Category: Featured

We here at Austin City Limits are deeply saddened to report the death of former ACL executive producer Dick Peterson.

An Austin native, Dick started working for KLRU-TV after college in the mid-sixties, back when it was still KLRN and a shared station with San Antonio. Following a stint in the Air Force, he returned to public television via WQED, the home station for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, before moving on to KUHT in Houston and KAET in Phoenix. Dick then moved on to the Mecca of television production: Hollywood. While there, he worked as an editor for sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show, Maude (whose star Bea Arthur called Dick “a peach”) and the short-lived Maggie Briggs, whose headliner, Suzanne Pleshette, called Dick her favorite editor.

Dick returned to KLRU in 1984 to take over as vice president of production. In that role he brought the skills and professionalism he learned while in Hollywood, applying those same standards to local productions, including Austin City Limits. He also brought a mastery of stretching budgets, knowing how to get the most out of limited funds – a not inconsiderable skill in the waxing and waning fortunes of public broadcasting. When he became executive producer of Austin City Limits in 2000, he was able to adhere to the production values for which ACL had become known during years lean and fertile. Never a fan of the spotlight, Dick stayed resolutely behind the scenes, rarely, if ever, taking credit for the work he did for the show.

Dick retired from KLRU in 2009. “Dick did many great things for KLRU and for Austin City Limits,” says KLRU Vice President of Programming Maria Rodriguez, who worked with Dick for three decades. “And he loved working with people. Dick will be greatly missed.” ACL producer Jeff Peterson adds, “No one cared more about KLRU and ACL.”

Current executive producer Terry Lickona calls Dick “one of the most important and unforgettable people in KLRU history. During my time as producer of ACL, I worked with him for over two decades when he was VP Production, then executive producer. He stayed out of the spotlight (mostly in the back of the room during a taping), but his larger-than-life presence was felt by everyone, from volunteer to senior management. But most of all I remember that smile (slightly embarrassed – he hated having his photo taken!) and laugh.”

“Some of my best years have been spent at KLRU with a great group of experienced, creative, dedicated friends that are the best in the country,” Dick once said while reflecting on a near-50 year career in television. “I am one lucky dude.”

Dick was a true believer in public television as an idea, a means of communication and a standard by which to tell stories, and he believed in Austin City Limits as a way to convey those values. It’s why, in the last years of his career, he’d taken to signing off his correspondence with a simple but elegant phrase that encapsulated his belief: keep the faith. We will, Dick. Thanks for your guidance.

Dick was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2016. His time with and importance to the show was captured in the video below, produced for the induction ceremony.

We at Austin City Limits extend our condolences to the family and friends of country guitarist, singer and comedian Roy Clark, who passed away today at the age of 85.

The always smiling, fleet-fingered multi-instrumentalist was born in Virginia and raised in New York and Washington, D.C. After winning multiple guitar and banjo championships and appearing on the Grand Ole Opry as a teenager, Clark became a regular on Jimmy Dean’s D.C-area TV show. He went on to play with Western swing bandleader Hank Penny and rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson. When Dean hosted The Tonight Show, he invited Clark to perform, introducing the nation to his protegé’s prodigious musical skills. Clark signed with Capitol Records in 1963 and scored several top 10 hits on the country charts. In 1969, he became the host of country comedy program Hee-Haw, a post he would hold for nearly a quarter of a century, until the show’s demise in 1993.  The show had an audience of more than 30 million viewers at the height of its popularity.

Though his Hee-Haw stint brought him his biggest fame, it ended up obscuring Clark’s musical talent, which was considerable. A master guitarist, banjoist, fiddler and mandolinist, Clark was conversant in many styles of music, as apt to play jazz, blues and rock & roll as country and bluegrass. He could throw down with the best of them – not just country pickers, but bluesmen Gatemouth Brown (with whom he appeared in a memorable double-header episode of Austin City Limits in 1980) and Count Basie. Though he was no slouch as a comedian, as Hee-Haw and appearances on The Odd Couple and The Beverly Hillbillies attest, it’s ultimately his amazing musical skills that will be his legacy, as he proved with regular performances at his theater in Branson throughout the nineties and ‘aughts.

Clark appeared on ACL in 1980 with Gatemouth Brown, as noted above, and again in 1982 for a solo show that was released that same year on LP at The Roy Clark Show Live From Austin City Limits. Here he is in 1980 playing one of his signature songs, “Under the Double Eagle.”