This is the first Antone’s
anniversary poster to honor a local musician, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Also honored by decree if not image are: Junior Walker,
Eural Dewitty, Albert Collins, Luther Tucker, and Sunnyland
Slim. All but Albert Collins and Luther Tucker had
died the previous year, Albert and Luther had died in 1983.
The venue was once again washing against financial shoals,
which just fueled that much more enthusiasm into the performances
during this show. The club endured, and is now located at
it’s fourth location back downtown. The crown-jewel
of Austin’s “Warehouse” entertainment district,
it is now located at 5th and Lavaca.
After Lou
Ann Barton left, the Triple Threat
Review wound down one notch to become Double
Trouble. The band was drummer Chris
Layton and bassist Tommy
Shannon - often joined by Reese Wynans
on the keyboards. The Montreux Jazz Festival
did for the band what the Newport Jazz Festival
had done for Muddy
Waters; it garnered media coverage that introduced
their music to a wider audience. An on-off -on again-off again
dance with David Bowie to front for his 1983
Serious Moonlight Tour came
to nothing but got the attention of John Hammond Sr.,
who recorded Texas Flood that same
year. That garnered two Grammy nominations, and was followed
the next year by Can’t Stand the Weather.
In 1985 Soul to Soul was released,
with In Step coming in 1986. After
4 years, 4 albums and 4 tours, the pace caught up with Stevie
in one moment on a London stage when he collapsed. After the
tour ended he checked himself into a rehab program.
The Twenty-first Anniversary show was the last one seen
at the Guadalupe and 29th St venue. Accumulating physical
problems at the site were forcing relocation, but there was
still one more big anniversary show to do. Once again Sugar
Bear mc’ed the show. The local acts that were
included were stellar – Toni Price,
Storyville (with the great Malford
Milligan), Miss Lavelle White, Ugly
Americans (with Bob Schneider),
the Moellers, and the incredible Guy Forsyth
and his band. The Antone’s regulars were there, Derek
O’Brien, Sue Foley, George Rains, Kaz Kazanoff, Riley
Osborn and Sarah Brown. Also those
whose careers began at the club, such as Angela Strehli,
Lou Ann
Barton, Kim Wilson, Denny
Freeman, Jake Andrews and
Bill Carter, as well as other Austin musicians who
had developed there -- Charlie Sexton, W. C. Clark,
Will Sexton, Speedy Sparks, John X. Reed, Marcia Ball, David
Grissom and Ian Moore, among others.
Of course featured, as always at an Antone’s anniversary,
the ever-dwindling number of blues greats of the last generation,
Pinetop Perkins, Jimmy Rogers, Calvin “Fuzz”
Jones, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Earl King, Snooky
Pryor, Lazy Lester, Matt “Guitar” Murphy,
and the inimitable, Hubert Sumlin.
These groups and the individual musicians within them, played
their own sets and then together in ever changing groups changing
constantly in creative and eclectic combinations. This was a true celebration of the blues and the house that
has made that music a home in this city for over two decades.
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