Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Outlaw Country & Austin's Influence
Whether it was Willie Nelson leaving Nashville or the Armadillo World Headquarters club
opening that had more influence on what happened next in Texas country is hard to say.
But either way, it had to do with Austin.
The Armadillo of the 1970s was a hippie haven. The club's owners included Eddie
Wilson, former band manager for Shiva's Head Band, and Jim Franklin, a local muralist
and poster artist. They created a place that quickly became known as a counterculture
hangout. It was a bar where bikers, cowboys, hippies and college kids could all hang out.
They played a wide variety of music, but it was here that Texas singer-songwriters pion-
eered what would be called 'outlaw country'.
Willie had come home to Texas looking for more creative freedom than Nashville al-
lowed. He, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson started writing music that mixed softer,
traditional Nashville country with blues and rock, rhythms reminiscent of honky-tonks'
early days. Though there was an edge to the music, the term 'outlaw' had a lot more to do
with the singers' personal lives than with the music.
Tunes such as 'Luckenback, Texas' and 'Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to
be Cowboys' forced the industry to take notice. Musicians and bands who had been hard-
pressed to find an audience for their country-rock songs began to flock to the Armadillo.
Bands like Asleep at the Wheel and Kinky Friedman regularly played to packed crowds. In
1976, Austin City Limits, a live Texas public radio music program still on-air, debuted with
Willie Nelson playing the pilot episode.
Though the Armadillo as it was closed its doors in the 1980s, Threadgill's World
Headquarters restaurant, opened in 1996 in a building next door, continue to book live acts
five nights a week.
Loosely based on a now-defunct bar called Gilley's in a Houston suburb, John Travolta's
Urban Cowboy
(1980) struck a chord. For the next few years there were country-and-western bars with mechanical bulls
all across the country.
