News - Austin City Limits

Cameron Crowe to Induct My Morning Jacket into Austin City Limits Hall of Fame

Post author By Lily Angelle
Post date July 16, 2025

Austin City Limits proudly announces that special guest Cameron Crowe will induct rock legends My Morning Jacket into the 2025 Austin City Limits Hall of Fame on Friday, August 1. The Oscar-winning filmmaker and best-selling author will be on hand to honor his friends as the American originals enter the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, joining the esteemed acts inducted since 2014.

In their return to the ACL stage for the first time in nearly a decade, My Morning Jacket will perform a full set taping for the occasion. In a new first, the show is open to all, and the Hall of Fame will not be a ticketed event. Fans will have the opportunity to win free passes to attend by signing up for a ticket giveaway on acltv.com beginning July 24 through July 29.

Cameron Crowe: “Thank you to Austin City Limits for the invitation to help honor My Morning Jacket. MMJ has the rarest kind of mastery. Their songs explode with passion and feeling on stage and in the studio. They’ve long been one of my favorite bands. I can’t wait for a chance to see them play again on the ACL stage.”

Jim James: “We are so excited to experience this ACL honor with the great Cameron Crowe! We have long loved his beautiful visions in the art of filmmaking, as well as his wisdom and humor in the world of music journalism. His art and friendship has enriched our lives so much over the years and we are so stoked to share the stage with him!”

One of America’s most iconic music journalists, Cameron Crowe helped define the job by becoming Rolling Stone’s youngest-ever contributor as a fifteen-year-old high school graduate. He went on to profile the likes of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton John, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and The Who at the heady height of the album-oriented rock era.

Crowe became an acclaimed filmmaker writing and/or directing some of the most beloved films of the past forty years, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything… and Singles, to Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky and Almost Famous.

Crowe’s long-awaited memoir, The Uncool, will be published by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, on October 28, 2025. Hamburgers for the Apocalypse: The Music Journalism of Cameron Crowe, a companion collection of the author’s essential interviews and newly conducted follow-up conversations, will be published in 2026.

The Induction and taping will take place at ACL’s studio home, ACL Live at The Moody Theater in downtown Austin. The hourlong broadcast episode will air as a season highlight of Austin City Limits‘ upcoming Season 51, premiering this October on PBS. The series recently celebrated its milestone 50th Anniversary in 2024 with a landmark campaign honoring its legacy and future. The live music beacon is a public media institution that continues to champion artistry, authenticity and music discovery.

ACL is thrilled to welcome My Morning Jacket into the ACL Hall of Fame and to showcase their latest sonic adventure, is. The Louisville, KY-bred five-piece recently released is, their first album in nearly four years, and their 10th studio album. My Morning Jacket has made a trio of fan-favorite appearances on Austin City Limits over their 25+ year career, with revelatory performances that have earned the band a place in the ACL canon. They made their series debut in Season 31 (2006) and returned within the course of a decade during Season 34 (2008) and Season 42 (2016). Bandleader Jim James also appeared during that period with Monsters of Folk (S36/2010), and as a guest of Bright Eyes (S30/2005) and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (S37/2011). Additionally, James also taped a solo appearance in 2013 for Season 39.

Since its inception in 2014, the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame has honored legendary artists who have played a pivotal role in the trailblazing music series’ remarkable half-century legacy as a music institution. The inaugural awards honored Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Hall of Fame has inducted over twenty-five artists at ten previous ceremonies including Lloyd Maines, Asleep at the Wheel, Loretta Lynn, Guy Clark, Flaco Jiménez, Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Rosanne Cash, The Neville Brothers, Ray Charles, Marcia Ball, Los Lobos, Lyle Lovett, Buddy Guy, Shawn Colvin, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Alejandro Escovedo, Sheryl Crow, Joe Ely, John Prine and Trisha Yearwood. The 10th Anniversary Hall of Fame welcomed Garth Brooks to its ranks.

Widely ranked among the greatest live bands of their generation, My Morning Jacket have long maintained their status as one of the most vital forces in American rock-and-roll. Known for their thrillingly expansive and eclectic sound, the five-piece – vocalist/guitarist Jim James, bassist Tom Blankenship, guitarist Carl Broemel, drummer Patrick Hallahan, keyboardist Bo Koster – has influenced an entire era of musicians, largely by staying one step ahead of mainstream pop culture and following their instincts toward endless innovation. For more than 25 years, My Morning Jacket has achieved an incredibly rare feat in the world of modern rock – upholding a long-established cultural legacy while sustaining all the curiosity and creative hunger of their earliest days.

