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Episode Recap Featured New Broadcast News

Episode premiere: Japanese Breakfast/Arlo Parks

Japanese Breakfast plays Austin City Limits, Season 48. Photo by Scott Newton.

Austin City Limits spotlights a pair of compelling acts making their ACL debuts: Japanese Breakfast, featuring acclaimed indie singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner and 21-year-old British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks. Philadelphia’s Japanese Breakfast play songs from their breakthrough Jubilee; while Parks performs numbers from her Mercury Prize-winning Collapsed in Sunbeams. These two celebrated acts both earned 2022 Grammy nods for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album and both received raves for their deeply personal lyrics and powerful connection with audiences. The new hour-long installment premieres October 8 at 8pm CT/9pm ET. The program, recorded live at ACL’s studio home in Austin, Texas, continues its extraordinary run as the longest-running music television show in history, providing viewers a front-row seat to the best in live performance for 48 years as the music institution nears a remarkable half-century milestone. ACL airs weekly on PBS stations nationwide (check local listings) and full episodes are made available to stream online at pbs.org/austincitylimits immediately following the initial broadcast.

Acclaimed pop-alternative act Japanese Breakfast performs highlights from Jubilee, their lauded 2021 album. Bandleader Michelle Zauner is also the New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart, her powerful 2021 memoir about growing up Korean-American and dealing with the loss of her mother. The book paved the way for the band’s third release, Jubilee, an album about giving yourself permission to welcome joy back into your life after tragedy. Opening the set with the dreamlike “Paprika,” Zauner bangs a light-up gong at center stage to punctuate the lyrics. She smiles widely as she dances across the stage for the hit “Be Sweet,” a synthy, sparkly power-pop confection. The six-song set elicits a rush of feelings anchored by gorgeous song craft and probing lyrics, in an ultimate celebration of life and love. Zauner and her ace eight-piece band, augmented by horns and violin, provide sublime melodies for a radiant ACL debut. 

Arlo Parks performs on Austin City Limits, 2022. Photo by Scott Newton.

Fast-rising West London singer-songwriter Arlo Parks showcases gems from her breakout debut Collapsed in Sunbeams. Parks blends poetic lyrics with music to create luscious vignettes via sweet, ruminative indie pop songs. Her thoughtful, relatable lyrics resonate emotionally with fans and foster connection and support. She captivates with her soft vocals and lush sonic palette in a magnetic ACL debut. Set opener “Caroline” sparks an audience singalong of the titular name throughout the chorus, and on the soul-pop “Eugene” the crowd belts the painful lyrics about unrequited love with collective emotion. “I guess my favorite songs that I’ve written come pouring out of me by accident…and this is one of them,” says Parks as she closes out with the electro-pop marvel “Softly,” a cathartic, upbeat anthem about bracing for impact in the face of a relationship’s inevitable demise. 

“We’re especially proud this season to be showcasing so many emerging young female singer-songwriters,” said ACL executive producer Terry Lickona, “And there will be more to come. In the case of both Michelle and Arlo, the fact that Grammy voters considered them worthy of a Best New Artist nominee speaks volumes.”

Japanese Breakfast setlist: 

Paprika

Be Sweet

Kokomo, IN

Savage Good Boy

Slide Tackle

Posing For Cars

Arlo Parks setlist:

Caroline

Eugene

Black Dog

Hurt

Too Good

Softly

Season 48 Broadcast Line-up (first half of season)

October 1 Brandi Carlile

October 8 Japanese Breakfast/Arlo Parks

October 15 Sylvan Esso/Lucius

October 22 Allison Russell/The Weather Station

October 29 Parker McCollum/Robert Earl Keen

November 5 Lyle Lovett and His Large Band

November 12 Cimafunk and The Tribe

Watch live, stream anytime, The complete line-up for the full 14-week season, including seven new episodes to air beginning January 2023, will be announced at a later date.  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.

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Featured News

Loretta Lynn 1932-2022

Loretta Lynn on Austin City Limits, 1983. Photo by Scott Newton.

Loretta Lynn, the queen of country music, has died at the age of 90, passing peacefully at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. The hearts of all of us at Austin City Limits go out to her family, friends and fans. 

The Butcher, Holler, Kentucky-born Lynn – Loretta Webb to her parents – was as iconic a figure in music as has ever been. The proud coal miner’s daughter went on to become one of the most influential women in the history of American music. Her plain-spoken, instantly relatable singing and sharp, smart songwriting put her in the rare echelon of boundary-busting trailblazers. Tunes like “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’” and “The Pill” made it clear that the women of country music, whether performers or the subjects of songs, could and would be as independent, assertive and self-confident as their male counterparts. Artists inside and outside C&W like Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker, Deanna Carter, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Margo Price and Sheryl Crow point to Lynn as a north star. Longtime fan Jack White paid homage by producing her acclaimed 2004 album Van Lear Rose. 

With over seventy chart hits, her list of indelible songs is staggering: “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Love is the Foundation,” “You’re Lookin’ at Country,” “One’s On the Way,” “After the Fire” (with duet partner Conway Twitty), and, of course, the iconic, autobiographical “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which became a bestselling memoir and a beloved film, are the tip of a substantial iceberg. Her incredible body of work led to Lynn being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013, and she also was the recipient of a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award and a Kennedy Center Honor, among many other accolades. She may have slowed down in her later years, but she didn’t stop – she continued performing and releasing records, with her most recent album Still Woman Enough coming out in 2021. 

