Hey, Central Texans! Bebop as you shop as we open up Austin PBS’s legendary Studio 6A to our gift fair. Get yourself or your loved ones an Austin City Limits limited edition poster, t-shirt or one of the many other items available for purchase at our annual Holiday Sale!
Free and open to the public 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 10 Austin PBS 2504 B Whitis Ave, 6th Floor
Live music ✔️ Free drinks ✔️ Employee pricing for everyone! ✔️
Complimentary beer and wine will be served, along with free coffee and hot chocolate from Texas Coffee Traders. Plus enjoy music from Ragtime Willie and the Rangers. Hope to see you there!
Austin City Limits congratulates all the nominees for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. But we’d like to shine a spotlight on the many nominees who appear on ACL in our current Season 45 as well as nominees from prior seasons. We’re especially proud to showcase five of this year’s Best New Artist nominees this season.
A hale and hearty congrats to the artists who contributed to our milestone season 45, including Billie Eilish, who scored top noms for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Engineered Album, while her brother Finneas, who produced the album and performed with her on her upcoming episode, earned a nod for Producer of the Year. Soul sensation H.E.R. also gathered a slew of nominations, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Performance, and Best R&B Song, while Austin hero and ACL season 45 opener Gary Clark Jr. earned noms for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Contemporary Blues Album and Best Music Video.
Indie rock gods Vampire Weekend clock in with nods for Album of the Year, Best Rock Song, and Best Alternative Music Album, while Spanish superstar Rosalía clicks off the boxes for Best New Artist and Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album. Cage the Elephant was nominated for Best Rock Album and Patty Griffin for Best Folk Album. Plus Maggie Rogers, Black Pumas and Tank and The Bangas share the nominations with Eilish and Rosalía for Best New Artist. Sarah Jarosz was nominated for Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song as part of I’m With Her, who appear in our upcoming special broadcast ACL Presents: Americana 18th Annual Honors. In addition, ACL vet Jimmie Vaughan and young blues guitar slinger Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, both of whom appear in our upcoming Hall of Fame special on Dec. 28, were each nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album.
“I think it’s pretty cool (and speaks well for us) that we’ve had so many nominees on the show this season,” says ACL executive producer Terry Lickona, “ including five of the Best New Artist nominees.”
Austin City Limits returns to Nashville for a special broadcast offering performance highlights from the 18th Annual Americana Honors. For nearly two decades, the prestigious ceremony has celebrated the best and brightest musicians in Americana music while showcasing one-of-a-kind performances. The program is filled with musical highlights from many of the night’s award-winners and honorees, among them (in order of appearance): Our Native Daughters, Mumford & Sons, Yola, Brandi Carlile, Mark Erelli & friends, Mavis Staples, Joe Henry & Rodney Crowell, Rhiannon Giddens, The War and Treaty, I’m With Her, The Milk Carton Kids, Bonnie Raitt & John Prine, Elvis Costello & Jim Lauderdale.
Recorded live at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium on September 11, 2019, The Americana Music Association’s 18th Annual Americana Honors & Awards ceremony is a celebration of the diverse sounds of roots music, from folk, bluegrass and country to R&B and the blues. For the ninth consecutive year, the producers of Austin City Limits, in conjunction with producers Martin Fischer, Michelle Aquilato, Edie Hoback and the Americana Music Association, proudly deliver a special ACL Presents.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 11: (L-R) Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Blount of The War and Treaty perform onstage during the 2019 Americana Honors & Awards at Ryman Auditorium on September 11, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Americana Music Association)
A generation-bridging group of Americana standouts perform: Brandi Carlile caps a milestone year following her 2019 GRAMMY®-winning By the Way, I Forgive You, with the Americana Artist of the Year honor and gives a stellar performance of that record’s “The Mother.” Beloved songwriter John Prine, the night’s two-time honoree for Album of the Year and Song of the Year, teams with Bonnie Raitt for a show-stopping performance of the timeless “Angel From Montgomery,” which Prine penned and Raitt popularized. Soul legend Mavis Staples, who received the Honors’ inaugural Inspiration Award, performs stirring new song “Change” from her acclaimed 2019 release We Get By. Duo/Group of the Year honorees I’m With Her, the all-star trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, perform a gorgeous new track, “Call My Name.” Singer-songwriter Mark Erelli performs his Song of the Year nominated “By Degrees,” joined by friends Josh Ritter, Lori McKenna, Shawn Colvin and J.S. Ondara trading verses on the potent anti-gun violence anthem.