Fans can enter a public giveaway to win free passes to be a part of the audience for this historic Hall of Fame taping. Visit us at acltv.com and follow @acltv on IG, Facebook and X for updates.

Austin City Limits and the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame are produced by Austin PBS. Austin PBS is a non-profit organization providing public television and educational resources to Central Texas as well as producing quality national programming.

Austin City Limits:

A monument to music, Austin City Limits is the longest-running music series in television history, providing viewers a front-row seat to the best in live performance for more than 50 years. On October 17, 1974, Willie Nelson taped the pilot episode and the trailblazing series premiered on PBS in 1975. The public media mainstay has showcased iconic performances from legends and innovators in every genre of popular song. The series is the flagship of the popular Austin City Limits Music Festival and has earned countless accolades for its quality presentation of live music performances, including a Peabody Award, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame designation and it remains the only TV series awarded the National Medal of Arts. Austin City Limits writes the next chapter in its remarkable 50+ year broadcast run with the upcoming Season 51.

FINNEAS to Tape Austin City Limits in August

Post author By Lily Angelle
Post date July 14, 2025

Photo courtesy of artist management

Austin City Limits (ACL) is thrilled to announce a summer taping with FINNEAS in his headlining ACL debut on August 7. FINNEAS first appeared on the ACL stage in Season 45 in 2019 alongside his sister Billie Eilish and we’re thrilled to welcome the gifted artist back to the ACL stage for his solo debut as a highlight of ACL’s Season 51. Finneas makes his ACL debut showcasing songs from his sophomore solo album, For Cryin’ Out Loud!

Celebrated singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer FINNEAS has quietly emerged as a ubiquitous presence in popular music and culture. He achieved stratospheric success for his groundbreaking work with his sister Billie Eilish, including a history-making ten Grammy Awards for his work with her. His impact has also reverberated through film and television, whether it be writing Academy Award-winning songs for blockbuster films Barbie and No Time To Die or composing original scores for Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ series Disclaimer and HBO Max’s The Fallout, Vengeance, and more.

FINNEAS introduced a heartfelt and hypnotic style for his 2019 debut solo outing, Blood Harmony, an EP highlighted by the gold-certified “Let’s Fall in Love for the Night.” 2021 saw him unveil his full-length debut, The Optimist, on Interscope Records. A restless creative, FINNEAS is always challenging himself. It’s why he opted to gather a handful of friends, head to the studio as “a band,” and make his second full-length solo album, For Cryin’ Out Loud! He set the stage for the record with the title track which Rolling Stone hailed “…the work of a popcraft savant with a light, versatile touch.”
We’re thrilled to welcome FINNEAS to our stage in his debut headlining appearance amid a sold-out world tour. Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes a week in advance of the taping. Follow us on IG and Facebook and X for notice of postings. The broadcast episode will air and stream this fall on PBS as part of ACL’s upcoming Season 51.

Tags Season 51

Giveaway: Kelsea Ballerini

Post author By Lily Angelle
Post date July 5, 2025

*UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed. *Austin City Limits will tape a performance by Kelsea Ballerini on Thursday, July 10th at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). Austin City Limits Taping Giveaways are presented by AXS Events.

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. While we do our best to accommodate all winners, we cannot guarantee admission. These passes are based on space available therefore you will be filling in spots available on the floor or balcony depending on the tickets that are available when you arrive.

