From Austin City Limits, it's Terry Lickona! Part 1

Austin City Limits helped put the city of Austin on the map. The award winning PBS show is celebrating 50 years this years. That's a lot of stories and tales. Tery Lickona is the mastermind of this show, and no we didn't ask for tickets for a future taping. Enjoy part 1 of our conversation with Terry Lickona on "Tales From The Broken Spoke".

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Bob Pickett. We'reon our way to the legendary Broken Spoke.
Come on, let's get out thetruck and head inside it. Come
on, let's go inside, gettingready for another tale from the Broken Spoke.

(00:25):
Oh, we got some stories.We got some tales for you,
Bob, Picket Tales and Broken Spoke. Monty wardens with us and a guy
that we've been trying to get onthe podcast since we first started money,
Terry Lacona, Austin City Limits,Austin City Limits. And I gotta tell
you my college years were spent watchingTerry introduce the stage and tell us where
we could find the free beer theold studio for Rostin City Limits. That's

(00:47):
well, I'm freedoms. I thinkthat's a complimentary. No, it is
a compliment. I was. Iwas a college kid. Come on,
I thought it was you fed me. You fed me every week when we're
talking about you know and everybody,it will still because how come we don't
give up the free beer at ournew home down call of the new home.
We've been at the movie theater nowfor thirteen years. But you know,
it's a different kind of situation downthere. They have a liquor license

(01:10):
and all that sort of thing,and TABC frowns on giving away beer.
But you know, there was nothinglike being a student at Rsity Texas,
and just of course I was anRTF student. We would just wander down
the hall and we would get inand at that time acl I mean,
it wasn't packed. What was thecapacity of the old studio of aclire.
So when we started out, webacked as many people in the room as

(01:32):
we could, up like a thousandpeople. I remember we did a show
with Willie once where we actually hadpeople up on the catwalk, which is
not even you know, where peopleare supposed to be. Right. But
over the years, when the utFire Marshal and others finally started pay attention
and realized what we were doing,they got out their codebook and they realized
our capacities less than it was thanwe thought. So it got cut back

(01:56):
from a thousand until like three hundredby the time we doubt and frankly we
realized long before then that we hadoutgrown that space. As much as we
loved it, Yeah, you reallyhave the history all began. It just
wasn't quite big enough to accommodate allthe people who wanted to be there.
How many episodes taped in the oldstudio? Remember we were there for thirty
six years. I can tell youthat last year we just taped our one

(02:21):
thousandth episode. Well that includes thethirteen years that we have been at the
Moody Theater downtown, So that's athousand different tapings, actually not episodes,
a thousand different tapings that we've doneover the years. And that includes a
lot of artists, not only thelead singer you know, and musician,
but all of the side men andwomen who played that on that stage and

(02:42):
other studages down through the years.It's it's an incredible history, and it's
boggles my mind when I really stoppedto think about it, which I do
a lot, even though it's myday job, and I love what I
do and kind of get caught upin what I'm doing. Yeah, I
can't help but reflect back on that. Well, you know, when I
moved down here in eighty one,I asked when I started tending the tapings,
And there's no joke. I'll goback through an old foot locker in

(03:05):
the garage and I will find playbillsand I know that I probably have been
close to three hundred tapings that becausethen again it was free, you know,
well you know, but but youwould see I mean you would see
everybody, you know, one nightto be George Jones and the next week
you'd have somebody else. And thatthe music was great. And I remember
because like you know, growing uphere, you know, there'd be so

(03:27):
many eclectic things. And I rememberthe first time I ever heard heard of
saw heard the music of George Straitwas on an ACLS. I was at
the taping and the thing was,man, if you remember eighty one,
a cat in a start shirt anda cowboy had was weird. It was
almost like a punk thing. AndStraight came out there and I just went,
who the hell is that? Kindof went down to Intersanctum and you

(03:50):
know, the guy with the mohawkthere that turned me on to cool record,
said, oh yeah, man,he's gonna be big. He's huge.
Of course, the Interstate Intersancting didn'thave a George Straight record, but
they got it for me and itwas the album Straight Country, and I
had just I was just arrested.I thought that was so unusual. That
was as different as any punk music. I was listening to at the time.

