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New tapings: Tyler Childers 3/24, Luke Combs 4/27 and the Avett Brothers 4/29

photo by David McClister

Austin City Limits is happy to announce new tapings featuring a trio of American originals: Luke Combs, Tyler Childers, as well as a returning fan favorite: The Avett Brothers. Following up his guest appearance with mentor John Prine in 2018, Tyler Childers makes his headlining debut on March 24, and chart-topper Luke Combs hits the ACL stage for the first time on April 27. The Avetts make their third headlining appearance – and fourth overall – on the ACL stage on April 29. 

Kentucky native and Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and musician Tyler Childers envisions his new album Country Squire as a “working man’s country album”—one that captures a relentless work ethic, a happy marriage, and a sly sense of humor. The album comes two years after his widely-acclaimed 2017 breakout debut Purgatory. For the new project, he reunited with Purgatory co-producers Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, recording nine songs in just two days. “I don’t know how to explain it any other way but I wanted it to feel like an upper,” Childers says. “I was listening to a lot of Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights and Jim & Jesse’s Diesel on My Tail. You listen to that album all the way through and it’s driving, it’s going, and it’s not stopping.” Childers isn’t stopping—Country Squire debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and scored a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the single “All Your’n.” Childers grew up in Lawrence County, Kentucky, with a father in the coal industry. As a boy, he sang for his Free Will Baptist Church congregation and learned a few chords on a guitar given to him by his grandfather. He absorbed the classic rock his father liked, along with country artists of the ‘80s, such as Alabama, Ricky Skaggs, and Hank Williams Jr. “I hope that I’m doing my people justice, and I hope that maybe someone from somewhere else can get a glimpse of the life of a Kentucky boy,” he says of Country Squire. Childers was named “Emerging Artist of the Year” at the 2018 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards. Garnering accolades for his powerful live performances, he’s toured extensively across the globe including over 130 sold-out headline shows as well as multiple dates supporting supporting Willie Nelson and John Prine. He has also performed at major festivals including ACL Fest, Bonnaroo, Merlefest, Newport Folk Festival, Stagecoach and countless other stages. Childers recently made his headline debut at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium with four special sold-out shows and will tour extensively throughout 2020 as part of Sturgill Simpson’s “A Good Look’n Tour.” 

photo by David Bergman

ACM, CMA, CMT and Billboard Award-winning artist Luke Combs is unquestionably country music’s biggest breakout star, riding country’s hottest hand with seven consecutive No. 1 singles, including his latest “Even Though I’m Leaving.” Combs’ critically acclaimed sophomore album, What You See Is What You Get, debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart as well as Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. Combs holds steady on the sound that established him—a blend of modern country music with a throwback vibe to the ‘90s country of his childhood. There is no mistaking Combs when you hear that voice. He grew up in Asheville, NC to blue-collar parents who tried to encourage his raw musical talent. What you see with Luke Combs is an approachable North Carolina guy in a ball cap and jeans who’s admittedly not that different from his high school days. What you get, however, is an arena headliner, a Grand Ole Opry member, a Grammy nominee for Best New Artist, and the only country singer in history to reach No. 1 with his first seven singles. Combs’ 2017 debut album, This One’s For You, was recently certified triple platinum; the album has spent 50 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart—tying the record for the longest reign atop the chart. This One’s For You was also the most-streamed country album of 2019. Leading up to the release of What You See Is What You Get, Combs topped the country countdowns with “Hurricane,” “When It Rains It Pours,” “One Number Away,” “She Got the Best of Me,” “Beautiful Crazy,” and “Beer Never Broke My Heart.” Combs insists that he owes everything to his fans. “I always want to be the best dude and I want to do what’s right for everybody. I want people to know that I’m still the same good dude that I was when I started.” Combs makes his ACL debut in the midst of a sold-out U.S. tour, including his first-ever stadium show. 

