Hey, it's Bob Pickett. We're on our way to the legendary Broken Spoke. Come on, let's get out the truck and head inside it. Come on, let's go inside, getting ready for another tale from the Broken Spoke. 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 on the podcast since we first started money,
Terry Lacona, Austin City Limits, Austin City Limits. And I gotta tell you my college years were spent watching Terry introduce the stage and tell us where we could find the free beer the old studio for Rostin City Limits. That's well, I'm freedoms. I think that's a complimentary. No, it is a compliment. I was. I was 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 our new home down call of the new home. We've been at the movie theater now for thirteen years. But you know, it's a different kind of situation down there. They have a liquor license and all that sort of thing, and TABC frowns on giving away beer. But you know, there was nothing like being a student at Rsity Texas,
and just of course I was an RTF student. We would just wander down the hall and we would get in and at that time acl I mean, it wasn't packed. What was the capacity of the old studio of aclire. So when we started out, we backed as many people in the room as we could, up like a thousand people. I remember we did a show with Willie once where we actually had people up on the catwalk, which is
not even you know, where people are supposed to be. Right. But over the years, when the ut Fire 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 than we thought. So it got cut back from a thousand until like three hundred by the time we doubt and frankly we realized long before then that we had outgrown that space. As much as we
loved it, Yeah, you really have the history all began. It just wasn't quite big enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to be there. How many episodes taped in the old studio? Remember we were there for thirty six years. I can tell you that last year we just taped our one thousandth episode. Well that includes the thirteen years that we have been at the Moody Theater downtown, So that's a thousand different tapings, actually not episodes,
a thousand different tapings that we've done over the years. And that includes a lot of artists, not only the lead singer you know, and musician, but all of the side men and women who played that on that stage and other studages down through the years. It's it's an incredible history, and it's boggles my mind when I really stopped to think about it, which I do a lot, even though it's my day job, and I love what I do and kind of get caught up in 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 go back through an old foot locker in the garage and I will find playbills and I know that I probably have been close to three hundred tapings that because then again it was free, you know, well you know, but but you would see I mean you would see everybody, you know, one night to be George Jones and the next week
you'd have somebody else. And that the music was great. And I remember because like you know, growing up here, you know, there'd be so many eclectic things. And I remember the first time I ever heard heard of saw heard the music of George Strait was on an ACLS. I was at the taping and the thing was, man, if you remember eighty one, a cat in a start shirt and a cowboy had was weird. It was almost like a punk thing. And Straight came out there and I just went,
who the hell is that? Kind of went down to Intersanctum and you know, the guy with the mohawk there 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't have a George Straight record, but they got it for me and it was 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.
Well, of course, back then, George was playing at the Cheatham Street Warehouse SA Marcus, and he was playing frat parties and he had longer hair, yeah at the time under that cowboy. But Terry, I mean you you had ears, you discovered music. I mean, it was amazing you were you the one that booked all the shows back then. That is the most important thing that I do to this day, and that is to
book the talent for the show. Yeah, but I mean in radio, and I haven't always batted the housing over the last forty nine years, and I got a better record than I do. Our record overall, you know, speaks for itself. But yeah, it's um. You know, when you look at the history of the way the shows evolved, it started out as pretty much at Texas Country Music Show as sort of like our answer to
what Nashville was putting out at the time. And but over time we expanded the limits, you know, so to speak, to include all kinds of music. Well, and you like the Rank and File taping you did in eighty two was phenomenal, and that the set that that Chip and Tony and Alan Slim played, it's one of the greatest thirty minutes of live music ever, I mean, and it was just so pure and nobody knew. I don't know to this day, I don'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 of eighty seven, and we recorded Stout and High in January of eighty eight. Terry had us on before we made our record. I don't know if you've done 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 for these things. So you know, there have been times over the years I might have booked an artist or a band a little too soon, you know, before they really had matured or were ready for prime time, so to speak. And then in other cases I might have waited too long and missed an opportunity why does adele come to mind?