(04:10):
Well, of course, back then, George was playing at the Cheatham
Street Warehouse SA Marcus, and hewas playing frat parties and he had longer
hair, yeah at the time underthat cowboy. But Terry, I mean
you you had ears, you discoveredmusic. I mean, it was amazing
you were you the one that bookedall the shows back then. That is
the most important thing that I doto this day, and that is to
book the talent for the show.Yeah, but I mean in radio,

(04:32):
and I haven't always batted the housingover the last forty nine years, and
I got a better record than Ido. Our record overall, you know,
speaks for itself. But yeah,it's um. You know, when
you look at the history of theway the shows evolved, it started out
as pretty much at Texas Country MusicShow as sort of like our answer to
what Nashville was putting out at thetime. And but over time we expanded

(04:55):
the limits, you know, soto speak, to include all kinds of
music. Well, and you likethe Rank and File taping you did in
eighty two was phenomenal, and thatthe set that that Chip and Tony and
Alan Slim played, it's one ofthe greatest thirty minutes of live music ever,
I mean, and it was justso pure and nobody knew. I

(05:16):
don't know to this day, Idon't know what's called rank and file other
than great. Well, you know, I remember going down there and seeing
some Austin group, the Wagoneers,who their record wasn't even out, and
here they are taping the show.Well, you know, and let me
tell you it. To Terry's credit, not that I record, wouldn't nowt
we recorded that segment in November ofeighty seven, and we recorded Stout and

(05:40):
High in January of eighty eight.Terry had us on before we made our
record. I don't know if you'vedone that before. So that's that's good.
That's pretty good. Yeah, rarely, you know, when when we're
inspired you generally speaking of though,I mean, I've learned over the years
that timing makes a big difference forthese things. So you know, there
have been times over the years Imight have booked an artist or a band

(06:00):
a little too soon, you know, before they really had matured or were
ready for prime time, so tospeak. And then in other cases I
might have waited too long and missedan opportunity why does adele come to mind?
For instance? You know, Imean I have to go by instinct
most of the time. Well Iknow, but sometimes if there's somebody who
I think's ready, but maybe theydon't have that record out yet, well

(06:21):
maybe that show, that Austin CityLimits show will kind of put them over
the finish line, so to speak, so they can move on to the
next step. But it did formy career because here's the thing. When
when I want an orgaon our firstsingle came out, it coincided with the
release of our acl segment and thisyou know that record. It was a

(06:45):
it was a shuffle on country radioin nineteen eighty eight, and yet we
were we were on Austin City Limits. Here was this band. Nobody knew
who the hell we were. AndI think that was one of the main
we know from radio, that wasone of the main reasons why our debut
single went top forty was you know, who the hell are these guys?
I don't know, but they're onAustin City Limits. You know, I

(07:06):
hear from so many people to thisday, to Marcia Marshall Ball, I'll
love it. Will tell me thatthey still have people come up with them
after their shows, saying that thefirst time they saw them was on Austin
City limits and no matter how manyyears it's been. And that's the thing,
you know, people tune in towatch our show to discover somebody or
something or some kind of music thatthey've never heard of or not familiar with.

(07:30):
People will tell me, you know, I don't usually like country music
or whatever filled in the blank.But I saw somebody on Austin City limits
and they were good, you know, because they were on Austin City limits,
so they must be good. Right. First of all, I sat
the bar pretty high. Well,well it's it's a good programming, which
a lot of radio stations don't seemto have these days. But you know,
the first time I saw law loveit, he was a background singer

(07:51):
for somebody on Nancy Nancy Griffin,that's who was. Yeah, they were
friends and Nancy invited him to comeup and saying really just on one song,
I think, yeah. And therewas a girl that sang with him.
Her name escapes me now, butshe was in a class with me
at ut and I thought, well, there's somebody and I see twice a
week in classies. She's up theresinging, you're right. He was a
Nancy Grip of the show. Shewas singing with Lyle Well a lot,

(08:13):
you know, And I just it'snot just the Wagon Ears taping. Like
in ninety four, I put outa little old indie record on a tiny
label out of Austin called Watermelon Records. Okay, and once again contemporaneous to
nineteen ninety four, acts on indielabels did not go on national television.

