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Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: Lyle Lovett and His Large Band 8/24

Austin City Limits is thrilled to announce the long-awaited return of a favorite Texas son on August 24th—singer, songwriter and ACL Hall of Fame legend Lyle Lovett—appearing with his iconic Large band to showcase 12th of June, his first new album in ten years.  

Lovett first appeared on ACL in 1985, and has notably appeared on the series more times than any act with the exception of Willie Nelson. He returns for his ninth headlining appearance on the ACL stage, after having been memorably inducted into the ACL Hall of Fame in 2019 by actor Sean Penn. The highly-anticipated 12th of June, produced by Chuck Ainlay and Lovett, is his first for new label Verve Records and features a mix of new originals, including the singles “12th of June” and “Pants Is Overrated,” standards by Nat King Cole and Dave Frishberg, and a Horace Silver instrumental, representing Lovett’s dynamic live performances with his Large Band. Coupled with his gift for storytelling, the new album continues to highlight Lovett’s ability to fuse elements of jazz, country, western swing, folk, gospel and blues in a convention-defying manner that breaks down barriers.

When Lyle Lovett introduces his band, he makes a point to cite the place each artist calls home. Home—both a physical space and a metaphorical concept that includes people, space and time—plays formidably into Lovett’s new album 12th of June. His first new recording in a decade tells the stories of specific people in specific places, some operating on a different plane. And while he’s sung about cowboys and creeps, bird-snarfing preachers and the guy who reads a newspaper over your shoulder, a sense of place is as important as the people who populate his songs. “My songs are rarely fiction,” he says. “That’s how I approach my work. My songs are from my life. I am the character in these songs. I get to spend my life for the most part doing a job where I get to be myself.” That has been a guiding principle for Lovett even before he announced his arrival with Lyle Lovett more than 35 years ago. Having studied journalism in college, he sharply draws his who and where. A sense of home and place have proven the base of operations for him to imagine a set of characters to operate. Lovett’s discography isn’t like a Robert Altman film. It’s like an Altman filmography, a collection of true fictions, akin to the happenings in the Yoknapatawpha of Faulkner or the Dublin of Joyce. Like a paper boat set loose in the San Jacinto, 12th of June—the album—cuts a smooth and distinctive path, bobbing through life and death and food, contemplation and humor – signatures that have informed Lovett’s songbook since he started writing songs in his native Klein, Texas, and in College Station, where he attended Texas A&M in the 1970s. He learned from writers who appreciated character, setting, and economy of language. They did it all with ample melody, too.  “This album reflects the music I grew up around,” he says. “My music is like me: I live on land that belonged to my grandfather. I live next door to my mother. I think the music reflects where I’m from and who I am.”

Lyle Lovett has broadened the definition of American music in a career that spans 14 albums. Whether touring with his Acoustic Group or his Large Band, Lovett’s live performances show not only the breadth of this Texas legend’s deep talents, but also the diversity of his influences, making him one of the most compelling and captivating musicians in popular music. Since his self-titled debut in 1986, Lovett has evolved into one of music’s most vibrant and iconic performers. Among his many accolades, including four Grammy Awards, he was given the Americana Music Association’s inaugural Trailblazer Award, was named Texas State Musician and is a member of both the Texas Heritage Songwriters’ Association Hall of Fame and the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Lovett made his ACL debut in 1985 as a member of Nanci Griffith’s backing band and he’s made eight headlining appearances: 1987, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2004 and the final taping in ACL’s original Studio 6A in 2011.  He’s appeared on two Songwriters Specials in 1994 and 2008, and in tributes to Walter Hyatt in 1997 and Townes Van Zandt in 1998, and as a featured guest of Leo Kottke in 1988, Delbert McClinton in 1997 and Shawn Colvin in 2001.  Lovett was handpicked by his longtime friend Willie Nelson to perform at his own induction into the inaugural ACL Hall of Fame in 2014. Lovett was inducted into the ACL Hall of Fame in 2019. We’re thrilled to welcome him back to our stage.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes as we get a week out from each date. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episode will air this fall on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 48.

Please look for safety updates regarding entry to Austin City Limits tapings. Austin PBS will continue to monitor local COVID-19 trends and will meet or exceed protocols mandated by local governments.