For instance? You know, I mean I have to go by instinct most of the time. Well I know, but sometimes if there's somebody who I think's ready, but maybe they don't have that record out yet, well maybe that show, that Austin City Limits 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 for my career because here's the thing. When when I want an orgaon our first single came out, it coincided with the
release of our acl segment and this you know that record. It was a it was a shuffle on country radio in nineteen eighty eight, and yet we were we were on Austin City Limits. Here was this band. Nobody knew who the hell we were. And I think that was one of the main we know from radio, that was one 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 on Austin City Limits. You know, I hear from so many people to this day, to Marcia Marshall Ball, I'll love it. Will tell me that they still have people come up with them after their shows, saying that the first time they saw them was on Austin City limits and no matter how many years it's been. And that's the thing, you know, people tune in to watch our show to discover somebody or something or some kind of music that they've never heard of or not familiar with.
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 seem to have these days. But you know, the first time I saw law love it, he was a background singer
for somebody on Nancy Nancy Griffin, that's who was. Yeah, they were friends and Nancy invited him to come up and saying really just on one song, I think, yeah. And there was a girl that sang with him. Her name escapes me now, but she 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 there singing, you're right. He was a Nancy Grip of the show. She was singing with Lyle Well a lot,
you know, And I just it's not just the Wagon Ears taping. Like in ninety four, I put out a 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 indie labels did not go on national television. They did later because people like Terry Lacona had the vision to go. You
know, there's some cool things going on indie labels. And this little old record I put out, and I know Terry personally, so he knows my career taking a couple of pretty good kicks in the nuts, you know, so thank you. So this record came out, got phenomenal press, and Terry invited me to do a segment. And this is not another guy from the Wagon Ears. There's there's no name to build on. Nobody knew who this is, just you by yourself, just with the band. But nobody
knew Monty Warden, and he had me 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 record before my Watermelon record, before I did a CL had sold about fifteen thousand records, and we thought after our 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. Oh god, wow, I thanks to Terry. That was thanks to Terry. Oh try. From my perspective, sometimes we just lose track of what we're doing in the impact that it actually has. I mean, I could name any number of artists and anecdotes, but
when comes to mind, and that was 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 to be a country singers because I saw George
Jones and Ray Price and Willie Nelson on Austin City Limits. Because he was a country boy living in rural Georgia and the only TV stations that could pick up are a couple of the networks and BBS and so I mean that hit me like you mean you were inspired to want to pursue music because of some little TV and now he's in the country. That's exactly right. And that's also speaks to how long we've been doing this. Amen, you know what
really speaks how long we've been doing this. So, of course everybody knows Willie just recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday and I was looking back. In fact, on his ninetieth birthday, we posted the original pilot show that Willy did back in nineteen seventy four. He was thirty nine years old the first time he did Austin City Limits, our original pilot show. And so here he
is. He's still at it and so are we. Now, how did you get involved with Austin City Limits because you're not a native Austin And no, I am not. I am a to Pokeepsie eight. I'm from Pokeepsie in New York. Originally I moved down 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 nineteen seventy four, came to Austin afterwards, and we both decided to move here. My friend and his band and wife
and me just decided to command down here. And I was a radio DG at the time in Pokeepsie and decided that Austin might be a better place to do what I do and also to get away from the cold winners up there. So I just moved down here on a whim after looking around. In fact, I applied for jobs at every radio station in Austin, including KAVED and kle BJ, and you named the station, and I applied there.