(08:33):
They did later because people like TerryLacona had the vision to go. You
know, there's some cool things goingon indie labels. And this little old
record I put out, and Iknow Terry personally, so he knows my
career taking a couple of pretty goodkicks in the nuts, you know,
so thank you. So this recordcame out, got phenomenal press, and

(08:54):
Terry invited me to do a segment. And this is not another guy from
the Wagon Ears. There's there's noname to build on. Nobody knew who
this is, just you by yourself, just with the band. But nobody
knew Monty Warden, and he hadme on. And I will tell you
this, once again contemporaneous to that, Watermelon's Best selling record before my ACL
slot was sold twenty five thousand records. That don wallser record, my ACL

(09:18):
record before my Watermelon record, beforeI did a CL had sold about fifteen
thousand records, and we thought afterour slot that it had sold about it
maybe none of ten thousand records.Well, when Watermelon went into bankruptcy,
you know, twenty years later,fifteen years later, that record sold one
hundred and five thousand records. Ohgod, wow, I thanks to Terry.
That was thanks to Terry. Ohtry. From my perspective, sometimes

(09:43):
we just lose track of what we'redoing in the impact that it actually has.
I mean, I could name anynumber of artists and anecdotes, but
when comes to mind, and thatwas when Alan Jackson. Of course,
now he's a country music superstar,but the first time you did our show
way back, Gwen, you know, he came up to me and he
said, the reason I decided tobe a country singers because I saw George

(10:05):
Jones and Ray Price and Willie Nelsonon Austin City Limits. Because he was
a country boy living in rural Georgiaand the only TV stations that could pick
up are a couple of the networksand BBS and so I mean that hit
me like you mean you were inspiredto want to pursue music because of some
little TV and now he's in thecountry. That's exactly right. And that's

(10:28):
also speaks to how long we've beendoing this. Amen, you know what
really speaks how long we've been doingthis. So, of course everybody knows
Willie just recently celebrated his ninetieth birthdayand I was looking back. In fact,
on his ninetieth birthday, we postedthe original pilot show that Willy did
back in nineteen seventy four. Hewas thirty nine years old the first time
he did Austin City Limits, ouroriginal pilot show. And so here he

(10:52):
is. He's still at it andso are we. Now, how did
you get involved with Austin City Limitsbecause you're not a native Austin And no,
I am not. I am ato Pokeepsie eight. I'm from Pokeepsie
in New York. Originally I moveddown to Austin basically got a wild hair
when I was out of college.Friend of mine and I came down to
Willie's fourth of July Picknick in nineteenseventy four, came to Austin afterwards,

(11:13):
and we both decided to move here. My friend and his band and wife
and me just decided to command downhere. And I was a radio DG
at the time in Pokeepsie and decidedthat Austin might be a better place to
do what I do and also toget away from the cold winners up there.
So I just moved down here ona whim after looking around. In
fact, I applied for jobs atevery radio station in Austin, including KAVED

(11:37):
and kle BJ, and you namedthe station, and I applied there.
Finally guy to get KUT, whichwas in the same building as the PBS
station, and I literally moved toAustin three weeks after they taked the The
Willie Pilot Show. Most people thinkI most have started Austin City limits just
because I've been around so long,but nope. But I got to know
the producers of the TV show andI sort of volunteer just to kind of

(12:01):
learn the ropes and help them outin any way that I could. And
then a funny thing happened, likeliterally a year or two later, they
all left the people that started theshow, the executive producer, producer,
director. They were older, hadfamilies. Nobody thought the show was going
to last more than a couple ofyears, and they were worried about job
security, so they kind of movedon. And I looked around and realized

(12:22):
there's nobody left minding the story here. I walked into the manager's office and
I literally, I've always been prettygood with the BS. Talked my way
into the job. I talked myway into the job as producer when I
didn't have any experience, didn't goto RTF school, and they gave me
a shot at it. And youknow, after we had our tenth anniversary,

