costello and Blondie to come and play – and often jam with the local groups.

But there was no bigger local hero than Austenite Stevie Ray Vaughan, who exploded onto the blues scene and won a Grammy shortly after, taking home the trophy for best contemporary blues album in 1990. Shortly after, he lost his life in a tragic helicopter crash and the city memorialized by building him a statue on the shores of Austin's Lady Bird Lake.  

Whether it’s 35 10-foot guitars standing along the sides of the street courtesy of Gibson or PBS’s music show, Austin City Limits – the longest running music television program ever, Austin’s reputation as the Musical City is still growing. Now, Austenites and hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world enjoy South by Southwest, the annual music, media, and entertainment festival that goes by SXSW. But it’s not alone, as other popular musical festivals include Carnaval Brasileiro, Urban Music Festival, Texas Wine and Food Festival, Art City Austin, Old Pecan Street Festival, Republic of Texas Biker Rally, First Night Austin, and Austin Psych Fest.

Notable Austin homegrown musical acts or adopted sons include the Butthole Surfers, Gary Clark Jr., the Dixie Chicks, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Willie Nelson, Daniel Johnston (one of my favorites), Janis Joplin, and of course, Stevie Ray Vaughn.

So book a plane ticket to Texas, get ready a vacation filled with beer, sunshine, “Howdy, y’alls” and plenty of amazing music to sample.