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Taping Announcement Tickets Distributed

Giveaway: The Weather Station 6/21

UPDATE giveaway is now over. Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by The Weather Station on Tuesday, June 21st at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). We will be giving away a limited number of space available passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by Thursday, June 16 at 2:00 p.m.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified by email. Passes are not transferable and cannot be sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.


For entry to Austin City Limits tapings, you agree to abide by the Taping Health & Safety Protocols based on the current COVID-19 Community Risk Stage in effect at the time of the event. By attending the ACL tapings, you agree to the Terms & Conditions.

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: The Weather Station, Brandi Carlile, Lucius, Parker McCollum

Austin City Limits is excited to announce a stellar slate of summer tapings for Season 48, starring a trio of artists making ACL debuts and a returning ACL favorite: June 21 brings us the remarkable songwriting of Toronto’s The Weather Station; July 13 welcomes the return of celebrated singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile in her third appearance; July 17 features the distinctive indie pop of  Lucius; and July 26 showcases fast-rising Texas country sensation Parker McCollum

The Weather Station. Photo by Daniel Dorsa.

Tamara Lindeman is a Toronto-based songwriter and singer who performs under the name The Weather Station.  As The Weather Station, she has released six albums, most recently 2021’s breakthrough Ignorance and its companion album, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, released this March, which deal with themes of climate grief, disconnection and conflict, love and birds. Ignorance was regarded as one of the most praised albums of 2021, landing in the best albums of the year lists by the New Yorker, New York Times, Pitchfork and way beyond. The Weather Station has been nominated for two Junos, a Socan Award, and has been shortlisted for the Polaris Prize. Recorded live in just three days, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is achingly intimate; full of breath, silence, and detail. “I had no idea if I wanted anyone to ever hear these songs,” Lindeman says, “but I also felt like they were the best songs I’d ever written, and I wanted to document them in some way.” Not long after completing Ignorance, Lindeman decided to make this album on her own terms, fronting the money herself and not notifying the labels. She assembled a new band, and communicated a new ethos: the music should feel ungrounded, with space, silence, and sensitivity above all else. On this record, there are no drums, no percussion; in the absence of rhythm, time stretches and becomes elastic. Lyrically, many of the songs return to what has often been a hallmark of Lindeman’s writing, a description of a single moment and all the meaning it might encompass. Influenced by records like Chet Baker Sings or Bob Dylan’s Shadows In The Night, the record was recorded live off the floor at Toronto’s Canterbury Music Studios, with Jean Martin co-producing. Lindeman sang and played piano live while the band improvised their accompaniment. Whereas the recordings on Ignorance leaned towards ambition and grandeur, here the band reaches towards a different goal: grace, perhaps. In her telling, Lindeman has always reached towards classic songwriting, and on this record, she overtly pursued this influence, allowing some of the songs to be “naive in the way that American songbook songs often are; naive in the way of reaching towards something with that sort of crushing longing, naive in terms of melody and simplicity.”

For her third taping, Brandi Carlile returns as a six-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, producer, #1 New York Times Bestselling author and activist, who is known as one of music’s most respected voices. Her latest album, In These Silent Days, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums chart, Top Rock Albums chart and Tastemaker Albums chart and continues to receive overwhelming acclaim. Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, In These Silent Days was inspired by the mining of Carlile’s own history while writing last year’s #1 New York Times Best Selling memoir, Broken Horses (Crown), and conceived of while she was quarantined at home with longtime collaborators and bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth. The ten songs chronicle acceptance, faith, loss and love and channel icons like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Elton John and Joni Mitchell—the latter two who, by some sort of cosmic alignment of the stars, have turned out to be close friends in addition to being her biggest heroes and inspirations. Of the album, Variety praises, “Carlile effortlessly glides between octaves while, somehow, still sounding completely conversational—the everyday diva we didn’t know we needed until she showed up at our door…a vocal tour de force,” while Billboard asserts, “the emotion that Carlile projects is unbridled, unfettered joy in the face of hard times—and it’s the exact boost of positivity that will make you want to listen again and again.” The New York Times writes, “Larger than life and achingly human…she empathizes, apologizes and lays out accusations. She’s righteous and she’s self-doubting. She proffers fond lullabies and she unleashes full-throated screams,” while NPR Music declares, “absolutely breathtaking, across the whole album Brandi Carlile pulls out all the stops. It’s just extraordinary…she’s just claiming rock god status.” In addition to her six GRAMMY Awards, Carlile has also been recognized with Billboard’s Women In Music “Trailblazer Award,” CMT’s Next Women of Country “Impact Award” and received multiple recognitions from the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards including Artist of the Year for the past two years. 