(12:43):
we looked at each other and thought, this seeing my last for a
while. You know, maybe there'smore too than we thought. Right place
at the right time, weren't.It really had to do with that,
and like I said, having alittle bit of pluck and being willing to
kind of put myself out there andhave the you know, hootspat to give
it, give it a try.Oh many. But that's not just to
be dismissed, because that's that's somuch a just show biz. I just

(13:07):
go, you know, do youknow how to do this? You know?
My all manager Card and Major saidalways take the job and then later
on figure out while the other kidsyou my success and our success, I
would say, is and I guessthis is a talent that I have,

(13:28):
and that's hiring the right people,the best people I have hired, the
people who do best at what theydo, whether it's David Hoffert audio director
since that original Willie Show, orour lighting director, Gary Manati, our
tv DRIC camera director, and awhole list of other people on my crew
who've been there as long as Ihave, if not longer, who really
make this show what it is today. How much prep goes into an episode

(13:50):
now, I mean it is stillin the entire week time to spend years
trying to book somebody to come todo the show. But once we've got
a show booked, then we beginthe production advance. You know the usual
details of logistics, hotels, findingout what their production needs are, if
they need any any backline or specializedaudio like monitor consoles, so forth.

(14:11):
And the day of the show ispretty cut and dry. We've got that
down to a you know, apretty good system where they low it in,
set up, sound checked, orour camera rehearsal in the afternoon,
take a break, set the Lightsdo the show. That's when we let
the people in, and then I'ddo my little interview after the show,
which now that just started to becominglike one of my favorite things to do.
And I man, I wish wehad started doing that back in the

(14:33):
day, as opposed to I thinkit was only maybe twenty five years ago
I started doing these sit down interviewswith the artists right after the show when
they come off the stage and they'rereally excited and chatty. Otherwise. Yeah,
I wish I could have talked toRay Charles and BB King and Roy
Orbison and some of the others backwhen. I remember the old days,
you'd have to stop the show tochange the tape. Remember that. Yeah,

(14:56):
we don't have to change the tapeanyway, it's all And I was.
I was at a taping Nitty Greedydirt band. You guys had to
stop the show because bats were divebombing the stage. They used to be
able to get into the AC ducksup on the rooftop of the building on
ut campus. Oh well, yes, you know. There are stories,
and I love to tell them.Someday I'll write a book about them.

(15:18):
I wish one night the lights wentout when Chris Chris Opperson was doing a
show. This was in our eighthseason. I was on stage about to
say, ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome, and it just got as pitch
dark in that studio as if youwere in one of those caves when they
turned the lights out. Yeah,and we thought, well, I would
just sit tied. The lights willbe back on any second, I'm sure.

(15:41):
Well, he didn't come back onuntil the next day. The whole
ut campus apparently was blacked out,so we had to lead people down the
stairs by flashlight. That's when wealso discovered we didn't have an emergency lighting
system in the studio. But agreat way to discover that. Well,
but I was here for a poweroutage too, so power outages were pretty
common at that old place. Thisshoe Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
guess we were overloading the system.Then there was the time why Nona did

(16:04):
the show and she was a littlenervous, shall we say, about doing
TV and she did every song twicefor her shot. I was at TA
Yeah where you at that taping?Yeah, Well that's why it was like
a two and a half hour showinstead of the one hour show that we
had kind of planned for, butshe was real happy when all was said
and done, but she just wantedto make sure. And again that speaks

(16:26):
to how important the show is tothe artist. They want to make sure
it's going to be the best ofwho they are. Well, you know,
I know it's so funny would saythat because somebody that was a real
good early you know, proponent oryou know, influence mentor was Emmy Lou
Emmy Emmy Lou Harris. And whenwe were talking about recording our acl shot,
you know, I was up inNashville, was she and her husband