Rhiannon Giddens, the recipient of the Honors’ inaugural Legacy of Americana Award, opens the hour with her all-female combo Our Native Daughters, a Group/Duo nominee, and returns for a solo performance with a stunning rendition of the folk-gospel classic “Wayfaring Stranger.” The show’s hosts, acoustic duo The Milk Carton Kids, perform the classic Felice and Boudleaux Bryant-penned “Sleepless Nights” and also join Mumford & Sons for a stripped-down rendition of “Forever” from the band’s recent album, Delta. Joe Henry and Rodney Crowell deliver a memorable salute with their stirring take on “Girl From the North Country,” a tribute to five decades of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album.
Americana’s next-generation of stars showcase their bona fides: dynamic husband-and-wife duo The War and Treaty, Emerging Act of the Year honorees, raise the Ryman roof with the thrilling “Love Like There’s No Tomorrow”; Emerging Act nominee Yola, the U.K. singer-songwriter sensation, gives a towering performance with “Faraway Look,” from her Album of the Year-nominated and Dan Auerbach-produced Walk Through Fire.
The show closes with Elvis Costello, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting (joined by Americana stalwart Jim Lauderdale) displaying his multi-genre range with a fiery “Red Cotton” from his 2009 Secret, Profane and Sugarcane album alongside “Blame It On Cain” from his 1977 debut My Aim Is True.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 11: (L-R) Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah, Rhiannon Giddens and Leyla McCalla attend the 2019 Americana Honors & Awards at Ryman Auditorium on September 11, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Americana Music Association)
Broadcast Setlist:
Our Native Daughters “Black Myself”
Mumford & Sons (f. The Milk Carton Kids) “Forever”
Yola “Faraway Look”
Brandi Carlile “The Mother”
Mark Erelli (f. Josh Ritter, Lori McKenna, J.S. Ondara, Shawn Colvin) “By Degrees”
Mavis Staples “Change”
Joe Henry & Rodney Crowell “Girl From the North Country”
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi “Wayfaring Stranger”
The War and Treaty “Love Like There’s No Tomorrow”
I’m With Her (f. Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins, Aoife O’Donovan) “Call My Name”
The Milk Carton Kids “Sleepless Nights”
Bonnie Raitt & John Prine “Angel From Montgomery”
Elvis Costello with Jim Lauderdale “Red Cotton/Blame it on Cain”
Tune in this weekend for this episode, and, as always, check your local PBS listings for the broadcast time in your area. Go to the episode page for more info, and don’t forget to click over to our Facebook, Twitter and newsletter pages for more ACL info. Join us next week for a special encore from one of the most enduring bands of the twentieth century: the Pretenders.
Austin City Limits extends a hearty congratulations to Spanish singer/songwriter Rosalía on her towering win of five Latin Grammy awards at last night’s star-studded ceremony in Las Vegas. Her acclaimed album El Mal Querer was awarded Album of the Year, making her the first female artist this decade to win the coveted title (since Shakira in 2006). Rosalía also took top honors for Best Contemporary Pop Album, Best Engineered Album, and Best Recording Package, while her smash single “Con Altura,” cut with reggaetón superstar J Balvin, won for Best Urban Song. “When I made that album I made it from the heart. I didn’t think about what would happen later,” Rosalía told the Los Angeles Times backstage at the event. “I can’t control anything that happens after the creative process because after that it’s not yours anymore, it’s everyone else’s.”
Rosalía delivered one of the most distinctive and remarkable shows in ACL history at her recent October taping. Viewers can watch the thrilling performance when it airs February 8, 2019 as a full-hour episode as part of the second half of ACL’s Season 45 on your local PBS station.
