Iconic television series Austin City Limits returns on Saturday, January 7 with a special installment: Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors Sheryl Crow celebrates superstar singer-songwriter and new inductee Sheryl Crow and features all-star performances from music luminaries Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Brittney Spencer and Lucius’ Jess Wolfe. The hour-long broadcast premieres Saturday, January 7 at 8pm ET/7pm CT on PBS. Check local PBS listings for times. The special will be available to music fans everywhere to stream online beginning Sunday, January 8 at 10am ET at pbs.org/austincitylimits. A special companion Hall of Fame hour salutes fellow inductee Joe Ely and will close out Season 48 on February 25. The Peabody Award-winning program, recorded live at ACL’s studio home in Austin, Texas, continues its extraordinary run as the longest-running music television show in history. ACL provides viewers a front-row seat to the best in live performance as this American music institution nears its remarkable half-century milestone. The series returns January 14 ringing in a new year with all-new episodes as part of its Season 48. ACL airs weekly on PBS stations nationwide (check local listings) and full episodes are made available to stream online at pbs.org/austincitylimits following the initial broadcast.
Since the inaugural ACL Hall of Fame in 2014 honoring Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the music-filled salutes have become fan-favorites. For the first time, Austin City Limits takes fans inside the epic celebration with a pair of deep-dive one-hour specials from this year’s Inductions, recorded live in Austin, Texas on October 27, 2022. The special installments, Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors, bookend the second half of Season 48 and salute newly-minted inductees Sheryl Crow and Joe Ely with individual hours, featuring all-star guest performances showcasing each artist’s Hall of Fame tribute, along with extended highlights including memorable induction speeches and vintage clips from the inductees’ appearances on Austin City Limits.
The first installment premieres January 7 at 7pm CT/8pm ET, and celebrates the music of Sheryl Crow. Music greats Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Brittney Spencer and Jess Wolfe (from the band Lucius), salute the nine-time Grammy Award-winning artist in an energetic hour featuring exclusive ACL collaborative performances. The captivating hour opens with highlights from Sheryl Crow’s Austin City Limits debut in 1997, performing numbers from her landmark debut Tuesday Night Music Club. Americana great and six-time Grammy winner Brandi Carlile then takes the stage to induct her friend with a heartfelt speech touching on both Sheryl’s humanity and her artistry; she cites her hero’s incredible catalog of “songs with substance,” saying Sheryl influenced her to be a better musician and songwriter. “I feel like a lucky girl because I get to sing the most fun Sheryl Crow song ever,” exclaims Carlile as the iconic riffs of “If It Makes You Happy” kick off the musical salute.
Backed by the ACL All-Stars led by music director Lloyd Maines, and joined by Sheryl’s longtime guitarist Peter Stroud, a hit parade of artists sing her praises: country breakout Brittney Spencer recounts first meeting Sheryl in an airport coffee shop and credits Sheryl with helping her find her artistic voice before rendering a sparkling “My Favorite Mistake”; Next, in a hilarious intro, ACL favorite Jason Isbell claims most rock stars “are real goddamn weird” before praising Crow as one of the exceptions: “a complete and unbroken human being.” Isbell then launches into a scorching performance of Crow’s “Run, Baby, Run,” the album opener of Crow’s 1993 debut, with his tenor vocals and stellar guitar skills proving a perfect match for the soulful pop tune. Crow herself takes the stage as a duet partner with Jess Wolfe from Lucius on the standout “Strong Enough” and then joins Brandi Carlile for the irresistible “Everyday Is A Winding Road,” as the two trade verses on the classic. The finale features Sheryl seated center stage on organ for “I Shall Believe,” the moving closer from Tuesday Night Music Club, with Carlile, Spencer, Wolfe and Isbell joining in on gorgeous backing vocals and guitar.
“The whole idea behind our annual Hall of Fame celebration is to honor the artists who helped to build the legacy of Austin City Limits for almost half a century,” said ACL executive producer Terry Lickona. “There’s a special magic that happens with these annual shows, and it’s just too much to pack in a single one-hour episode, so we decided to give each honoree their own hour and not sacrifice a single word or note of music.”
Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors Sheryl Crow setlist:
Brandi Carlile “If It Makes You Happy”
Brittney Spencer “My Favorite Mistake”
Jason Isbell “Run, Baby, Run”
Sheryl Crow & Lucius’ Jess Wolfe “Strong Enough“
Brandi Carlile & Sheryl Crow “Everyday Is A Winding Road”
Sheryl Crow & All-Star Finale “I Shall Believe”
The second half of Season 48 continues in January with a diverse slate spotlighting multiple 2023 Grammy nominees in full-hour performances: One of modern rock’s premier bands, and first-time Grammy nominees, Austin’s own Spoon, return to the ACL stage for their fifth appearance, showcasing their celebrated tenth album, Lucifer On The Sofa, Grammy-nominated for Best Rock Album; multi-platinum, award-winning country star and Texas native Maren Morris makes a highly-anticipated ACL debut in a radiant, career-spanning hour with the hitmaker showcasing gems from her latest Humble Quest, which earned a trio of 2023 Grammy nominations, including Best Country Album; acclaimed rock act The War on Drugs return for their second appearance with selections from the Grammy-nominated I Don’t Live Here Anymore. Legendary alternative rock pioneers Pavement make their first-ever appearance on the series in a career-spanning hour marking their thirtieth anniversary. Rocking soul act Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats return for their second appearance with their latest The Future in an ecstatic live performance; sharing the hour is soulful Nashville singer-songwriter Adia Victoria, making her ACL debut with numbers from her acclaimed A Southern Gothic, a 2022 Americana Music Awards nominee for Album of the Year.
A Season 48 highlight is the first solo appearance of multi-hyphenate Adrian Quesada, returning to the ACL stage to bring to life his acclaimed Spanish-language album, Boleros Psicodélicos, a love letter to the psychedelic Latin love songs “baladas” of the sixties and seventies; Quesada performs with a nine-piece band joined by an international line-up of guest vocalists from across the spectrum of contemporary Latin music, including iLe, Natalia Clavier, Girl Ultra and Clemente Castillo, in a thrilling must-see hour.
Rounding out Season 48 on February 25 st 7pm CT/8pm ET is a Hall of Fame tribute to Texas legend Joe Ely, Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors Joe Ely, featuring a musical salute from revered Lone Star musicians and Ely’s longtime collaborators in Texas supergroup The Flatlanders, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, along with fellow Texans Rodney Crowell and Marcia Ball. The hour features a memorable induction by renowned Texan author Lawrence Wright along with historic highlights from the influential Ely’s eleven appearances on the ACL stage.
Season 48 Broadcast Schedule (Second Half):
January 7 Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors Sheryl Crow
January 14 Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats/ Adia Victoria
January 21 Adrian Quesada Boleros Psicodélicos
January 28 The War On Drugs
February 4 Pavement
February 11 Maren Morris
February 18 Spoon
February 25 Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame Honors Joe Ely
Watch live on PBS, or stream anytime on PBS.org. The series will continue to air fan-favorite encore episodes through the end of 2022. Viewers can visit acltv.com for news regarding live streams, future tapings and episode schedules or by following ACL on Facebook, Twitter and IG. Fans can also browse the ACL YouTube channel for exclusive songs, behind-the-scenes videos and full-length artist interviews.
Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits (ACL) offers viewers unparalleled access to featured acts in an intimate setting that provides a platform for artists to deliver inspired, memorable, full-length performances. Now in its 48th Season, the program is taped live before a concert audience from The Moody Theater in downtown Austin. Austin City Limits is the longest-running music series in television history and remains the only TV series to ever be awarded the National Medal of Arts. Since its inception, the groundbreaking music series has become an institution that’s helped secure Austin’s reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World. The historic Austin PBS Studio 6A, home to 36 years of ACL concerts, has been designated an official Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Landmark. In 2011, ACL moved to the new venue ACL Live at The Moody Theater in downtown Austin. ACL received a rare institutional Peabody Award for excellence and outstanding achievement in 2012.
Austin City Limits is produced by Austin PBS and funding is provided in part by Dell Technologies, Workrise, the Austin Convention Center Department, Cirrus Logic and AXS Ticketing. Additional funding is provided by the Friends of Austin City Limits. Learn more about Austin City Limits, programming and history at acltv.com.
Austin City Limits Hall of Fame
In 2014, Austin PBS, KLRU-TV — creator and producer of the legendary PBS show Austin City Limits — established the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame to recognize legendary musicians and key individuals who have been instrumental in making television’s longest-running popular music show an institution. Each year a new class of honorees are inducted and celebrated at a live event taped to air on PBS. It is also a historical archive, educational resource and celebration of Austin City Limits —telling the story of the show through photos, a timeline/anthology mural and in the near future, an interactive database of vintage Austin City Limits performances and video footage of interviews, behind-the-scenes and never before seen performances throughout the decades. Honorees to-date include Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Lloyd Maines, Asleep at the Wheel, Loretta Lynn, Flaco Jiménez, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, B.B. King, Rosanne Cash, The Neville Brothers, Roy Orbison, Marcia Ball, Ray Charles, Los Lobos, Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Buddy Guy, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely and Sheryl Crow.
Austin City Limits 8th Annual Hall of Fame is produced by Austin PBS and funding is provided in part by AXS Ticketing, American Honda Motor Company, Netspend Corporation and YETI.