(16:48):
at the time, Paul Kennerley,And she said, she said, don't
repeat a song. She said,it's a gig. She said, you
don't want to lose the audience.She said, unless you blow your single,
do not repeat a song and justdo the next song. And absolutely
the right advice. She said,ed go second because there's free beer.
So you went the second slot andeverybody's drunk. That's right. You guys

(17:11):
would do double taping the and thatwas really for the second of the budget,
by more than anything else. Butwe don't do that anymore because that's
a lot of work to do twoshows and one night, and sometimes would
be midnight and people would start tricklingout or had too many beers. Yeah,
I went to a great double tapingin the old studio. It was
I was hanging out with Rodney Kraw. Rodney taped his segment walking down the

(17:33):
hall. Keith Urban is next.Nobody knew who Keith Urban was. Again,
that's your missionary pot and Rodney's tellingKeith, hey, I've just written
a song. You've got to hearit, man. I want to give
it to you after the show.And I always wondered what song was that
that Rodney was talking. Don't knowwhat it was, but I can say
as a writer, it was probablyhis most recent song, you know whatever,
it's the greatest thing in the world. I think it's a song that

(17:56):
that that Keith eventually sang it AstonNicole, That's that's in back of my
mind, That's what I want tosay it was. But it was just,
I mean, just one of thosemagic moments, you know, backstage
with Trisha Yearwood when nobody knew TrishaYearwood was. And thank goodness, we
have all these photos and everything inthis but that was just a cool studio,
a cool deal. The coolest tapingthat Iver went to. Like I

(18:18):
said, I mean close to threeintertapings Garth Brooks. The first half was
Garth okay, the second half washis character, Chris Gaines. The only
thing that changed was the band.Garthon changed his clothes. He was wearing
cowboy gear and that was a greatNow who owns the rights to the ACO
tapings? They are owned controlled bythe PBS station here in Austin, Kale,

(18:42):
Are you okay? They go byAustin PBS now, But yeah,
they owned the rights to all ofthe shows. And as you may have
noticed, over the ears, wehave been able to release some of the
older episodes, like deal with theWest Records. If you're flying on American
Airlines, don't be surprised if yousee in Austin City Limits on their in
flight entertainment system. But we makeseparate deals, whether it's with the artists

(19:06):
and the record company or American Airlines. And one of these days, my
dream, now that we're approaching ourfiftieth anniversary, and that's a whole other
subject, is that we can makethe entire archive library of Austin City Limits
available anybody who wants to go eitheron their phone or computer, and you
know whether it's a whole show orjust a song from somebody's show, and

(19:29):
whether there's some system for preparing forthat so that the artists can share in
the royalties. It's a massive projectthat you can imagine with so many years
now, so many these shows.But that's what people keep asking about.
You know, how can I goback and look at that old Whalen Jennings
show the first time he did theshow, or George Shones or Roy Orbison
or whoever fell in the blank?Oh, you know, and I know,

(19:51):
like like on my solo shot inninety four on the record I did
a do it. It was wildbecause Moss Player and will produce a record
in Bruce Robinson and I wrote thesong and Kelly Willis is my duet partner.
So there's Kelly with her first husbandand second husband and song with me.
But the reason why I bring thatup is the record versions great,

(20:11):
it's really good, and people reallydug it. The ACL live version is
better than the recording. Really.Yeah, there's just some magic whoe.
Kelly and I were both excited tobe doing ACL and proud of each other,
and there's just whatever that is,but there's always magic in that studio.
That's studio every time, you know, I mean acoustically the studio.

(20:32):
I mean, to look at it, you wouldn't know it. But there
was something always happening in that studio, which translated it was a great TV,
it was great audio. It's justa great performance. One of my
favorite things I ever saw was Terryand Jeff produced a Buddy Holly tribute and
Christofferson wasn't the host, and Briansets was on it, and Carl Perkins
was on it, and Sweethearts ofthe Rodeo and in the Crickets and Duyne

(20:56):
Eddie and this this was eighty seven, so the Wagoneers hadn't even recorded our
segment there. But Buddy's brother Larrywas there, Marie, Lanna Holly was
people that were that were doug whatwe were doing. And because it was
eighty seven, all these pickers hadguitar pedals and effects in their amps,
and all the bells and whistles andand all this, and so these guys,