photo by Crackerfarm

The Avett Brothers made mainstream waves with their 2009 major label debut, I and Love and You, landing in the Top 20 on the Billboard Top 200 and garnering widespread critical acclaim. The debut success was soon followed by the release of 2012’s The Carpenter and 2013’s Magpie and the Dandelion, which both debuted Top 5 on the Billboard Top 200. 2016’s True Sadness achieved The Avett Brothers’ highest career debut to date, hitting No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart, topping both the Rock Albums and Digital Albums charts, landing No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200, and scoring two GRAMMY® nominations. The banner year also saw the North Carolina natives inducted into their home state’s esteemed Music Hall of Fame. In 2017, the band released the critically acclaimed documentary May It Last: A Portrait of The Avett Brothers, which was co-directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio. The film followed the band as they wrote their GRAMMY® nominated True Sadness and received rave reviews and critical acclaim. The band headlined 2018’s concert for Hurricane Florence Relief, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to help North Carolinians affected by the devastation of Hurricane Florence. The Avett Brothers’ latest album, Closer Than Together, hit No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart and No. 2 on the Top Folk Albums chart. Billboard notes, “Closer Than Together is the sound of a group sticking to what it does best — singing the truth about the world, pulling no punches and confronting listeners with music that stops you in your tracks.” In addition, a new musical inspired by and featuring the music of The Avett Brothers, Swept Away, will have its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in June 2020. 

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week prior to the taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air this fall on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 46.

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: The Weather Station, Brandi Carlile, Lucius, Parker McCollum

Brandi Carlile. Photo by Neil Krug.

Austin City Limits is excited to announce a stellar slate of summer tapings for Season 48, starring a trio of artists making ACL debuts and a returning ACL favorite: June 21 brings us the remarkable songwriting of Toronto’s The Weather Station; July 13 welcomes the return of celebrated singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile in her third appearance; July 17 features the distinctive indie pop of  Lucius; and July 26 showcases fast-rising Texas country sensation Parker McCollum. 

The Weather Station. Photo by Daniel Dorsa.

Tamara Lindeman is a Toronto-based songwriter and singer who performs under the name The Weather Station.  As The Weather Station, she has released six albums, most recently 2021’s breakthrough Ignorance and its companion album, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, released this March, which deal with themes of climate grief, disconnection and conflict, love and birds. Ignorance was regarded as one of the most praised albums of 2021, landing in the best albums of the year lists by the New Yorker, New York Times, Pitchfork and way beyond. The Weather Station has been nominated for two Junos, a Socan Award, and has been shortlisted for the Polaris Prize. Recorded live in just three days, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is achingly intimate; full of breath, silence, and detail. “I had no idea if I wanted anyone to ever hear these songs,” Lindeman says, “but I also felt like they were the best songs I’d ever written, and I wanted to document them in some way.” Not long after completing Ignorance, Lindeman decided to make this album on her own terms, fronting the money herself and not notifying the labels. She assembled a new band, and communicated a new ethos: the music should feel ungrounded, with space, silence, and sensitivity above all else. On this record, there are no drums, no percussion; in the absence of rhythm, time stretches and becomes elastic. Lyrically, many of the songs return to what has often been a hallmark of Lindeman’s writing, a description of a single moment and all the meaning it might encompass. Influenced by records like Chet Baker Sings or Bob Dylan’s Shadows In The Night, the record was recorded live off the floor at Toronto’s Canterbury Music Studios, with Jean Martin co-producing. Lindeman sang and played piano live while the band improvised their accompaniment. Whereas the recordings on Ignorance leaned towards ambition and grandeur, here the band reaches towards a different goal: grace, perhaps. In her telling, Lindeman has always reached towards classic songwriting, and on this record, she overtly pursued this influence, allowing some of the songs to be “naive in the way that American songbook songs often are; naive in the way of reaching towards something with that sort of crushing longing, naive in terms of melody and simplicity.”

