Texas Music News — July 26, 2026
Austin’s legendary blues club Antone’s now caps its 51st anniversary with blues great John Primer. Clifford Antone opened the club’s doors on Sixth Street on July 15, 1975. He had one simple goal, though. Antone wanted Austin to hear real blues before the originators disappeared. So he built what became known as Austin’s home of the blues.
“Me and my friends,” Antone said, “wanted to hear blues before these musicians died.” First, zydeco legend Clifton Chenier opened the very first night. Then, over the next three decades, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and Albert King all played that same stage. The club moved several times, first to Guadalupe Street, then to Fifth Street downtown. But the mission never changed.
Antone’s also became a launching pad for homegrown talent. The room helped introduce the world to Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds in the late Seventies. Then, decades later, a teenage Gary Clark Jr. cut his teeth on that same stage. So the club has always worked less like a museum and more like a river. The water changes every generation, but it still runs through the same banks Clifford Antone carved back in 1975.
Still the Same River
Meanwhile, this July’s anniversary run has stretched across the whole month. First, Bob Schneider and his full band shared the stage with John Primer on Saturday night. Now Primer returns Sunday with Soul Man Sam to close things out. Antone’s turned fifty-one this month. Yet tonight’s crowd will still hear the same thing patrons heard in 1975 — guitar, hollering, and no pretense at all.
Details at Antone’s Nightclub
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