Lucius. Photo by Max Wagner.

Acclaimed indie pop band Lucius are in the midst of a landmark year with the release of their widely acclaimed new album, Second Nature, out now via Mom + Pop. Produced by Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile, the record is a portrait of singer and songwriters Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe’s shared reflection, chronicling each other’s seismic life shifts—motherhood, divorce, unplanned career pauses—and setting it to music. “It is a record that begs you not to sit in the difficult moments, but to dance through them,” Wolfe says. “It touches upon all these stages of grief—and some of that is breakthrough, by the way. Being able to have the full spectrum of the experience that we have had, or that I’ve had in my divorce, or that we had in lockdown, having our careers come to a halt, so to speak. I think you can really hear and feel the spectrum of emotion and hopefully find the joy in the darkness. It does exist. That’s why we made Second Nature and why we wanted it to sound the way it did: our focus was on dancing our way through the darkness.” Released last month to critical praise, the Los Angeles Times raves, “dazzling…Second Nature mines an ’80s-pop sound with lush synths and sleek disco grooves under the women’s laser-guided vocals,” while Variety declares, “with Second Nature…they’re no longer 20 feet or even a couple of yards from stardom, but re-claiming the spotlight for themselves” and Relix proclaims, “stunning…a 10-song, smart-pop masterpiece.” Known for their perfectly harmonized vocals and electric live shows, Lucius is currently in the midst of an international headline tour and will join Brandi Carlile for several marquee concerts this summer. In addition to their work as a band, power vocalists Laessig and Wolfe are in-demand collaborators and have also recorded with Sheryl Crow, Harry Styles, The War on Drugs, Ozzy Osborne and John Legend and toured extensively alongside Roger Waters.

Parker McCollum. Photo by Chris Kleinmeier.

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Parker McCollum released his highly-anticipated major label debut album, Gold Chain Cowboy, becoming the highest-charting first week debut album of 2021. The Jon Randall-produced album follows his Hollywood Gold EP which was met with widespread critical acclaim and became the top-selling debut Country EP of 2020. McCollum earned his first-ever No. 1 hit with Gold Chain Cowboy’s double platinum-selling premiere single, “Pretty Heart,” and his follow-up single “To Be Loved By You” also hit No. 1 on the charts. McCollum has been named an ‘Artist to Watch’ by Rolling Stone, Billboard, SiriusXM, CMT, RIAA, and more, with American Songwriter noting, “The Texas native teeters on the edge of next-level superstardom.” MusicRow listed McCollum as their 2021 Breakout Artist of the Year and Apple also included him as one of their all-genre “Up Next Artists” Class of 2021. A dedicated road warrior, McCollum made his debut at the famed Grand Ole Opry in 2021 and he regularly sells out venues across the country including record-breaking crowds in Dallas (20,000), The Woodlands (16,500), Austin (7500+), Lubbock (7700+), Jackson, MS (5000+), Kearney, NE (3000+), Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, and three nights at Fort Worth’s iconic Billy Bob’s Texas. Earlier this year McCollum made his debut at RODEOHOUSTON to a sold-out crowd with over 73,000 tickets sold. McCollum earned his first ACM award for New Male Artist of the Year in March 2022 in Las Vegas.  McCollum also won his first CMT “Breakthrough Video of the Year” award, a fully fan-voted honor, in April 2022.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes as we get a week out from each date. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air in late 2022 on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 48.

Please look for safety updates regarding entry to Austin City Limits tapings. Austin PBS will continue to monitor local COVID-19 trends and will meet or exceed protocols mandated by local governments.

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News Taping Announcement Ticket Giveaway

Giveaway: Allison Russell 5/25

This giveaway is now closed.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Allison Russell on Wednesday, May 25th at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). This is also our 1,000th tapings. A truly historic night for the show!

We will be giving away a limited number of space available passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by 10 a.m. on Monday, May 23rd.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified by email. Passes are not transferable and cannot be sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.