For her third taping, Brandi Carlile returns as a six-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, producer, #1 New York Times Bestselling author and activist, who is known as one of music’s most respected voices. Her latest album, In These Silent Days, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums chart, Top Rock Albums chart and Tastemaker Albums chart and continues to receive overwhelming acclaim. Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, In These Silent Days was inspired by the mining of Carlile’s own history while writing last year’s #1 New York Times Best Selling memoir, Broken Horses (Crown), and conceived of while she was quarantined at home with longtime collaborators and bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth. The ten songs chronicle acceptance, faith, loss and love and channel icons like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Elton John and Joni Mitchell—the latter two who, by some sort of cosmic alignment of the stars, have turned out to be close friends in addition to being her biggest heroes and inspirations. Of the album, Variety praises, “Carlile effortlessly glides between octaves while, somehow, still sounding completely conversational—the everyday diva we didn’t know we needed until she showed up at our door…a vocal tour de force,” while Billboard asserts, “the emotion that Carlile projects is unbridled, unfettered joy in the face of hard times—and it’s the exact boost of positivity that will make you want to listen again and again.” The New York Times writes, “Larger than life and achingly human…she empathizes, apologizes and lays out accusations. She’s righteous and she’s self-doubting. She proffers fond lullabies and she unleashes full-throated screams,” while NPR Music declares, “absolutely breathtaking, across the whole album Brandi Carlile pulls out all the stops. It’s just extraordinary…she’s just claiming rock god status.” In addition to her six GRAMMY Awards, Carlile has also been recognized with Billboard’s Women In Music “Trailblazer Award,” CMT’s Next Women of Country “Impact Award” and received multiple recognitions from the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards including Artist of the Year for the past two years. 

Lucius. Photo by Max Wagner.

Acclaimed indie pop band Lucius are in the midst of a landmark year with the release of their widely acclaimed new album, Second Nature, out now via Mom + Pop. Produced by Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile, the record is a portrait of singer and songwriters Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe’s shared reflection, chronicling each other’s seismic life shifts—motherhood, divorce, unplanned career pauses—and setting it to music. “It is a record that begs you not to sit in the difficult moments, but to dance through them,” Wolfe says. “It touches upon all these stages of grief—and some of that is breakthrough, by the way. Being able to have the full spectrum of the experience that we have had, or that I’ve had in my divorce, or that we had in lockdown, having our careers come to a halt, so to speak. I think you can really hear and feel the spectrum of emotion and hopefully find the joy in the darkness. It does exist. That’s why we made Second Nature and why we wanted it to sound the way it did: our focus was on dancing our way through the darkness.” Released last month to critical praise, the Los Angeles Times raves, “dazzling…Second Nature mines an ’80s-pop sound with lush synths and sleek disco grooves under the women’s laser-guided vocals,” while Variety declares, “with Second Nature…they’re no longer 20 feet or even a couple of yards from stardom, but re-claiming the spotlight for themselves” and Relix proclaims, “stunning…a 10-song, smart-pop masterpiece.” Known for their perfectly harmonized vocals and electric live shows, Lucius is currently in the midst of an international headline tour and will join Brandi Carlile for several marquee concerts this summer. In addition to their work as a band, power vocalists Laessig and Wolfe are in-demand collaborators and have also recorded with Sheryl Crow, Harry Styles, The War on Drugs, Ozzy Osborne and John Legend and toured extensively alongside Roger Waters.

Parker McCollum. Photo by Chris Kleinmeier.

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Parker McCollum released his highly-anticipated major label debut album, Gold Chain Cowboy, becoming the highest-charting first week debut album of 2021. The Jon Randall-produced album follows his Hollywood Gold EP which was met with widespread critical acclaim and became the top-selling debut Country EP of 2020. McCollum earned his first-ever No. 1 hit with Gold Chain Cowboy’s double platinum-selling premiere single, “Pretty Heart,” and his follow-up single “To Be Loved By You” also hit No. 1 on the charts. McCollum has been named an ‘Artist to Watch’ by Rolling Stone, Billboard, SiriusXM, CMT, RIAA, and more, with American Songwriter noting, “The Texas native teeters on the edge of next-level superstardom.” MusicRow listed McCollum as their 2021 Breakout Artist of the Year and Apple also included him as one of their all-genre “Up Next Artists” Class of 2021. A dedicated road warrior, McCollum made his debut at the famed Grand Ole Opry in 2021 and he regularly sells out venues across the country including record-breaking crowds in Dallas (20,000), The Woodlands (16,500), Austin (7500+), Lubbock (7700+), Jackson, MS (5000+), Kearney, NE (3000+), Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, and three nights at Fort Worth’s iconic Billy Bob’s Texas. Earlier this year McCollum made his debut at RODEOHOUSTON to a sold-out crowd with over 73,000 tickets sold. McCollum earned his first ACM award for New Male Artist of the Year in March 2022 in Las Vegas.  McCollum also won his first CMT “Breakthrough Video of the Year” award, a fully fan-voted honor, in April 2022.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes as we get a week out from each date. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air in late 2022 on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 48.

