Categories
Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: Dayglow, Sarah Jarosz, Jade Bird and Billy Strings

photo by Kaitlyn Raitz

Austin City Limits is excited to announce the dates for a stellar slate of new tapings: Austin indie sensation Dayglow on May 25, four-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz on June 2, rising singer-songwriter Jade Bird on June 14, and acclaimed Grammy Award-winning bluegrass musician Billy Strings on July 7. 

photo by Pooneh Ghana

21-year-old Sloan Struble, who records music as Dayglow, makes his ACL debut on the heels of the release of his forthcoming sophomore album Harmony House, out May 21. When Dayglow released his runaway debut album Fuzzybrain, featuring its Gold-certified single “Can I Call You Tonight,” from his UT dorm room back in 2018 he had one goal: to make music that made people happy. Now three years later, Dayglow has connected with fans around the world, creating a community that uplifts and makes people feel good. As he did on his debut, he writes, produces, records, and mixes all of his music himself—in his bedroom, no less. Dayglow launched 2021 with the breakout single “Close To You,” a song reminiscent of the iconic whimsy of 80’s pop anthems, drawing heavily on some unlikely influences such as Whitney Houston, Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald. The song has already been streamed almost 20 million times, alongside having a viral moment on TikTok and continues to steadily climb the radio charts. Struble reveals that Harmony House began life as an imaginary sitcom. He’d begun writing new music and found himself drawn to piano-driven soft rock from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. He was also watching a lot of Cheers, the long-running sitcom that took the viewer to a place where, as the theme song goes, “everybody knows your name.” “At the very beginning, I was writing a soundtrack to a sitcom that doesn’t exist,” he says. The music would generate a kind of impossible nostalgia for something that had never been real.” “I tried to compose these songs in a way that you could just sit down at a piano and play them. That’s the sign of a good song, when it can live on its own musically.” That sort of sturdiness he strives for in his writing makes for timeless music, and with Harmony House he has created a finely calibrated, carefully fussed-over expression of encouragement for anyone who needs it. 

With World On the Ground, the 2021 Grammy Award-winner for Best Americana Album, and her first solo album in four years, Sarah Jarosz shares a collection of stories of her Central Texas hometown of Wimberley, each song lit up in her captivating voice and richly detailed songwriting. Produced by renowned producer/songwriter John Leventhal (who will be joining Jarosz for her taping), World on the Ground finds wisdom being passed down through song by a bird observing the world below: “When the world on the ground is gonna swallow you down, sometimes you’ve got to pay it no mind.” As the now four-time Grammy Award-winner inhabits characters both real and imagined, Jarosz reveals her remarkable gift for slipping into the interior lives of others and patiently uncovering so much indelible insight. In the making of World On the Ground, Jarosz – who already has two ACL appearances under her belt (in 2010 and 2014) – ultimately moved undeniably closer to one of her greatest ambitions as an artist: to create an emotionally honest body of work that continually reveals new meaning for the listener. “My favorite records are the ones I just want to play over and over again because of all the details that are there to discover,” she says. “As I was writing this record, it was the deepest I’d ever gone in terms of getting down to the very specific details in the way I told each story. The details are what make people feel something and connect the story to their own lives, and that’s really all I want for my music.” A prolific artist, this spring she released Blue Heron Suite, a song cycle inspired by the frequent trips Jarosz and her parents made to Port Aransas, a small town on the Gulf Coast of Texas that had been devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. “I like to think of the song cycle as a quiet acknowledgment of life’s many uncertainties,” she says. “You never know what will be thrown your way, but you can always work to try to face the highs and the lows with grace and strength.” 

photo by Charlotte Patmore

British native and recent Austin transplant Jade Bird has been earning acclaim in the U.S. since 2018, winning SXSW’s coveted Grulke Prize for developing non-U.S. act and scoring a nomination for the Americana Awards emerging artist of the year. The 23-year-old singer-songwriter has been writing and performing live since her teens and released her self-titled full-length debut in 2019 to critical raves. Following a yearlong U.S. tour playing on bills with artists including Jason Isbell, Sheryl Crow and Bird’s friend and champion, Brandi Carlile, the young artist discovered kindred spirits and became part of a nurturing community of American songwriters and career artists. In 2020 she headed to Nashville’s RCA Studios to record with mega-producer Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton) for her highly-anticipated sophomore album, due this summer. Bird recently dropped her first new music in over a year, a trio of celebrated new singles, including “Headstart,” which the NY Times raves: “shows off the distinct, raspy twang of her vocals — which somehow find common ground between Lucinda Williams and Alanis Morissette” and Rolling Stone hailed as “electrifying.” 

