Way before Sixth Street in Austin was all the rage, Clifford Antone opened Antone’s on July 15, 1975, at Sixth and Brazos. Antone owned a sandwich shop before his love with the Blues took root.
On its opening weekend he booked Clifton Chenier and His Red Hot Louisiana Band setting the tone that Antone wanted a home for blues greats as well as Gulf Coast musicians and R&B stars would be treated with the same amount of respect as pop and country artists — even if the music industry and radio were looking the other way.
Antone’s didn’t just woo legends to the state capitol. It helped bridge the gap between those legends — even for a night — with the young musicians cutting their teeth.
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