Please look for safety updates regarding entry to Austin City Limits tapings. Austin PBS will continue to monitor local COVID-19 trends and will meet or exceed protocols mandated by local governments.

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Featured News

New tapings: The Raconteurs, Billie Eilish and Rosalía

Austin City Limits announces new tapings of our Season 45, featuring a trio of originals who are highlights of our namesake ACL Festival this year.  We’re thrilled to welcome back GRAMMY® Award-winning rockers The Raconteurs on Oct. 3, returning to our stage for the first time in over a decade, and two breakout artists making ACL debuts: groundbreaking Spanish singer/songwriter Rosalía on Oct. 8 and global pop-phenom Billie Eilish on Oct. 11. 

The Nashville-based Raconteurs—featuring Jack White and Brendan Benson as dual frontmen/guitarists/lead singers/songwriters, and ace rhythm section of Jack Lawrence on bass and Patrick Keeler on drums—return with their acclaimed third studio LP and first new album in more than a decade, HELP US STRANGER (Third Man Records).  The chart-topping album debuted at #1 on the SoundScan/Billboard 200 — the band’s first-ever #1 and their third trip to the top 10. Featuring a cadre of killer songs, HELP US STRANGER sees the mighty Raconteurs reassembled, stronger and even more vital than ever before as they continue to push rock ‘n’ roll forward into its future, bonding prodigious riffs, blues power, sinewy psychedelia, Detroit funk, and Nashville soul via Benson and White’s uncompromising songcraft and the band’s steadfast musical muscle. With HELP US STRANGER, The Raconteurs have returned right when they are needed most, unified and invigorated with boundless ambition, infinite energy and a collectivist spirit operating at the peak of its considerable powers, once again creating a sound and fury only possible when all four of its members come together. The band burst onto the scene in 2006 with their now-classic debut album, BROKEN BOY SOLDIERS, winning worldwide acclaim, Grammy® nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance and a chart-topping smash single in “Steady, As She Goes,” followed by 2008’s Grammy®-winning CONSOLERS OF THE LONELY.  HELP US STRANGER is earning numerous shout-outs from national press: “The Raconteurs have made an album of what are, relatively, straight-up bangers…With tune after tune, this third Raconteurs outing is a blast” (The Guardian);  “HELP US STRANGER is Jack White and Brendan Benson’s love letter to classic rock” (Q); “the group’s richest batch of songs to date” (Spin).  Recorded at Third Man Studios in Nashville, TN, the record is proof positive a combo with chemistry like The Raconteurs has no rust to shake off. They are as scrappy, current, steadfast, and captivating as they were when they first joined forces, and their joy of creating together is satisfyingly palpable. Earning raves for their first live shows in eight years, the band return to our stage in the middle of an epic world tour, and we’re thrilled to welcome them back.

17-year-old Billie Eilish has fast become one of the biggest stars to emerge since the 2017 release of her debut single “ocean eyes,” and continues to shatter the ceiling of music with her genre-defying sound. Fast forward from her humble breakout, Billie’s record-breaking double platinum debut studio album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? debuted at #1 in the Billboard 200 in the U.S, as well as in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and many more. It is now the biggest North American debut of the decade (male, female or group), shifting 313,000 units in the first week and has already hit Number 1 in the Billboard 200 album charts an additional two times since its release in March, earning Billie more than 17 billion combined streams worldwide to date.  The LA native recently topped the Billboard Hot 100 with her single “bad guy”, becoming the first number one artist born this millennium. Billie received nine 2019 MTV Video Music Awards nominations and won three including Best New Artist at this year’s VMAs. Billie is the October cover star of Elle, and recently graced the covers of Rolling Stone, Billboard and V Magazine’s 20th Anniversary issue. Earning raves for her powerful live performances with breakthrough slots at 2019’s biggest music festivals, including Coachella, Glastonbury and our upcoming namesake ACL Festival, Billie is currently on her sold-out headlining WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WORLD TOUR and we are excited to welcome her to our stage in her ACL debut.