For entry to Austin City Limits tapings, you agree to abide by the Taping Health & Safety Protocols based on the current COVID-19 Community Risk Stage in effect at the time of the event. By attending the ACL tapings, you agree to the Terms & Conditions.

Categories
Taping Announcement Ticket Giveaway

Giveaway: Japanese Breakfast 4/20

UPDATE giveaway is now over.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Japanese Breakfast on Wednesday, April 20th at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). We will be giving away a limited number of space available passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by Noon on Monday, April 18th.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified by email. Passes are not transferable and cannot be sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.


For entry to Austin City Limits tapings, you agree to abide by the Taping Health & Safety Protocols based on the current COVID-19 Community Risk Stage in effect at the time of the event. By attending the ACL tapings, you agree to the Terms & Conditions.

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Featured News Taping Announcement Uncategorized

New tapings: Robert Earl Keen, Sylvan Esso and Allison Russell

Austin City Limits is proud to announce new tapings for Season 48, showcasing a trio of originals. Renowned singer/songwriter and Texas icon Robert Earl Keen caps his remarkable musical journey with one last taping on April 27 before his planned retirement from live performance later this year. We’re also thrilled to showcase debut tapings by a pair of 2022 Grammy-nominated acts whose individuality and artistic reach create songs thrilling in their distinctive flavors. On May 9, we welcome North Carolina-bred electronic duo Sylvan Esso. On May 25, Nashville-based singer and songwriter Allison Russell takes the ACL stage as we reach a major milestone: our 1000th taping. 

Robert Earl Keen debuted on Austin City Limits in 1989 as part of a Texas Showcase and has made four headlining appearances in addition to appearing as a guest of Lyle Lovett in 2000, returning for ACL’s milestone 40th Anniversary special in 2014 and hosting the ACL Hall of Fame in 2019. One of the most beloved songwriters and performers in Texas, the Houston native has lived his signature anthem “The Road Goes On Forever” as a road warrior performing over 180 dates in any given year, playing to his legions of fans at roadhouses, dance halls, theaters, and festival grounds. The legendary entertainer made the surprise announcement in March that he’ll wrap up a remarkable four decades of touring with one last tour in 2022 as his swan song: I’m Comin’ Home: 41 Years On The Road. “I’ve been blessed with a lifetime of brilliant, talented, colorful, electrical, magical folks throughout my life,” says Keen. “This chorus of joy, this parade of passion, this bull rush of creativity, this colony of kindness and generosity are foremost in my thoughts…It’s with a mysterious concoction of joy and sadness that I want to tell you that as of September 4, 2022, I will no longer tour or perform publicly.” With a catalog of 21 albums, a band of stellar musicians, and many thousands of live shows under his belt, POLLSTAR ranked Keen in its Top 20 Global Concert Tours in 2021. Since releasing his debut album, No Kinda Dancer, in 1984, Keen has blazed a peer, critic, and fan-lauded trail that’s earned him living-legend status in the Americana music world. He’s received many accolades along the way, including 2015’s inaugural BMI Troubadour Award, celebrating songwriters who have made a lasting impact.  His songs have been recorded by George Strait, Joe Ely, Nancy Griffith, Gillian Welch, The Highwaymen and more. Keen has been inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame (alongside his longtime friend and Texas A&M classmate Lyle Lovett), the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Texas A&M University. Keen was weaned on classic rock and Willie records and steered clear of the country mainstream, always taking the road less traveled throughout his storied career. His literate songcraft, razor wit and killer band stirred up a grassroots sensation not seen since the ’70s heyday of outlaw country. While Keen will be hanging up his hat on live shows, he’ll continue to write music and create, host his popular Americana Podcast, support young artists, and follow his artistic muse wherever it takes him. We’re thrilled to welcome Robert Earl Keen back to our stage for this very special performance.

Created with RNI Films app by Shervin Lainez.