With a revelatory album, an arena-headlining tour, and a 2025 nomination for the CMA Awards’ top honor of Entertainer of the Year, Kelsea Ballerini is having a moment. A beloved artist known for sparkling live performances, the country hitmaker has had a remarkable decade-long run since arriving on the Nashville scene with her 2015 debut album, The First Time. Ballerini had hit singles right out of the gate, becoming the only female country artist to hit #1 with the first three consecutive singles from a debut album. This history-making feat earned her a Best New Artist Grammy nomination. With seven #1 singles and 36 certifications from the RIAA to date, her catalog boasts a string of essential smashes. Ballerini’s fourth album, Subject To Change, arrived in 2022. The gold-certified first single, “Heartfirst,” earned her a Grammy nomination for “Best Country Solo Performance.” She went on to surprise fans five months later with the release of the intimate six-song Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which resonated with audiences and earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, along with an accompanying short film written and directed by Ballerini, marked the multi-platinum star’s most honest work to date and led to her Saturday Night Live debut, universal acclaim from critics including The New York Times, Variety, Rolling Stone, as well as the honor of gracing the cover of TIME Magazine. Her latest critically acclaimed Patterns, her fifth studio album, debuted in the fall of 2024 and topped the Country Albums chart and reached number four on the Billboard 200. The album found Ballerini purposefully surrounding herself with women, along with producer Alysa Vanderheym, and collaborators Jessie Jo Dillon, Karen Fairchild, and Hillary Lindsey. On the album she enlisted Best New Artist GRAMMY nominee Noah Kahan to appear on the tender and beautifully crafted RIAA certified-Gold, CMA Awards-nominated “Musical Event of the Year” and GRAMMY-nominated “Best Country Duo/Group Performance” – single “Cowboys Cry Too.” Most recently, she wrapped up her 35-date Kelsea Ballerini Live On Tour, performing in arenas across the country. Among dozens of accolades thus far, Ballerini has garnered five GRAMMY nominations, won two ACM Awards, picked up two CMA Awards, took home the iHeartRadio Music Awards honor for Best New Artist, and received multiple career nominations from the ACM Awards, American Music Awards, CMA Awards, CMT Awards and People’s Choice Awards. Ballerini was also inducted as a member of the famed Grand Ole Opry in 2019. At the time, she notably became the Opry’s youngest member in its nearly 100-year history. With these accolades, it is no wonder NPR proclaimed, “Kelsea Ballerini is definitely one of the most influential women in country right now… she’s defining the sound of the genre.”

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.

Tags Season 51

Featured News Ticket Giveaway Tickets Distributed

Giveaway: The Marías

Post author By Lily Angelle
Post date July 1, 2025

UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed. Austin City Limits will tape a performance by The Marías on Tuesday, July 8th at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). Austin City Limits Taping Giveaways are presented by AXS Events.

The Marías are the psychedelic-soul lovechild of Puerto Rican-bred, Atlanta-raised María Zardoya and Los Angeles native, Josh Conway. The pair are joined by their closest friends Jesse Perlman on guitar and Edward James on keys. The Marías’ undeniably intuitive musical chemistry is evident in their smooth blend of jazz percussion, hypnotic guitar riffs, smoke-velvet vocals, and nostalgic horn solos. Since the 2021 release of their critically acclaimed debut, Cinema, which paid homage to their early days of writing for film and television, the Marías have earned countless accolades and collaborations with some of the biggest names in Latin music, including Bad Bunny and Tainy. Their highly anticipated follow-up, 2024’s Submarine, represents the next phase of their fascinating sonic journey. Stepping back into the psychedelic indie rock roots that defined their 2017 breakout EP, Superclean, the recent album delivers a sense that you’ve been here before but the geography has evolved. The cinematic swells of their debut have been traded for a sonically matured return to form for an album that Conway calls the “bookend to
their trilogy.” A study in aloneness, the evocative ache of Submarine feels, at times, inescapable, as one is faced with what it means to choose solitude and the pain and beauty so inextricably interwoven within it. It embodies the grief in something as innately human as separation. María’s hypnotic vocals transport listeners to a place of reflection and exploration. The detail that defines their cinematic style off-stage is brought to life during ethereal live performances as the group delivers striking visuals that beautifully complement their dreamy songs, creating an indisputably
unique experience. This bespoke live Submarine show was on full display to rapturous audiences in buzzed-about sets at 2024’s ACL Fest and their recent Coachella appearances. The Marías are currently on a sold-out extended U.S. headlining tour with festival dates including Lollapalooza, Shaky Knees, and All Things Go.

Tags Season 51

Live Stream News

Live Stream MJ Lenderman & the Wind’s ACL Taping on 7/1 @ 8pm CT

Post author By emily
Post date June 25, 2025

MJ Lenderman & the Wind make their Austin City Limits debut on Tuesday, July 1, and the legendary music series is proud to announce this highly-anticipated performance will be livestreamed on the ACLTV YouTube Channel. ACL offers fans worldwide the unique opportunity to watch MJ Lenderman & the Wind’s taping live in its entirety from the famed Austin City Limits stage in Austin, Texas, on July 1 at 8pm CT/9pm ET free via the ACLTV YouTube Channel. ACL is thrilled to showcase the ascendant singer-songwriter and his five-piece band ahead of the 4th of July, lighting up the ACL stage with highlights from his acclaimed Manning Fireworks. Lenderman recently received a trio of 2025 nominations for the album from the Americana Music Awards, leading the pack with top honor nods for Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year. The livestream will begin promptly at 8pm CT and will only be available live. The broadcast episode will air this fall on PBS and stream on pbs.org/austincitylimits as part of the iconic television series’ upcoming Season 51.