“From the time she stepped onto the ACL stage in her shimmering full-length gown, there was no doubt that she was the Queen of Country Music,” our executive producer Terry Lickona says. “The power of that voice and those songs commanded the room like few others have through the 48 years of Austin City Limits. The girl from Butcher Holler had arrived, and ACL once again made history. She was the genuine article; there never was anyone quite like her, and never will be again.”

Lynn recorded two classic episodes of ACL – one in 1983 during Season 8 and the other in 1998 during Season 23. We at ACL were thrilled to induct her into the ACL Hall of Fame in 2015. So her loss is difficult for us to grasp. As did so many of her fans and supporters, we always thought Loretta Lynn, like Mount Rushmore, would endure; however, her legacy – all those great songs – is immortal. 

Good night, coal miner’s daughter. 

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Featured News Taping Recap

Taping recap: Adia Victoria

Adia Victoria tapes Austin City Limits, Oct. 2022. Photo by Scott Newton.

Though wielding an acoustic guitar and a sultry voice, Adia Victoria isn’t just a singer/songwriter. The South Carolina native’s presence, charisma, expansive musical vision and willingness to confront difficult truths put her on a level beyond folky introspection and comfortable ambience, giving her the rocking sound as projected on her third album A Southern Gothic. Tonight the artist brought her socially conscious acid blues to the ACL stage for her taping debut, live streamed around the world. 

“Good evening, Austin,” Victoria pronounced as she took the stage. “We’ve come all the way from Nashville to play these blues for you.” With a swampy, psychedelic sound, she and her three-piece band kicked the show off with the rumbling “Far From Dixie,” one of the jewels in Gothic’s crown. After commenting “I’m a bundle of butterflies and shaking in my red boots,” she launched into “Magnolia Blues,” a song of reminiscence that drew deeply from her region’s most influential musical export. Victoria really grabbed the blues by the conceptual horn on the slow-crawling “Mean Hearted Woman,” telling the “woman done me wrong” story from that woman’s point of view, and dedicating it to “every woman who’s ever been gaslit by a man in her life.” Victoria continued her guided tour of the South with “My Oh My,” another quietly intense slow burner. Incorporating a jangling strum akin to folk story songs, she explored the life of “lost” Southern girls in the evangelical church in the compelling “Whole World Knows.” 

Victoria introduced “Sea of Sand” as one of the first songs she ever wrote, and the defiant folk rocker proved an audience favorite, especially during the coda of her acoustic guitar contrasting with Mason Hickman’s grunged-out power chords. The songwriter put down her guitar for “Troubled Mind,” a song that began as a prayer, and allowed her band to lay out the music while she stalked the stage, microphone in hand. As the musicians kicked into the next number, Victoria introduced them to the crowd, throwing the spotlight on Hickman, bassist Jason Harris and drummer Daniel Closser. “This is a song about getting dumped,” she noted, as the music evolved into the menacing rumble of “Different Kind of Love.” She then led her boys into paying tribute to a primary inspiration by covering “You Was Born to Die,” a thumping 1933 tune from the catalog of the great bluesman Blind Willie McTell. Closser’s drum pound shored up Hickman’s boogie riff for “Ain’t Killed Me Yet,” a celebration of life through the lens of pure defiance, as represented by the feral howl she unleashed during the breakdown. 

Victoria re-donned her guitar for the final song, telling the crowd that she used to watch ACL with her grandmother, already knowing she would one day tread those boards herself. She then sang “South Gotta Change,” her only release during the year of the pandemic, a passionate protest song inspired by the deaths of George Floyd and Rep. John Lewis and dedicated to everyone who ever told her to shut up and sing. There was no way to follow that, so Victoria and her band took a bow and quit the stage. It was an excellent show, and we can’t wait for you to see when it airs early next year on your local PBS station. 

Adia Victoria on Austin City Limits, Season 48. Photos by Scott Newton.

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News Taping Announcement Ticket Giveaway

 Giveaway: Pavement 10/10

UPDATE giveaway is now over. Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Pavement on Monday, October 10th 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 passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by Thursday, October 6th at 2 pm.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified via email. Duplicate entries for a single taping will be automatically voided. Tickets are not transferable and will be voided if sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras, computers or recording devices allowed in the 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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News Taping Announcement Ticket Giveaway

Giveaway: Adrian Quesada 10/9

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Adrian Quesada on Sunday, October 9th 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 passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by Wednesday, October 5th at 1 pm.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified via email. Duplicate entries for a single taping will be automatically voided. Tickets are not transferable and will be voided if sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras, computers or recording devices allowed in the 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.

enter to win
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News

Giveaway: Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats 10/6

UPDATE giveaway is now over.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Nathaniel Rateliff on Thursday, October 6th 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 passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by Tuesday, October 4th at 2 pm.

Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pick up tickets. Winners will be notified via email. Duplicate entries for a single taping will be automatically voided. Tickets are not transferable and will be voided if sold. Standing may be required. No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio. No cameras, computers or recording devices allowed in the 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.

enter to win