Catalonian singer Rosalía’s landmark album EL MAL QUERER was released in 2018 to immediate critical and commercial success. The album’s groundbreaking fusion of classic Flamenco with R&B and electronic beats, coupled with 26-year-old Rosalía’s nod to the visual arts, fashion and choreography was strongly embraced by fans across the globe. The music industry at large took note, with the album’s breakout single “Malamente” garnering six 2018 Latin Grammy nominations, and taking home awards for Best Alternative Song and Best Urban Fusion Performance.  2019 has seen the groundbreaking Spanish star continue her meteoric ascent to Global stardom with an appearance alongside James Blake on his single “Barefoot in the Park,” and three smash singles of her own with the recent double track “Milionària & “Dio$ No$ Libre Del Dinero,” “Aute Cuture” and her widely-acclaimed, and frequent ‘Song of the Summer’ pick “Con Altura” with Reggaeton superstar J Balvin and featuring El Guincho. The video for “Con Altura” recently earned two MTV Video Music Awards wins including Best Latin Video and is 2019’s most-watched video from a female lead artist (now over 800 million views), reaching #1 on YouTube’s Global music video chart.  An equal factor in Rosalía’s worldwide embrace is her unique and starmaking live performances on her sold out “El Mal Querer Tour,” and across 2019’s top Global festivals – including Coachella, Primavera Sound, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and many more. The reaction to her live show was best summarized by the UK’s NME in a FIVE STAR live review of her Glastonbury set declaring: “Rosalia put on the show of a lifetime…If you haven’t listened to Rosalia—or seen her live – you need to. ASAP.”  We’re thrilled to welcome her to our stage in her ACL debut. 

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week before each taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air later this year as part of ACL’s upcoming milestone Season 45 which premieres October 5 on PBS.

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: Sudan Archives, Robert Glasper, and Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway

Austin City Limits is pleased to announce a trio of highly-anticipated tapings for our upcoming Season 49 to amplify your summer. On August 10, we welcome the ACL debut of innovative violinist and singer-songwriter Sudan Archives on the heels of her buzzed-about performances at Glastonbury and Coachella. On August 24, five-time Grammy-winning producer and musician Robert Glasper brings his groundbreaking, award-winning and genre-shattering Black Radio to the ACL stage alongside special guests including multiple Grammy-nominees rapper D Smoke and singer/guitarist Emily King, along with Grammy-winning R&B singer and songwriter Yebba.  On August 28, acclaimed Grammy-and Americana Award-winning bluegrass iconoclast Molly Tuttle makes her ACL debut with her band Golden Highway.

Sudan Archives breakthrough second album Natural Brown Prom Queen is an epic record that is also her most personal, taking in race, womanhood, and the fiercely loyal, loving relationships at the heart of Sudan’s life with her family, friends, and partner. Born Brittney Denise Parks, Sudan burst onto the scene in 2017 with “Come Meh Way,” back when she was a violinist and loop maker producing beats in her Ohio bedroom. While her 2019 debut album Athena drew inspiration from divine Black feminine power, on Natural Brown Prom Queen Sudan is in character as Britt, the girl next door from Cincinnati who drives around the city with the top down and shows up to high school prom in a pink furry bikini with her thong hanging out her denim skirt. From first listen, it’s immediately apparent that Natural Brown Prom Queen is the one-woman instrumentalist’s most ambitious work to date, spanning 18 tracks – from the disco-influenced R&B of “Home Maker” to Afrocentric anthem “Selfish Soul,” hip-hop banger “OMG Britt,” the wild ride of “NBPQ (Topless)” and the ballad “Homesick (Gorgeous & Arrogant).” The acclaimed release was named an album of the year by Pitchfork, New York Times, The Guardian, The FADER, The Needle Drop, NPR, Vulture, Time Out, CNN, Slate, Paste, SPIN, Pop Matters, and many more; “Home Maker” was chosen by Barack Obama for his Favorite Songs of 2022 and Sudan Archives was handpicked by superstar Bad Bunny for Rolling Stone’s Future of Music issue. Fittingly for an album named for a homecoming event, Natural Brown Prom Queen is all about home: both Sudan’s adopted hometown of L.A. and Cincinnati, where she was raised. It’s intimate in all senses of the word, with Sudan unafraid to be vulnerable, tender and open about her insecurities. “Natural Brown Prom Queen is an album of many movements and ruminations, but almost all of them trace back to the multiple ways that a person can find and re-find home,” writes poet and Sudan’s fellow Ohio native Hanif Abdurraqib. “In flimsy, shifting geography, in the fights and triumphs that filter into interactions with beloveds and kinfolk, and, of course, the mighty work of home-making within oneself.” But the record is also about finding pleasure – after all, this is the artist who played violin upside-down on a pole in a music video. On Natural Brown Prom Queen, Sudan Archives invites you to join in and embrace shared joy.

