50 years of blues at Antone's

There have been venue owners who have been larger than life—Hilly Kristal (CBGB) and Doug Weston (Troubadour) come to mind—but few live-music club owners have ever lived in and for the music the way that Clifford Antone has. He also lived a life of extremes.

- ROBERT BAIRD ROBERT

Once, I was escorted into his office and found that almost the entire room was taken up by a sea of electric guitars on stands. During a South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, in the early aughts, I was flabbergasted when I walked into a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant and found Antone greeting customers and playing host as a condition of his parole.

Raised in Houston, the nephew of the Lebanese/Syrian family member who invented the Houston Po' Boy sandwich, Clifford Antone arrived in Austin in 1969 when the musicgoing public was a mix of hippies, country music fans, and college kids. In 1975, he opened the first Antone’s on the corner of Sixth Street and Brazos in downtown Austin with a show by zydeco great Clifton Chenier.

Forced out of downtown when the building housing the venue was torn down for a parking garage, the club eventually settled, in 1982, at a former Shakey's Pizza on Guadalupe Street just north of the University of Texas. In the liner notes for a new boxed set on the New West Records label, noted Texas writer Joe Nick Patoski calls the club “a genuine hot spot.” An expert house band emerged, hardened by many nights backing legendary figures such as Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Guy. Celebrities including RNC chairman Lee Atwater, actors Bruce Willis and Dennis Quaid, and UT sports figures like coach Darrell Royal and running back Earl Campbell came by to watch or sit in. According to the liner notes, when Bono and Edge of U2 sat in one night after a nearby arena show, house band bassist Sarah Brown's response was.

The club's colorful founder died in 2006, but the club he founded is back in downtown Austin, mere blocks from its original location. Zach Ernst, who has been booking the club for the past decade, is also the driving force behind the aforementioned boxed set, the exceptionally well-done, limitededition Antone's 50th Allstars - 50 Years of the Blues.