(21:18):
you know, Brian Setzer comes andhe plugs in, He's got all
his pedals, and even Carl Perkinsjust got a mess of gear and magic
tricks and everything, and then DuaneEddy has his cord in his hand,
he plugs right into a Fender Twin. No affection enough and his guitar sounded
better than anybody. I will neverforget so cool. That was a great
show. Some of the most specialthings we've done have been nights like that,

(21:41):
the Tribute to Buddy Holly, theTribute to Towns Fans, and yes
they attributed to Steve your A andjust the two shows that Steve your A
did you know at the beginning ofhis career and then literally just a few
months before he died in that helicopteraccident. You know, people ask me
all the time, Terry, what'syour favorite show of all time? I
wouldn't ask you no, it's well, there is no good answer to that,

(22:03):
because every show is specially in hisown way, and there's so many
great shows over the years. ButI got to pick the Stevie Ray shows,
the two of them that he did, because he was so amazing to
begin with, and the show's bookended his his very sharp career and it
showed how much he had grown asas an artist. And then just the
fact that he died and we losthim so so young in his career,

(22:26):
when he was at his prime.So yeah, I always point to that
as probably a good example of whatAustin City Limits is all about, and
a show that has also inspired somany other people, including like Eric Clapton
the first time he heard about StevieRay and I love the Stevies. Last
segment he'd been he'd been clean andsober by that point two and a half
years, I think maybe three.And the difference for him just as a

(22:49):
human, I mean, the smileon his face is just from is standing
in the sunlight of the spirit,you know. And and the first one
musically is so great, but hehe just seemed a little rough on the
edges in the last segment. Everysong is just a testament to the joy
music. It's so beautifully casts.Just hearing you talk about him on it

(23:11):
makes me emotional still just thinking back, even though it's about a long long
time since that night, I wantto go back and watch it again.
Now. One thing that did change, which was funded to watch it change,
was a skyline behind the stage.Yeah, especially when Austin is going
through the booms. I mean,you know, but a lot of people
probably coup. They always thought thatthat was taped outside well, you know,
for whatever reason, especially in theold studio back up on the Ute

(23:34):
campus. For real, people thoughtthat it was outside in the park somewhere
on a hill overlooking downtown Austin,where magically it never rained, the wind
never blew sound rasually a bat wouldcome by, but other than that,
it was like perfect. And thenfinally, once we did move to our
new home, the bigger theater downtownat the Moody, it was a little

(23:57):
more obvious with any more people inthe room. And frankly, when high
definition TV came along, you know, it was kind of how hard to
kind of pretend like that was thereal skyline, not to mention the skyline
keeps changing, probably from last week, right, you know. I mean,
so we kind of gave up onthis idea of updating the skyline and

(24:17):
adding every new building that went upbecause it was a never ending Now we
passed. We heard a rumor this, mate, Yeah, I just wanted
to spell this right now. Supposedly, when Reba taped an episode of ACL
that she had the UT tower coveredup. There's no, that's just a
nasty rumor that somebody started right,You never had an artist at demand that
part of the skyline was covered upor anything. To set the record straight,

(24:38):
Wait a minute, it did happen. However, it did happen.
It did, in fact happen,and if you were to go back and
look at that show, you wouldsee that happened. And it was her
manager at the time, who shallremain nameless and whose name I forgot anyway,
he didn't last very long with her. But yeah, when I finally
and I tried for a long time, she was at the you know,
top of her game at that pointthe book Reba McIntyre come and do Austin

(25:00):
City Limits. Her manager said,only on the condition that you turn off
that what is that capital and thattall skinny building, because we don't want
it to look like a local TVshow. Rebase. You know, she's
a big star, and you know, we didn't much take to that idea.
In fact, I won't repeat whatwe said, but we decided,

(25:22):
you know, when all was saidand done, we just really wanted to
get Reba down down there on thatstage and to do a show. So
I thought it was just a rumor. We turned off the Capital and the
ut Tower lights and we did theshow. I really doubted knew a thing
about it. Actually, I knowshe didn't even realize what was going on.
She was more focused on doing hershow and facing the audience. But
afterwards people would come up to her, you know, and so how come

