Review: Antone’s 50 Years of the Blues Box Set

Of the literally hundreds of hours I’ve spent through the decades at all six of the various locales that have housed Antone’s Nightclub over the past half century, there is one particular gig that stands above the rest.

It was a Monday-Tuesday night showcase in mid-January, 1985, for the legendary, left-handed Chicago blues guitarist/singer Otis Rush. His historically checkered career hadn’t brought him to Austin for almost a decade, so this was a homecoming of sorts. The club, then located on the Drag just north of 29th Street, was packed to the rafters both nights with seemingly every guitar player in town in the house. What ensued, each night, was an absolutely devastating display of instrumental prowess and heart-wrenching vocals by this master of dark, foreboding intensity. The crowd knew his music well and hung on every emotion-laden verse and spine-tingling lick, raising the roof with their stunned affirmation.

That Otis Rush is just one of dozens of blues stars who left an indelible mark and helped Antone’s garner an international reputation is only part of the story.

Since its grand opening performance by zydeco king Clifton Chenier and His Red Hot Louisiana Band on July 15, 1975, in a humble storefront on a scruffy block of a largely deserted East Sixth Street, Antone’s Nightclub has been Austin’s undisputed Home of the Blues. Proprietor Clifford Antone, an amiable twentysomething transplant from Port Arthur, changed the face of the Austin music scene. Through his love of and obsession with the blues, he used his namesake club to not only extend a heartfelt welcome mat to the country’s largely forgotten blues giants; he also provided a fertile breeding ground for local musicians to learn from these masters. The result was a word-of-mouth destination venue for the veterans, and a launching pad to national acclaim and beyond for Austin acts like Jimmie Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds (who were also the club’s initial house band), Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, and, more recently, Gary Clark Jr.

To commemorate the club’s 50th anniversary comes the August 22 release of Antone’s: 50 Years of the Blues, a colossal, five-disc, 41-track box set that celebrates the joyous, soulful music and indomitable spirit that, to this day, uniquely characterizes the venue. The set is divided into three segments, each highlighting an aspect of the Antone’s legacy.

The Last Real Texas Blues Album features newly recorded material from the Antone’s 50th Allstars, an array of cross-generational artists integral to the club’s history. Among the covers on the double album, Jimmie Vaughan teams with nonagenarian Bobby Rush to tackle Freddie King’s standard “Going Down,” and Houston soul singer Kam Franklin belts Barbara Lynn’s classic “You’ll Lose a Good Thing.” Elsewhere, Eve Monsees, Lurrie Bell, and Billy F. Gibbons record a three-guitar rendition of Magic Sam’s instrumental groove “Lookin’ Good.”

We Went Live in ’75 is a collection of rare and obscure live performances from the club, with an emphasis on the South Side, Chicago sound. This includes some truly remarkable mixing of musicians: Jimmy Rogers, a seminal figure in Chitown lore, is joined by Jimmie Vaughan and harpist James Cotton on “Walking By Myself,” while pianist/vocalist Sunnyland Slim gets help from guitarists Eddie Taylor and Rogers – with Snooky Pryor blowing harp – on “Built Up From the Ground.” Likewise, Cotton can be found with guitarists Luther Tucker and Matt “Guitar” Murphy, and the Muddy Waters rhythm section, on the lyricless rave-up “Midnight Creeper.” That all these artists can be found in the same place at the same time attests to the magic of Antone’s.

Not surprisingly, my favorite live track is Otis Rush’s vocally riveting “Double Trouble,” the song Stevie Ray Vaughan would cop for his band’s name. Texas bluesman Albert Collins feasts on T-Bone Walker’s “Cold, Cold Feeling,” and a young, pre-fame Gary Clark Jr. rips into the Mississippi warhorse “Catfish Blues.” Too bad no dates of these recordings are provided.

An often overlooked but essential aspect of the scene was how Clifford and sister Susan Antone’s generosity attracted scores of outstanding, if lesser known, artists to come play at the club, with many hanging in Austin for months as resident musicians. Some of them appear in the box set, including Snooky Pryor and Lazy Lester, along with first-rate guitarists Tucker, Murphy, and Mel Brown. Others – like pianist Pinetop Perkins, vocalist Miss Lavelle White, and Cotton – actually moved to Austin to become a permanent part of the scene. You could drop into the club on any given night and often find one or more of these legendary bluespeople up on stage, usually with younger, local musicians, playing to an appreciative audience. Any night could be a mini blues festival at Antone’s.

The package’s third segment, Tell Me One More Time, collects long-lost and previously unreleased tracks from the archives of Antone’s Records, the club’s in-house label. Angela Strehli’s dynamic take on Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me, Too,” with Denny Freeman on scintillating slide guitar; Doyle Bramhall and a young Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Too Sorry”; and Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli, and Marcia Ball’s performance of Tina Turner’s “A Fool in Love” are just some of the disc’s standouts. Other highlights include Miss Lavelle White, with James Polk on B3 organ, owning O.V. Wright’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry” and Pinetop Perkins’ exquisite reading of the stone classic “Goin’ Down Slow,” which closes the album. Voiceovers from Antone himself provide some evocative context.

Though the compilation salutes dozens of marquee performers, the Antone’s house band of the Eighties era – drummer George Rains, bassist Sarah Brown, pianist/guitarist Denny Freeman, guitarists Mel Brown and Derek O’Brien, and saxmen Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff and Joe Sublett – deserves equal recognition for backing virtually everyone who played the club. The same goes for ubiquitous emcee Allen “Sugar Bear” Black, who always added a touch of class to the proceedings.

Now at its sixth location, on East Fifth, Antone’s has, by necessity, expanded its bookings to accommodate the musical tastes of a younger audience. That said, it will remain Austin’s Home of the Blues – hopefully for another 50 years.

Antone’s: 50 Years of the Blues

New West Records

This article appears in August 29 • 2025.