photo by Jesse Faatz

Michigan-born and now Nashville-based, Billy Strings is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and musician, who arrived on the scene as “one of string music’s most dynamic young stars” (Rolling Stone). Strings is in the midst of a triumphant year after winning Best Bluegrass Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards for his critically acclaimed record, Home. Produced by Glenn Brown, the record also led Strings to top Billboard’s 2020 year-end charts in both Bluegrass categories—Top Bluegrass Artists and Top Bluegrass Albums—and continues to receive widespread critical acclaim. Of the release, Associated Press proclaims, “it is his creative musical storytelling, paired with solid vocals on Home that should seal the deal, pleasing fans of the genre and creating some new ones…the perfect blend of pure talent and pluck,” while The Wall Street Journal declares, “Billy Strings has clearly emerged as a premier guitar flatpicker of this era.” Since his debut, Strings has been awarded Guitar Player of the Year and New Artist of the Year at the 2019 International Bluegrass Music Awards, selected as one of Rolling Stone’s “New Country Artists to Know” and performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and PBS’ Bluegrass Underground. Known for his electric live shows, Strings has continued to perform throughout the past year—both virtually and in-person—and has raised over $100,000 for charity through a variety of livestream and socially distanced concerts.

Due to implemented safety measures and the ongoing uncertainty from COVID-19, there will be no giveaway for access to attend upcoming ACL tapings. With the safety of the artists, crew and guests top of mind, the limited studio audience will be prioritized to our donors who make Austin City Limits possible and who have continued to support the show during this challenging time and beyond. We will expand the audience as safety measures allow and will post giveaway opportunities on ACLTV.com as available. Thank you for your patience as we work to reopen safely. We can’t wait to get back to the music with our supporters and fans. We have more exciting tapings coming up this year, and nore information on those shows will be forthcoming.  

About 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 47th 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 KLRU 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, KLRU-TV and funding is provided in part by Dell Technologies, Workrise, the Austin Convention Center Department and Cirrus Logic. Additional funding is provided by the Friends of Austin City Limits. Learn more about Austin City Limits, programming and history at acltv.com.

Categories
ACL Lessons From the Show Featured News

Austin PBS announces Austin City Limits: Lessons From the Show

The talent and passion showcased on Austin City Limits is now bringing learning opportunities, along with much-needed arts education, to students around the country through PBS LearningMedia. 

Introducing “Season 1” of Austin PBS’s newest education collection. Austin City Limits: Lessons From The Show takes video clips from recent ACL episodes and connects them to classroom learning, with lessons that ask students to critically analyze aspects of on-stage performances. The educational activities include prompts around literary readings, vocabulary, musical composition, geography and more. There are currently 10 different artist-specific sections, covering a wide range of genres and musical eras: Rosalía, The Raconteurs, Willie Nelson, John Legend and The Roots, August Greene, Alessia Cara, Brandi Carlile, Billie Eilish, H.E.R. and The Pretenders.

About PBS LearningMedia

PBS LearningMedia is a free, direct access library of ready-to-teach curriculum aligned to national and state standards and it’s relied on by thousands of educators every school week, with enthusiastic use here in Central Texas. National use of local Austin PBS LearningMedia resources accessed last month in April nearly tripled from March, directly after unveiling Austin City Limits: Lessons From The Show!

It’s not just for teachers though — parents and caregivers alike will find a variety of subjects for every grade level expertly curated with engaging content to enhance children’s learning inside and outside the classroom. 

Take a look at the entire Season 1 collection for grades K-12 at pbs.org/learn and see how the magical moments captured on the ACL stage are now inspiring kids and teachers far beyond the city limits. 

Categories
Featured News Taping Recap

Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall bring Marfa to ACL

photo by Scott Newton

There’s nothing like starting a new Austin City Limits taping season with something special. Singer/songwriters Jack Ingram and Miranda Lambert have spent time on our stage before, but not quite like this. Coming together with friend and fellow tunesmith Jon Randall, the Texas natives hit the small West Texas town of Marfa to create The Marfa Tapes, a stripped-down and intimate set of songs generated around a campfire (“to let the dust get in ‘em,” said Lambert) that could only come from a band of pals with time to kill and talent to burn. Now the trio has chosen to perform these songs in our studio, in their first-ever full-length show, a week prior to the record’s release, for a season kickoff like no other we’ve had. 