(25:45):
we heard or well we saw yourshow? Where was the Austin Skyline?
And it was all news to her. She had no idea. Her manager
had been so presumptuous to say that, you know, well I wasn't at
that taping. So that's why Ialways that's the first hand only time,
and I don't think we'd ever gofor that idea again. Come up right,

(26:07):
You wouldn't have to because now it'sacl I know it's there. Don't
do it if you're just kinda lookat it every channel on your on your
five hundred and thirty channels, um, and you came up on Austin City
limits, you know instantly what itis because once you see that Austin Skyline
backdrop, you know that it's AustinCity limits. So there's no thought even
changing that. At this point.Were also as a picker. You know

(26:30):
what is when when you do firstof all, when you do television,
you're always doing you're always performing musicin a television studio and it's designed to
be a TV studio, or you'relip syncing, which there is no such
thing, is naturally lip syncing anything, you know, It's like, well,
what do you mean? You you'resinging and you wrote the song and
you're playing it. It doesn't matter. And because lip syncing is just weird,

(26:53):
you know. Like I remember theweek before I shot my first music
video, my manager said, gohome and practice lip syncing. Now,
when the hell is she talking?They know it, I wrote it.
And then you go to the setand you go on, I don't know
how to lip sync, you know. But the thing about ACL is the
studio is designed for music. Yeah, so not only do you feel like

(27:17):
you're at a gig, you feellike you're at a great gig, and
your monitors are dream like and thegears fantastic, and it is the only
I've been blessed to record TV showsall over the world. It is the
best sounding studio. Not because I'mfrom here, I don't care. It's
the best sounding studio. And youtalk to pickers all over the world their
favorite television shot, And I'm talkingpeople that like we're on the Ed Sullivan

(27:42):
Show and stuff, I mean oldercats. Every picker's favorite musical shot is
a cl to a man, toa chick. It doesn't matter man everybody,
because they treat you great. Theytreat you like an artist. They
want you comfortable. They understand maybeyou're nervous, maybe you're not. It
goes though, no, no,back to me and the rest VAX team

(28:02):
that try. It's hard to createan environment that makes you feel so comfortable
and relax when it comes to doingTV. Most artists hate doing TV money.
Like you say, any late nightTV, Saturday Night Live, any
of those shows, the audience iskind of somewhere off on the side and

(28:22):
usually come out of your one song, one and done, and it's so
unnatural that it's impossible to really berelaxed and just just kind of be at
your best. When they committed toAustin City Limits, we make them feel
like they're at home. You're justgoing to get up there, do your
show, do what you do everyother night. There's gonna be real fans
out there, and if you needto stop or do a song over do

(28:42):
it. You know, we wantit to be as good as it can
be. And with that kind ofreassurance once they got up on that stage,
it brings out the best in them. And now that the show has
such a legacy behind it, theywant it to be a show. This
is going to be entertainment for onefor one night, but to live on

(29:03):
for posterity, because that's really whatit's become in four decades. I mean,
just you know, six months ago, seven months ago, I've got
an email out of the blue froma journalist that I have extraordinarily great respect
for, and she was saying,I just I just contacted via email.
She goes, I just emailed myhusband said, look who just reached out
to me? And he discovered mymusic through my solo shot in the mid

(29:26):
nineties. He was in a littletown in Oregon. They got one channel
and it would just happen to bein the PVS channel and he knew my
music from there. Otherwise he neverwould have heard of me. That's another
reason. If we could get ourentire library archive up online, people,
I guarantee people would go back andgo scrolling through the years and see I
might have heard of him or heardthem, or who is that, and

(29:49):
then check it out and all ofa sudden, you've got a new fan.
Amen from a show that she mighthave done thirty five years ago.
Tales from the Broken Spoke is recordedlive at the Broken Folk in Austin,
Texas, hosted by Country Radio Hallof Fame broadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden,
recorded mixed down and produced by MikeRivera