Finally guy to get KUT, which was in the same building as the PBS station, and I literally moved to Austin three weeks after they taked the The Willie Pilot Show. Most people think I 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 and I sort of volunteer just to kind of
learn the ropes and help them out in any way that I could. And then a funny thing happened, like literally a year or two later, they all left the people that started the show, the executive producer, producer, director. They were older, had families. Nobody thought the show was going to last more than a couple of years, and they were worried about job security, so they kind of moved on. And I looked around and realized
there's nobody left minding the story here. I walked into the manager's office and I literally, I've always been pretty good with the BS. Talked my way into the job. I talked my way into the job as producer when I didn't have any experience, didn't go to RTF school, and they gave me a shot at it. And you know, after we had our tenth anniversary, we looked at each other and thought, this seeing my last for a while. You know, maybe there's more too than we thought. Right place
at the right time, weren't. It really had to do with that, and like I said, having a little bit of pluck and being willing to kind of put myself out there and have 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 so much a just show biz. I just go, you know, do you know how to do this? You know?
My all manager Card and Major said always take the job and then later on figure out while the other kids you my success and our success, I would say, is and I guess this is a talent that I have, and that's hiring the right people, the best people I have hired, the people who do best at what they do, whether it's David Hoffert audio director since that original Willie Show, or our lighting director, Gary Manati, our tv DRIC camera director, and a whole list of other people on my crew
who've been there as long as I have, if not longer, who really make this show what it is today. How much prep goes into an episode now, I mean it is still in the entire week time to spend years trying to book somebody to come to do the show. But once we've got a show booked, then we begin the production advance. You know the usual details of logistics, hotels, finding out what their production needs are, if they need any any backline or specialized audio like monitor consoles, so forth.
And the day of the show is pretty cut and dry. We've got that down to a you know, a pretty good system where they low it in, set up, sound checked, or our camera rehearsal in the afternoon, take a break, set the Lights do the show. That's when we let the people in, and then I'd do my little interview after the show, which now that just started to becoming like one of my favorite things to do.
And I man, I wish we had started doing that back in the day, as opposed to I think it was only maybe twenty five years ago I started doing these sit down interviews with the artists right after the show when they come off the stage and they're really excited and chatty. Otherwise. Yeah, I wish I could have talked to Ray Charles and BB King and Roy Orbison and some of the others back when. I remember the old days,
you'd have to stop the show to change the tape. Remember that. Yeah, we don't have to change the tape anyway, it's all And I was. I was at a taping Nitty Greedy dirt band. You guys had to stop the show because bats were dive bombing the stage. They used to be able to get into the AC ducks up 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.
I wish one night the lights went out when Chris Chris Opperson was doing a show. This was in our eighth season. I was on stage about to say, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, and it just got as pitch dark in that studio as if you were in one of those caves when they turned the lights out. Yeah, and we thought, well, I would just sit tied. The lights will be back on any second, I'm sure.
Well, he didn't come back on until 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 we also discovered we didn't have an emergency lighting system in the studio. But a great way to discover that. Well, but I was here for a power outage too, so power outages were pretty common at that old place. This shoe Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
guess we were overloading the system. Then there was the time why Nona did the show and she was a little nervous, shall we say, about doing TV and she did every song twice for 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 show instead of the one hour show that we had kind of planned for, but she was real happy when all was said and done, but she just wanted to make sure. And again that speaks
to how important the show is to the artist. They want to make sure it's going to be the best of who they are. Well, you know, I know it's so funny would say that because somebody that was a real good early you know, proponent or you know, influence mentor was Emmy Lou Emmy Emmy Lou Harris. And when we were talking about recording our acl shot, you know, I was up in Nashville, was she and her husband 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 just do the next song. And absolutely the right advice. She said, ed go second because there's free beer. So you went the second slot and everybody's drunk. That's right. You guys would do double taping the and that was really for the second of the budget,
by more than anything else. But we don't do that anymore because that's a lot of work to do two shows and one night, and sometimes would be midnight and people would start trickling out or had too many beers. Yeah, I went to a great double taping in the old studio. It was I was hanging out with Rodney Kraw. Rodney taped his segment walking down the hall. Keith Urban is next. Nobody knew who Keith Urban was. Again, that's your missionary pot and Rodney's telling Keith, hey, I've just written
a song. You've got to hear it, 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 know what it was, but I can say as a writer, it was probably his most recent song, you know whatever, it's the greatest thing in the world. I think it's a song that that that Keith eventually sang it Aston Nicole, That's that's in back of my