Celebrated multihyphenate Robert Glasper is the leader of a new sonic paradigm with a career that bridges musical and artistic genres. With boundless innovation and elite technique as his signature, it’s no surprise that Glasper has an avalanche of accolades, awards, and achievements to his name—his contributions to music and culture span over two decades with 5 career Grammy wins and 12 nominations across 11 categories, along with a 2017 Emmy Award and a 2022 Peabody Award. The Houston native’s body of work is a masterclass in hip-hop, R&B and jazz fusion that sonically has influenced the decades to come. His breakout 2012 crossover album Black Radio changed the face of the genre and set a new expectation for what popular music could be. The album earned Glasper his first career Grammy for Best R&B Album and established him as the musician of choice for some of the world’s most iconic artists, notably playing keys throughout Kendrick Lamar’s landmark To Pimp A Butterfly, winning another Grammy for the elastic track “These Walls.” One of the most respected collaborators of his generation, the ongoing Black Radio series has since become Glasper’s calling card, upholding a place at the heart of a trailblazing community. In 2023 Glasper earned his fifth Grammy Award for Best R&B Album for Black Radio III.  The album’s debut single “Better Than I Imagined,” featuring H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello, previously won a 2021 Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. Black Radio III celebrates Black joy, love and resilience with a host of special guests, including Common (with whom Robert Glasper appeared during ACL Season 44 as part of their supergroup August Greene), Killer Mike, Esperanza Spalding, Q-Tip, Ty Dolla $ign, De La Soul’s Posdnuos and Jennifer Hudson. For this special ACL appearance, Glasper will be joined by Black Radio III family including a pair of triple Grammy-nominated acts, rapper D Smoke, and singer/guitarist Emily King, along with Grammy-winning R&B singer-songwriter Yebba. Glasper has formed an exceptional legacy that permeates contemporary art and advocacy. Above all, Robert Glasper is an artist at the heart of a moment – and a movement – to champion Black music, Black people, and the possibility of a better future. We welcome him back to the ACL stage in his second headlining appearance.

Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and performer Molly Tuttle and her band, Golden Highway, make their ACL debut with the release of the highly-anticipated new album City of Gold, out  July 21. The new record follows Tuttle’s acclaimed 2022 album, Crooked Tree, which won Best Bluegrass Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in 2023 and also led to a Best New Artist nomination. NPR Music calls her “a female flat picker extraordinaire with agility, speed and elegance who distinctively brings American roots music into the spotlight.” Produced by Tuttle and bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas and recorded in Nashville, City of Gold, —written primarily by Tuttle and Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show—captures the electric energy of Golden Highway’s live shows. Reflecting on the project, Northern California native Tuttle tells it best firsthand: “When I was a kid, we took a field trip to Coloma, CA to learn about the gold rush. I’ll never forget the dusty hills and the grizzled old miner who showed us the nugget around his neck. Just like gold fever, music has always captivated me, captured my heart, and driven me to great lengths to explore its depths. On my new album I dug deep as a songwriter and co-producer and surfaced with a record that celebrates the music of my heart, my life, the land where I grew up, and the stories I heard along the way. I made this record with my band Golden Highway after playing over 100 shows across the country last year. On the road and in the studio, we are inspired by artists such as John Hartford, Gillian Welch and Peter Rowan to name a few, whose records are like family albums to us. Just like them, on this album we chart some new territory along some old familiar ground. The songs span from breakdowns to ballads, fairytales and fiddle tunes, from Yosemite up to the Gold Country and out beyond the mountains. That visit to Coloma, site of California’s first gold strike is where I first heard about El Dorado, the city of gold. Playing music can take you to a place that is just as precious.” Tuttle moved to Nashville in 2015 and in the years since, the celebrated artist has been nominated for Best New Artist at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, won Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards, Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 International Bluegrass Music Awards, Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards and Guitar Player of the Year at the IBMAs in both 2017 and 2018, the first woman to receive the honor. Tuttle has performed around the world, including shows with Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show and Dwight Yoakam, as well as at major festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival and Pilgrimage. In celebration of the new music, the band will tour throughout the summer including dates supporting Dave Matthews (who guests on the new record), Tommy Emmanuel, Greensky Bluegrass, Charley Crockett and Marcus King.  