“Welcome to Marfa!” said Ingram as Randall broke into the Western swing rhythm of “Two Step Down to Texas,” a jovial celebration of Austin with Lambert on lead vocals and Ingram on whistle solo. Atop their stools and under their cowboy hats, the trio shifted to waltz time for “Am I Right or Amarillo,” a Randall-led tune that sounds like a honky-tonk classic you haven’t heard in ages. “We’re so happy to be the first show back at ACL,” noted Lambert from the stage. “It’s a dream to be here. Thank you for enjoying the campfire – we hope you laugh a little, cry a little and drink a lot!” The tune “Ghost” followed, its nod to one of Lambert’s ex-paramours carried by the threesome’s stirring harmonies. Ingram took the spotlight next with the metaphorical “Anchor,” remarking that “these guys are the only ones who’d write a song with me about drowning…and love.” After elucidating some of the twenty years of history the three friends have shared, Lambert introduced the lovely single “In His Arms,” written, she said, while staring into the Marfa sunset. 

The atmosphere moved from sunset to starlight, as Ingram and Lambert told the story of the group’s first night in Marfa. That resulted in Lambert’s award-winning hit “Tin Man,” which the trio then performed with round robin vocals, Randall to Lambert to Ingram. “Let’s give Jon a big hand,” said Ingram about his session ace friend. “He’s carrying a lot of these guitar parts.” The man who got his start playing guitar for Emmylou Harris in her eighties band the Nash Ramblers then explained how The Marfa Tapes was recorded: three microphones, some guitars, and a few drinks. That led into the song “Waxahachie,” a ditty that grew out of an argument over which Texas highway leads to it – an argument settled by Lambert’s mom. (For the record: it’s IH 35.) Randall then knocked out the bluesy riff for “Geraldene,” a snarky shot across the bow of a would-be predator. The trio immediately shifted gears with “The Wind’s Gonna Blow,” a close-harmony ballad that was the first tune written for the project. That led to “Amazing Grace (West Texas),” a sparse, heartfelt tribute to the locale in which the record was made.  

Ingram told a story about fading into the night merely by walking away from the campfire the threesome shared, which prompted Lambert to remark, “I don’t like it when he disappears like that.” That was the genesis of “I Don’t Like It,” turning the songstress’ casual complaint into a meditation of the fragility of love. “We’re putting these songs down just the way we did in Marfa,” Lambert noted about the performance’s raw and unfiltered nature. Nobody complained, especially when Ingram led the trio into the closing time ode “We’ll Always Have the Blues.” The next song paid loving, if irreverent, tribute to the late Guy Clark by citing his classic “Homegrown Tomatoes” in a song by the same name. “We were not drinkin’ when we wrote this song,” Lambert insisted (to Ingram’s casual denial), before launching into the cheeky “Tequila Does,” a song that first appeared on Lambert’s most recent album Wildcard before finding its second home on its writers’ LP. 

For the final number, the trio raised a glass to another lost legend – Austin music pioneer Jerry Jeff Walker, who passed away in 2020. That meant, of course, closing the show with “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” penned by Ray Wylie Hubbard, made famous by Walker and sung by the three friends in their best outlaw style – with a little help on the chorus from the crowd. With that rowdy exit, Ingram, Lambert and Randall left the stage, leaving behind a performance other seasons will be hard-pressed to match as kickoffs go. We can’t wait for you to see it when it airs this fall on your local PBS station as part of our Season 47.

All photos by Scott Newton
Categories
Featured News

Denny Freeman 1944-2021

Austin-based guitarist, keyboardist and songwriter Denny Freeman passed away Sunday, April 25th, from cancer at the age of 76. Freeman was an integral part of Austin’s seminal blues scene, coming up alongside the Vaughan Brothers, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and more. 

After growing up in the Dallas area, he landed in Austin in 1970, where he became a staple on the town’s blues stages and played with many ACL favorites. He shared lead guitar duties with Stevie Ray Vaughan in the Cobras, founded Southern Feeling with ATX blues mentor W.C. Clark and Angela Strehli, and became a member of the Antone’s house band, backing the likes of Buddy Guy, Albert Collins and Lazy Lester. He worked closely with Austin blues siren Lou Ann Barton, and recorded and toured with Jimmie Vaughan. After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, he became a mainstay in Taj Mahal’s touring band. 

Before moving back to Austin in 2011, Freeman landed his most high-profile gig yet as lead guitarist for Bob Dylan. His five-year tenure in Dylan’s Never-Ending Tour band included a headlining spot at the Austin City Limits Music Festival and the recording of the singer/songwriter’s acclaimed LP Modern Times. He also made records with soul singer Percy Sledge, Stevie Ray Vaughan co-writer Doyle Bramhall, and L.A. scene keyboard veteran Barry Goldberg. Along the way he released six mostly instrumental solo records of his own. 

As a key member of Austin’s blues mafia, Freeman appeared on Austin City Limits three times: in Season 15 with W.C. Clark, in Season 20 with Jimmie Vaughan, and in Season 26 with Double Trouble and Friends. Here’s Freeman in 1990 tearing up his Stratocaster with Clark and Angela Strehli on “Big Town Playboy.” 