Sitting in a Wisconsin deli in 2012, Amelia Meath told her new friend Nick Sanborn she wanted to start a pop band. She proposed a simple division of labor: She’d write and sing their emotionally multivalent songs, wrapped around seemingly effortless hooks. And he’d make the beats that drove them, slightly slippery instrumentals that winked at his abstract electronic inclinations. For a time, that was the premise of Sylvan Esso. But during the last decade, those responsibilities have morphed. Meath and Sanborn’s roles have become so intertwined that every moment of any new Sylvan Esso song feels rigorously conceptual but completely rapturous, their compelling central paradox. “Making music now looks like both of us sitting in a room together and having small arguments,” Meath quips. That dynamic thumps at the heart of Free Love, Sylvan Esso’s instantly endearing third album and a charming but provocative testament to the duo’s long-term tension. “We’re trying to make pop songs that aren’t on the radio, because they’re too weird,” says Meath. You could frame Free Love in a dozen different ways. You could, for instance, declare it their undeniable pop triumph, thanks to the summertime incandescence of “Ferris Wheel” or the handclap kinetics of “Train.” You might, on the other hand, call it their most delicate work yet, owing to Meath’s triptych of gently subversive anthems—“What If,” “Free,” and “Make It Easy”—that begin, end, and split the record into sides. You could label Free Love their modular synthesis album, since Sanborn’s explorations of those infinite systems shape so many of these daring songs. You might even call it their marriage record, as it’s the first LP Meath and Sanborn have made since trading vows. Instead, the thread that binds together every scintillating moment of Free Love may seem surprising for a duo that has already netted a 2022 Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album for the record , made some of their generation’s sharpest pop daggers, and generally approached their work with an anything-goes esprit: Finding confidence. An album that implores us to consider that our assumptions about our world might be wrong, Free Love asks major questions about self-image, self-righteousness, friendship, romance, and environmental calamity with enough warmth, playfulness, and magnetism to make you consider an alternate reality. These are Sylvan Esso’s most nuanced and undeniable songs—bold enough to say how they feel, big enough to make you join in that feeling. The Durham, NC-based duo is currently on a U.S. headline tour with high-profile upcoming summer dates at Wilco’s Solid Sound and Rothbury’s Electric Forest Festival.

Photo by Marc Baptiste.

After years of collaborations with like-minded artists, Allison Russell’s first-ever solo project, Outside Child was released in 2021 to critical acclaim and earned a trio of 2022 Grammy nominations, including Best Americana Album. Russell, a self-taught singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and co-founder of folk collective Our Native Daughters and duo Birds of Chicago, unpacks her youth in searing detail. Rolling Stone raves, “Russell turned her brutally tough childhood into stunning art.” Raised in Montreal, Russell imbues her music with the colors of her city – the light, the landscape, the language – but also the trauma that she suffered there. It is a heartbreaking reflection on a childhood no one should have to endure, and at the same time a powerful reclamation – asserted from a place of healing, of motherhood, of partnership – and from a new home made in Nashville. The record features many of the artistic family members she has found there including Yola, Erin Rae, The McCrary Sisters, Ruth Moody, Jamie Dick, Dan Knobler and her partner JT Nero. Outside Child, says Russell “is about resilience, survival, transcendence, the redemptive power of art, community, connection, and chosen family.” Singing about this on the double Grammy-nominated “Nightflyer,” Russell ponders the healing power of motherhood, using the track’s wide-open expanse to convey the strength she didn’t know she had. Here, the line “I am the mother of the evening star / I am the love that conquers all” is “the most defiantly triumphant, hopeful line I’ve ever written,” says Russell. “That’s about the birth of my daughter and how that transformed me.” Though she endured a fraught relationship with her own mother, Russell remembers how she’d crawl underneath the piano and listen to her mother play. “I would hum along with her,” Russell recalls. “She said I was humming before I could talk. I was able to feel some kind of comfort or love or connection in a way that she couldn’t verbally or physically express – but I could feel in her music that there was love in her.” Ultimately, Outside Child is not only a radical reclamation of a traumatic childhood and lost home, it is a lantern light for survivors of all stripes – a fervent reminder of the eleventh hour, resuscitative power of art. Fellow songwriter and poet Joe Henry raves, “Outside Child draws water from the dark well of a violent past. The songs themselves ––though iron-hard in their concerns–– are exultant: exercising haunted dream-like clean bedsheets snapped and hung out into broad daylight, and with the romantic poet’s lust for living and audacity of endurance.” We’re thrilled to bring Russell to the ACL stage as we celebrate a landmark occasion with our milestone 1K taping moment.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes as we get a week out from each date. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air in late 2022 on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 48.

Please look for safety updates regarding entry to Austin City Limits tapings. Austin PBS will continue to monitor local COVID-19 trends and will meet or exceed protocols mandated by local governments.