We’re thrilled to welcome these music innovators to the ACL stage. 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 Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings. The broadcast episodes will air on PBS this fall as part of our upcoming Season 49.

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: Sleater-Kinney, Cassandra Wilson and Shakey Graves

Austin City Limits is proud to announce new Season 41 tapings with Sleater-Kinney, Cassandra Wilson and Shakey Graves, all coming to our stage for the first time.

On April 15 we welcome acclaimed rock band Sleater-Kinney, out supporting their first new album in a decade, No Cities To Love (Sub Pop), which New York Times critic Jon Pareles called “the first great album of 2015.” Consisting of guitarists/vocalists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (also the co-creator/star of Portlandia), and drummer Janet Weiss, the powerhouse trio came crashing out of the Pacific Northwest, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact. Hailed as “America’s best rock band” by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine, and as “America’s best punk band ever. EVER” by Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone, the band put out seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006. Almost a decade later, the trio has come back together with the surprise announcement of No Cities To Love, which Pareles described as full of “hurtling, bristling, densely packed, white-knuckled songs that are all taut construction and raw nerve.” Can’t join us in the studio for this taping? Join us online on our  Austin City Limits YouTube channel where you will be able to watch the entire taping as it happens live on April 15 starting at 8 pm CT.

Grammy-winning American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Cassandra Wilson makes her ACL debut on April 28, armed with her new LP Coming Forth by Day, an homage dedicated to the beauty, power, and genius of Billie Holiday. Jazz critic Gary Giddins describes Wilson as “a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack who has expanded the playing field” by incorporating blues, country and folk music into her work.  A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Wilson moved to New York City in the early 80s, met saxophonist Steve Coleman and became one of the founding members of the M-Base Collective. She signed with Blue Note Records in 1992 and released the landmark album Blue Light ‘Til Dawn, which paved the way for a new generation of jazz singers seeking an approach and repertoire that challenged the supremacy of the American Standard songbook.

On May 6 we open the stage to Austin-based singer/songwriter Shakey Graves, playing songs from his acclaimed 2014 LP And the War Came. An actor who had a recurring role on Friday Night Lights and appeared in several Robert Rodriguez films, the erstwhile Alejandro Rose-Garcia started making music as part of New York City’s “anti-folk” scene. Since returning to Austin, Shakey Graves has become so closely associated with his hometown that for the last three years, Austin has celebrated “Shakey Graves Day” by mayoral proclamation. With And the War Came, he extends the ground emotionally and sonically broken by his 2011 self-released debut Roll the Bones, which still ranks near the top of Bandcamp’s digital best-seller charts. As noted by Exclaim, And the War Came “displays remarkable growth as a songwriter, guitar player and arranger without entirely leaving behind the one-man-band, lo-fi aesthetic that made his debut such a captivating listen.” Please join us for the ACL debut of Shakey Graves. Watch KLRU’s Arts In Context documentary on Shakey Graves now

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week before the taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings.

 

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New tapings: Sarah Jarosz and Sturgill Simpson

photo by Josh Wool

To wrap up our Season 46 taping schedule, Austin City Limits is proud to announce the highly-anticipated return of a pair of American originals: Sarah Jarosz on November 24 and Sturgill Simpson on December 8. 