Denny Freeman on Austin City Limits, 1990.
Categories
Featured News Taping Announcement Uncategorized

TAPING: Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall’s The Marfa Tapes on 4/28 – limited audience

photo by Spencer Peeples

Austin City Limits welcomes Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall as they present their upcoming album The Marfa Tapes on April 28 at ACL Live at the Moody Theater.

Deep in the heart of the Trans-Pecos lies a little town with an outsized grip on the American imagination: Marfa, Texas. For decades Marfa has attracted artists and wanderers, visionaries and misfits, loners and oddballs. The desolate meeting of high desert and rugged mountains is a filmmaker’s dream (see No Country For Old Men or There Will Be Blood, both of which were filmed here), and the infinite, empty sky leaves you with little doubt as to your place in the universe. Marfa is the perfect place to lose—or find—yourself. For singer/songwriters Miranda Lambert (who has visited the ACL stage three times),  Jack Ingram (who last appeared 25 years ago in Season 22) and Jon Randall (who makes his ACL debut), it was both. 

Writing retreats to Marfa became a regular tradition for Lambert, Randall, and Ingram, one that yielded both massive hits and profound personal growth. When the trio returned for five days this past November though, they came not to write, but to record, capturing a captivating new album inspired by the stark beauty of west Texas and the deep, lasting bonds the three have forged there. Recorded raw and loose with just a pair of microphones and an acoustic guitar, The Marfa Tapes is a work of audio verité, an intimate, unadorned snapshot of a moment in time fueled by love, trust, and friendship. The trio recorded much of the album outdoors, inviting the ambient sounds of the desert to seep into their live, bare bones performances, and the atmosphere is utterly transportive. While a few of the tracks here may already be familiar to country listeners—ACM Song of the Year “Tin Man” turns up in its original, stripped-down state, as does fan favorite “Tequila Does”—the vast majority of the material has never been heard outside of Marfa, and the result is a rare glimpse inside the creative process of three of the genre’s most accomplished writers and performers, a candid, unvarnished look at Lambert, Randall, and Ingram’s undeniable chemistry in its purest, most honest form.

The songs on this album would sound great anywhere, but there’s something about these recordings, about the rustling of the wind and the crackling of the fire, that brings the music to life in a way no band arrangement or studio production ever could. The spaciousness here leaves plenty of room for the imagination to roam, and the desert, mountains, and sky are all just as integral to the sound as Lambert, Randall, and Ingram themselves. In the end, Marfa isn’t just the setting for this album; it’s the soul. 

Due to implemented safety measures and the ongoing uncertainty from COVID-19, there will be no giveaway for access to attend upcoming ACL tapings. With the safety of the artists, crew and guests top of mind, the limited studio audience will be prioritized to our donors who make Austin City Limits possible and who have continued to support the show during this challenging time and beyond. We will expand the audience as safety measures allow and will post giveaway opportunities on ACLTV.com as available. Thank you for your patience as we work to reopen safely. We can’t wait to get back to the music with our supporters and fans. 

Unfortunately, there will not be a public live stream of this taping. As always, the performances captured in our current tapings will broadcast this fall in ACL’s 47th season, and we encourage you to catch our encore episodes on your local PBS station. 

Categories
Featured News

ACL salutes the 2021 Grammy winners

Billie Eilish. Photo by Scott Newton.

Austin City Limits extends our congratulations to our distinguished ACL alumni for their big wins at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards. 

For the second year in a row, Billie Eilish won the top prize Record of the Year, this year for her single “Everything I Wanted,” as well as picking up the Best Song Written For Visual Media trophy for “No Time to Die,” the title track for the upcoming James Bond film. H.E.R. collected wins for Song of the Year for her single “I Can’t Breathe” (featured on the Judas and the Black Messiah soundtrack) and Best R&B Song for “Better Than I Imagine,” her collaboration with Robert Glasper (also of August Greene) and Meshell Ndegeocello. Our beloved John Prine picked up two awards for his posthumous single “I Remember Everything,” including Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song. 

Other ACL performers that need to make space on their trophy shelves this year include: James Taylor, Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, John Legend, Vince Gill, Brandi Carlile (as part of the Highwomen), Miranda Lambert, Dolly Parton, Natalia Lafourcade, Sarah Jarosz, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, and Beck. 

We’re thrilled to feature many of the recent Grammy-winners on ACL’s upcoming Season 47. Miranda Lambert launches the new season with an April taping showcasing her newest collaborative project and later this season we’ll be showcasing Brittany Howard in her solo ACL debut and looking forward to hosting Sarah Jarosz in her third ACL outing. Stay tuned for more. 

You can see the full list of winners here. Congratulations to all.