'ACL' taped first pilot with Willie Nelson in 1974 and is still riding high 50 years later

When Willie Nelson taped the pilot episode of “Austin City Limits” in 1974, the possibility that both the program and the performer would still be riding high a half-century later was a long shot at best. But here we are: Nelson turned 90 last year, and now “Austin City Limits” is celebrating its golden anniversary.

Few Austin institutions have weathered the decades better than “ACL,” which not only survived, but expanded in stature and scope. What began as a regionally focused PBS program has become a worldwide institution. A historical marker outside ACL Live, the show’s downtown home since 2011, touts its status as “the longest-running music series in American television history.” And then there’s that festival in Zilker Park every year sporting the program’s name.

Tapings for the show's 50th season begin Tuesday with a performance by Black Pumas that will also be livestreamed at acltv.com. It kicks off a yearlong celebration that will include special shows, South by Southwest panels, a 10th-anniversary bash for the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame and more.

“You only get one 50th anniversary,” said executive producer Terry Lickona, who has been at the helm since the show’s fourth season. “And we definitely want to make the most of it.”

Major anniversary milestones inevitably involve celebrating the past. “But I also want it to be very forward-looking,” Lickona said. “In my mind, that means staying true to what ‘Austin City Limits’ has always been from the beginning. And that is a showcase — not only for known talent and, in some cases, legacy superstar talent, but also for up-and-coming acts.”

The diverse roster for 50th season includes Black Pumas, Gary Clark Jr.

“Austin City Limits” is also increasingly a showcase for diversity in popular music. When the show began in the 1970s, its primary focus on local and regional country acts led to a predominance of white, male performers. Eventually the show expanded its horizons to feature a much broader representation of genre, gender and race.

Case in point: When “ACL” taped its 1,000th episode in May 2022, the artist who performed was Allison Russell, a Black woman whose career has taken off in recent years behind a couple of impressive albums. Russell earned her first Grammy this month, winning the best American roots performance award for her song “Eve Was Black.”

“As an abused child growing up in Montréal, Quebec, I used to watch ‘ACL’ on PBS, beamed in from Burlington, Vermont,” Russell replied this week, when asked what it meant to tape the show. “I heard the sounds of freedom. Those sounds helped me to eventually free myself and find my own path as an artist, songwriter and harm-reduction, pro-equality activist. I dreamt of performing on that hallowed stage most of my life. To be part of the 1,000th taping felt so resonant and cosmic.”

More: Why Black Pumas' new album 'Chronicles of a Diamond' is an obvious Grammy contender

The first four acts announced for 50th-season tapings also vividly illustrate the changes. Among them are two of Austin’s biggest acts: soulful rockers Black Pumas, who kick off the season on Tuesday, and blues guitar great Gary Clark Jr., who’ll do the show for the fourth time on March 26. Also scheduled for spring tapings are Colombian pop sensation Juanes, whose résumé includes 26 Latin Grammys, on March 4; and eclectic singer-songwriter Brittany Howard, the Alabama Shakes leader who recently released her second solo album, on April 29. (Free tickets to "ACL" tapings are released to the public a few days before each show. Fans can enter the drawings at acltv.com/tapings.)

Could a special 50th anniversary celebration in October include Willie Nelson?

Two special events are planned for October. The first will be an Oct. 17 celebration of the exact date that Nelson taped the show’s pilot episode in 1974. Lickona can’t yet say who will be featured, but there’s no question he’d love to have Nelson onstage again that night.

Planned for later that month is an all-star, two-hour PBS special. Performers have not yet been booked, but the format likely will be similar to a 40th-anniversary special taped in June 2014. That show included appearances by Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Ely and others.

When the 2014 special aired on PBS, it also included highlights from the first-ever Austin City Limits Hall of Fame induction ceremony. That event, held at the program’s original Studio 6A home on the University of Texas campus, honored Nelson — who performed with Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Guy and others — and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, along with “Austin City Limits” founder Bill Arhos and legendary Texas football coach Darrell Royal.

The Hall of Fame inductions have become major annual fundraising events for Austin PBS. Unlike regular episodes, ACL Hall of Fame shows are ticketed. More than two dozen artists have been inaugurated so far, including Ray Charles, Rosanne Cash, John Prine, Lucinda Williams and Flaco Jiménez.