mind, That's what I want to say it was. But it was just, I mean, just one of those magic moments, you know, backstage with Trisha Yearwood when nobody knew Trisha Yearwood was. And thank goodness, we have all these photos and everything in this but that was just a cool studio, a cool deal. The coolest taping that Iver went to. Like I said, I mean close to three intertapings Garth Brooks. The first half was Garth okay, the second half was his character, Chris Gaines. The only
thing that changed was the band. Garthon changed his clothes. He was wearing cowboy gear and that was a great Now who owns the rights to the ACO tapings? They are owned controlled by the PBS station here in Austin, Kale, Are you okay? They go by Austin PBS now, But yeah, they owned the rights to all of the shows. And as you may have noticed, over the ears, we have been able to release some of the
older episodes, like deal with the West Records. If you're flying on American Airlines, don't be surprised if you see in Austin City Limits on their in flight entertainment system. But we make separate deals, whether it's with the artists
and the record company or American Airlines. And one of these days, my dream, now that we're approaching our fiftieth anniversary, and that's a whole other subject, is that we can make the entire archive library of Austin City Limits available anybody who wants to go either on their phone or computer, and you know whether it's a whole show or just a song from somebody's show, and whether there's some system for preparing for that so that the artists can share in
the royalties. It's a massive project that 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 go back and look at that old Whalen Jennings show the first time he did the show, or George Shones or Roy Orbison or whoever fell in the blank? Oh, you know, and I know, like like on my solo shot in ninety four on the record I did
a do it. It was wild because Moss Player and will produce a record in Bruce Robinson and I wrote the song and Kelly Willis is my duet partner. So there's Kelly with her first husband and second husband and song with me. But the reason why I bring that up is the record versions great, it's really good, and people really dug it. The ACL live version is better than the recording. Really. Yeah, there's just some magic whoe.
Kelly and I were both excited to be 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. 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 just a great performance. One of my favorite things I ever saw was Terry and Jeff produced a Buddy Holly tribute and Christofferson wasn't the host, and Brian sets was on it, and Carl Perkins was on it, and Sweethearts of the Rodeo and in the Crickets and Duyne Eddie and this this was eighty seven, so the Wagoneers hadn't even recorded our segment there. But Buddy's brother Larry was there, Marie, Lanna Holly was
people that were that were doug what we were doing. And because it was eighty seven, all these pickers had guitar pedals and effects in their amps, and all the bells and whistles and and all this, and so these guys, you know, Brian Setzer comes and he plugs in, He's got all his pedals, and even Carl Perkins just got a mess of gear and magic tricks and everything, and then Duane Eddy 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 never forget so cool. That was a great show. Some of the most special things we've done have been nights like that, the Tribute to Buddy Holly, the Tribute to Towns Fans, and yes they attributed to Steve your A and just the two shows that Steve your A did you know at the beginning of his career and then literally just a few months before he died in that helicopter accident. You know, people ask me
all the time, Terry, what's your favorite show of all time? I wouldn't ask you no, it's well, there is no good answer to that, because every show is specially in his own way, and there's so many great shows over the years. But I 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 book ended his his very sharp career and it
showed how much he had grown as as an artist. And then just the fact that he died and we lost him so so young in his career, when he was at his prime. So yeah, I always point to that as probably a good example of what Austin City Limits is all about, and a show that has also inspired so many other people, including like Eric Clapton the first time he heard about Stevie Ray and I love the Stevies. Last segment he'd been he'd been clean and sober by that point two and a half
years, I think maybe three. And the difference for him just as a human, I mean, the smile on 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 he he just seemed a little rough on the edges in the last segment. Every song is just a testament to the joy
music. It's so beautifully casts. Just hearing you talk about him on it makes me emotional still just thinking back, even though it's about a long long time since that night, I want to 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 that that was taped outside well, you know, for whatever reason, especially in the old studio back up on the Ute campus. For real, people thought that 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 would come by, but other than that,
it was like perfect. And then finally, once we did move to our new home, the bigger theater downtown at the Moody, it was a little more obvious with any more people in the room. And frankly, when high definition TV came along, you know, it was kind of how hard to kind of pretend like that was the real skyline, not to mention the skyline
keeps changing, probably from last week, right, you know. I mean, so we kind of gave up on this idea of updating the skyline and adding every new building that went up because 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 covered up. 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 up or anything. To set the record straight, 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 would see that happened. And it was her manager at the time, who shall remain 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 point the book Reba McIntyre come and do Austin City Limits. Her manager said, only on the condition that you turn off that what is that capital and that tall skinny building, because we don't want it to look like a local TV show. 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 what we said, but we decided, you know, when all was said and done, we just really wanted to get Reba down down there on that stage 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 the show. I really doubted knew a thing about it. Actually, I know she didn't even realize what was going on.