Austin City Limits spotlights next-generation country representing the genre’s expansive range in a new installment featuring chart-topping sensation Kane Brown sharing the hour with breakout Country-and-Western artist Colter Wall.
One of country music’s brightest new stars, boundary-pushing artist Kane Brown is having a banner year, dominating the charts with his low, soulful voice and earning multiple nominations for Country Artist of the Year. The 26-year-old hitmaker makes his ACL debut performing highlights from Experiment, his chart-topping sophomore album which debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200. Born and raised near the rural North Georgia-Tennessee border, the singer makes country music for a modern audience, blending elements of pop, rock, rap and R&B into a traditional country formula. Brown showcases his bona fides as the future of the genre, opening his seven-song set with his breakthrough “What Ifs,” the 4X Platinum love song from his self-titled 2016 debut. He details his personal challenges growing up biracial on “Learning” and tackles the topic of school shootings in the dark, powerful standout “American Bad Dream.” Brown closes out the crowd-pleasing set with a victory lap, performing the No. 1, platinum-selling come-hither smash “Lose It.”
Western Canadian folksinger Colter Wall draws on the stories of his native Saskatchewan for his ACL debut. The talented, 24-year-old artist possesses a rich, resonant baritone that belies his age. Accompanied by his four-piece band, Wall performs the modern-day Western numbers from his acclaimed sophomore release Songs of the Plains, produced by Nashville ace Dave Cobb. A set highlight is a pair of new, unrecorded numbers, “Happy Reunion” and the solo acoustic “Hoolihans at the Holiday Inn,” a 21st-century cowboy’s lament about roping practice in hotel parking lots. Wall delivers traditional classics that fit right into his wheelhouse: an inspired rendition of Marty Robbins’ gunfighter-ballad “Big Iron” and the ‘50’s yodel-spiked “Cowpoke,” before reaching back to his 2017 self-titled debut for the fan-favorite set-closer “Motorcycle.”
photo by Scott Newton
“Kane Brown is on the front line bringing country music into the 21st century,” said ACL executive producer Terry Lickona. “His personal story and the subjects he sings about set him apart from the mainstream, yet he’s very much a part of the tradition of country mavericks who aren’t afraid to break the mold.
“Colter Wall is the first artist in a generation to put the ‘western’ back in country-and-western music. His songs about wide-open spaces and the loneliness and isolation resonate with fans feeling the pressure of the modern world.”
Austin City Limits spotlights Vampire Weekend in a must-see hour featuring the indie-rock band’s epic return showcasing their long-awaited new album Father of the Bride alongside classic gems from their catalog.
Vampire Weekend performs a suite of songs off the celebrated, chart-topping Father of the Bride, their fourth album and first in six years. The seven-piece, led by frontman Ezra Koenig, unpack new gems: “Sympathy,” “Bambina,”“2021,” “My Mistake,” and “This Life,” showcasing their irresistible knack for melody and lyrics that capture the complexities of 21st-century life. The group perform select favorites from their catalog, including the breakthrough “A-Punk” from their 2008 debut and the rhythmic, Afrobeat “White Sky” from 2010’s landmark Contra. Koenig’s 2014 collaboration with EDM producer SBTRKT, “New Dorp. New York,” is here transformed into a Vampire Weekend funk-rock epic. A set highlight is an extended version of new classic “Harmony Hall,” a masterful, melodic wonder that opens with an iconic guitar riff and accelerates into a joyful piano sprint. The perfectly-paced set comes to a powerful close with Koenig’s stunning vocal on the hymnal, cathartic anthem “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.”
“There’s never been a better time to appreciate Vampire Weekend, given the world we live in today,” said ACL executive producer Terry Lickona. “I’ve always been a fan of Ezra Koenig’s voice and his new songs are more personal and inward-looking than ever. Vampire Weekend has remained tried-and-true – popular without ever becoming pop!”
photo by Scott Newton
Tune in this weekend for this episode, and, as always, check your local PBS listings for the broadcast time in your area. Go to the episode page for more info, and don’t forget to click over to our Facebook, Twitter and newsletter pages for more ACL info. Join us next week for another brand new episode, featuring two sides of modern country music with Kane Brown and Colter Wall.