“I didn’t expect it,” Cash responded when asked this week about her 2017 induction. “I felt humbled to have Ry (Cooder) and Neko (Case) and Elvis (Costello) and (her husband) John Leventhal, of course, there to usher me into the Hall of Fame. It was quite a moment. I don’t think anything like that will come my way again, where people I admire so much sing my songs with such generosity, and I receive such a beautiful honor.”

Lickona says this year’s induction ceremony is still in the works.

Coming up soon are a couple of South by Southwest events. The first, a March 5 panel with Lickona titled “ACL: 50 Years of Live Music, 50 Years of Music Education,” is part of the SXSW EDU festival and includes Austin musician Jackie Venson. A second panel, “Backstage with Austin City Limits: Five Decades of Music,” is on March 11 during the main SXSW conference and will include Lickona, producer Jeff Peterson, associate producer/marketing director Emily Bolf and Austin PBS chief content officer Sara Robertson.

'ACL' is like ‘the Smithsonian of music. These are deep vaults’

A few dozen employees have helped shape “Austin City Limits” across the decades. Among them is audio director David Hough, who has run sound for the program since that very first episode with Willie. Hough had recently earned his electrical engineering degree from UT when he got a job with Austin’s PBS station (then called KLRN) shortly before “Austin City Limits” was launched.

On the pilot episode, his team actually missed the very first few seconds of the set: “Willie walked onstage and hits the first three chords of ‘Whiskey River,’ and we're like, ‘Oh, damn, the machine's not running.’ We slammed it in record and captured it, after missing the first couple of notes. So we learned our lesson on the first show.”

Before the episode aired, Hough fixed it with a careful edit. “Willie played that same strum two or three times (during the song),” Hough said, “so I was able to patch one in there. That was the trick we had back then.”

Other longtime staffers include director Gary Menotti, co-producer Leslie Nichols, lighting director Walter Olden, creative content producer Jonathan Jackson, stage manager Ray Lucero, who (like Hough) has been aboard since the first episode, and still photographer Scott Newton, who’s 75 but still grooves to the beat as he dodges the TV camera cranes while he documents the tapings. (“It's kind of a dance to begin with, just to avoid getting run over by those things,” Lickona said.)

A rare newcomer to the “ACL” crew is associate producer Graham Douglass. The staff’s youngest full-timer at 37, Douglass is from the Hill Country near Kerrville and “grew up watching ‘Austin City Limits,’” he said.

“I get butterflies and goosebumps every time I walk into this building,” said Douglass, whose first show as producer-in-charge was in April 2023 with one of his favorite bands, L.A. indie-pop outfit Muna. “When I talk about (‘Austin City Limits’) with friends and family, I liken it to being like the Smithsonian of music. These are deep vaults.”

And speaking of those vaults: The program recently digitized its entire library — “not only the edited programs that have aired, but the entire original masters in audio and video,” Lickona said. Finding a way to make that archival content accessible to the public “continues to be a dream of mine,” he continued, “if we can overcome all of the hurdles, including the rights issues, and figuring out a way to pay for it.

“But to make it available so that people can stream a song or a show — that would be amazing. It's something we would all like to work toward, but it’s probably going to take longer than our 50th year to get to it.”

How long can Lickona, who turned 76 last October, stick around to chase that dream? “Frankly, I'm astonished that I'm still doing what I'm doing,” he said. Lickona, who also took on a co-producer role with the Grammy Awards in 2012, now does the same for the Latin Grammys. “But ‘Austin City Limits’ is obviously my first love, and it's been my life's work,” he affirmed.

Lickona remains in good health, but he realizes this road doesn’t go on forever. “I think the plan is to get through the 50th season, and then you'll begin to see some changes,” he said. Peterson, who has been with “ACL” for more than four decades, seems the heir apparent, though he’s just nine years younger than Lickona. Longtime associate producers Nichols and Bolf also could take on more responsibility when Lickona leaves. “So I think there are already people here who could move up,” he said.

And when the time comes, Lickona hopes it’s not a full farewell. “I like to think I could continue to be involved with the show that I love so much, maybe in a different capacity,” he said. “But the show must go on, and it will go on.”

UPDATE: This story has been updated to correct a photo caption that incorrectly identified KLRU's studio 6A.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 'Austin City Limits' is celebrating 50 years of music and memories