26-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist MJ Lenderman makes his ACL debut after a busy couple of years. A rock-and-roll and basketball obsessed kid growing up in the mountain town of Asheville, NC, he put out the breakthrough solo set Boat Songs in 2022; the sleeper hit piled offhanded, Southern-inflected rock on wry, laconic bangers like “Hangover Game,” “Six Flags” and “Tastes Just Like It Costs.” With its barbed little jokes, canny sports references, and gloriously ragged guitar solos, the album became one of that year’s standouts, a ramshackle set of charms and chuckles. He followed with a stellar 2024, bookended by a memorable feature on Waxahatchee’s “Right Back To It,” a magnetic duet about romantic doubt that became one of the year’s biggest indie-rock anthems, and the release of his own highly anticipated solo album, Manning Fireworks. A laser-sharp study of misfits and the mistakes they make, where sympathy and sardonicism share the same ragged rock song, the acclaimed release features thumbnail character studies: “She’s Leaving You,” a half-sneering portrait of a dad cheating his way through a midlife crisis, at least until he gets caught and blasts Clapton in a rented Ferrari en route to Vegas; “On My Knees” finds Lenderman wondering what it means to have fun in a world where so many people seem full of shit; and muses on edgelords and alpha males on the standout “Wristwatch.” Manning Fireworks topped many critics’ year-end best lists, with Rolling Stone raving, “MJ Lenderman delivers a sad-guy indie-rock gem” and named him “a budding guitar great and ace storyteller”; The New York Times calls Lenderman “A young artist with an old soul and a keen eye for observational detail that makes his canted portraits of small-town life come alive”; NPR raves, “He’s a homespun magical realist, always throwing in something off-kilter to elevate his tales of lovable losers”; and the Guardian concurs, “Far from being dude-centric, Manning Fireworks’ sad sack anthems tap into something devastatingly, purely human.”

Tags Live Streams, Tapings

News Ticket Giveaway Tickets Distributed

Giveaway: MJ Lenderman & The Wind

Post author By Austin Hegarty
Post date June 23, 2025

Photo Credit: Lance Bangs

UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed. Austin City Limits will tape a performance from MJ Lenderman & The Wind on Tuesday, July 1st at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). Austin City Limits Taping Giveaways are presented by AXS Events.

26-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist MJ Lenderman makes his ACL debut after a busy couple of years. A rock-and-roll and basketball-obsessed kid growing up in the mountain town of Asheville, NC, he put out the breakthrough solo set Boat Songs in 2022. The sleeper hit piled offhanded, Southern-inflected rock on wry, laconic bangers like “Hangover Game,” “Six Flags” and “Tastes Just Like It Costs.” With its barbed little jokes, canny sports references, and gloriously ragged guitar solos, the album became one of that year’s standouts, a ramshackle set of charms and chuckles. He followed with a stellar 2024, bookended by a memorable feature on Waxahatchee’s “Right Back To It,” a magnetic duet about romantic doubt that became one of the year’s biggest indie-rock anthems, and the release of his own highly anticipated solo album, Manning Fireworks. A laser-sharp study of misfits and the mistakes they make, where sympathy and sardonicism share the same ragged rock song, the acclaimed release features a number of thumbnail character studies. “She’s Leaving You” is a half-sneering portrait of a dad cheating his way through a midlife crisis, at least until he gets caught and blasts Clapton in a rented Ferrari en route to Vegas. “On My Knees” finds Lenderman wondering what it means to have fun in a world where so many people seem full of shit while the standout “Wristwatch” muses on edgelords and alpha males. Manning Fireworks topped many critics’ year-end best lists, with Rolling Stone raving, “MJ Lenderman delivers a sad-guy indie-rock gem” and named him “a budding guitar great and ace storyteller.” The New York Times calls Lenderman “A young artist with an old soul and a keen eye for observational detail that makes his canted portraits of small-town life come alive.” NPR says, “He’s a homespun magical realist, always throwing in something off-kilter to elevate his tales of lovable losers,” while the Guardian concurs, “Far from being dude-centric, Manning Fireworks’ sad sack anthems tap into something devastatingly, purely human.”

Tags Season 51