With World On the Ground, the follow-up to 2016’s two-time Grammy Award-winning Undercurrent, and her first solo album in four years, Sarah Jarosz shares a collection of stories of her Texas hometown of Wimberley, each song lit up in her captivating voice and richly detailed songwriting. World on the Ground takes its title from the album cut “Pay It No Mind,” which 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.” Throughout the album, the triple Grammy Award-winner explores the tension and inertia of small-town living, the desire for escape and the ease of staying put. As she 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. 

Producer/songwriter John Leventhal (Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, his wife Rosanne Cash) played a vital part in Jarosz’s decision to center the album on her intricate storytelling. “The first time we met to talk about the record, John said he wanted me to try to take a step back and look out at the world, rather than inward,” says Jarosz. “It completely opened the gates for me, and I started thinking a lot about growing up in Texas and diving into those memories in a way I’d never really done before. I think it has something to do with being in my late 20s, and starting to enter the phase where I’m looking back at what got me to where I am now—as opposed to constantly looking forward, as you do when you’re younger. It felt like the right time for me to return full circle to my roots and my home.” 

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.” 

photo by Semi Song

Since breaking through in 2014 with his Grammy-nominated Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, shapeshifter Sturgill Simpson made his ACL debut in 2016 and has established himself as one of the most daring and acclaimed artists of our time. His music stretches across genres and styles, from the psychedelic soul of 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide To Earth (Grammy nominated for Album of the Year and winner for Best Country Album) to the fuzzed-out rock attack of 2019’s Sound & Fury. Now Simpson returns to the music of his native Kentucky with his first bluegrass project, Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1 – The Butcher Shoppe Sessions. The surprise double album, which he calls “a mixtape for the fans,” was dreamed up while he was recovering at home after being hospitalized with Coronavirus earlier this year, and sees him reimagining songs from across his catalog backed by some of Nashville’s finest acoustic virtuosos. “This album started when I was in the third grade,” Simpson explains. “My paternal grandfather was sort of a bluegrass freak. He just lived and ate and breathed it, and every time he’d come to visit, he’d try to shove it down my throat. My palette wasn’t ready to absorb it at the time—I was probably still into the Monkees and, thanks to an older cousin, discovering bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin far too young. One night in my room, when he could sense my rejection of what I was hearing, he looked at me directly and said, ‘One day it’s gonna get in ya, and it’ll never get out.’”

“Many years later, after returning home to Kentucky from the military and living for some time out on the West coast, I was driving down the road one day and the public radio station played an old Monroe Brothers song and it absolutely floored me,” he explains. “A wave of emotion slammed me in the chest and I had to pull over on the side of the road. I was pretty much drifting at the time—completely lost, I guess you could say—and hearing that music brought everything to the surface. It sounded like home. Bluegrass music is healing. I truly believe this to be true. It is made from ancient, organic tones and, as with most all forms of music, the vibrations and the pulse can be extremely therapeutic.” After using social media to crowdfund a charity drive, Simpson had the idea to take songs from his back catalog and record them in a bluegrass style. “I had it in my mind for a long time that someday I want to cut as many of these songs as possible in this fashion, just organic and stripped down to the raw bones of the composition. If you can’t sit down and play a song like that, it’s probably a pretty shitty song. I called up my engineer/co-producer/partner in crime David Ferguson and said, ‘Get all the best players in town,’ and we went in and banged this record out in about three days, with no planning or preparation. 

“The thing I’ve realized about the ride I’ve been on these past seven years is that to me, despite what others may call and label them, all my records are simply ‘American music,’” Simpson states. “My head and my heart go different directions all the time, and when you put out a record, it becomes this definitive thing, like ‘this is who you are now’ because people need to define things for the cycle of that album. This album for me was always just supposed to be a sort of simple mixtape for my fans, so it’s somewhat funny to me to think we might play TV shows and whatnot to promote it, and for a time I’ll be considered a bluegrass musician. In all honesty, though, I guess that’s probably the closest thing to the truth that could ever be put in print about me.”

For this appearance, Simpson will be “cuttin’ grass” with the line-up of bluegrass all-stars that recorded the album, including Stuart Duncan, Sierra Hull, Tim O’Brien, Scott Vestal, Mike Bub, Mark Howard and longtime drummer Miles Miller. 

We’re proud to welcome Sarah Jarosz and Sturgill Simpson back to the ACL stage.