She was more focused on doing her show and facing the audience. But afterwards people would come up to her, you know, and so how come we heard or well we saw your show? 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 I always that's the first hand only time, and I don't think we'd ever go for that idea again. Come up right,
You wouldn't have to because now it's acl I know it's there. Don't do it if you're just kinda look at 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 it is because once you see that Austin Skyline backdrop, you know that it's Austin City limits. So there's no thought even
changing that. At this point. Were also as a picker. You know what is when when you do first of all, when you do television, you're always doing you're always performing music in a television studio and it's designed to be a TV studio, or you're lip syncing, which there is no such thing, is naturally lip syncing anything, you know, It's like, well, what do you mean? You you're singing and you wrote the song and you're playing it. It doesn't matter. And because lip syncing is just weird,
you know. Like I remember the week before I shot my first music video, my manager said, go home and practice lip syncing. Now, when the hell is she talking? They know it, I wrote it. And then you go to the set and 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 you're at a gig, you feel like you're at a great gig, and your monitors are dream like and the gears fantastic, and it is the only
I've been blessed to record TV shows all over the world. It is the best sounding studio. Not because I'm from here, I don't care. It's the best sounding studio. And you talk to pickers all over the world their favorite television shot, And I'm talking people that like we're on the Ed Sullivan Show and stuff, I mean older cats. Every picker's favorite musical shot is a cl to a man, to a chick. It doesn't matter man everybody, because they treat you great. They treat you like an artist. They
want you comfortable. They understand maybe you're nervous, maybe you're not. It goes though, no, no, back to me and the rest VAX team that try. It's hard to create an environment that makes you feel so comfortable and relax when it comes to doing TV. Most artists hate doing TV money.
Like you say, any late night TV, Saturday Night Live, any of those shows, the audience is kind of somewhere off on the side and usually come out of your one song, one and done, and it's so unnatural that it's impossible to really be relaxed and just just kind of be at your best. When they committed to Austin City Limits, we make them feel like they're at home. You're just going to get up there, do your
show, do what you do every other night. There's gonna be real fans out there, and if you need to stop or do a song over do it. You know, we want it to be as good as it can be. And with that kind of reassurance 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, they want it to be a show. This is going to be entertainment for one for one night, but to live on
for posterity, because that's really what it'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 from a journalist that I have extraordinarily great respect for, and she was saying, I just I just contacted via email. She goes, I just emailed my husband said, look who just reached out to me? And he discovered my music through my solo shot in the mid
nineties. He was in a little town in Oregon. They got one channel and it would just happen to be in the PVS channel and he knew my music from there. Otherwise he never would have heard of me. That's another reason. If we could get our entire library archive up online, people, I guarantee people would go back and go scrolling through the years and see I might have heard of him or heard them, or who is that, and then check it out and all of a sudden, you've got a new fan.
Amen from a show that she might have done thirty five years ago. Tales from the Broken Spoke is recorded live at the Broken Folk in Austin, Texas, hosted by Country Radio Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded mixed down and produced by Mike Rivera