Local Memory: A History of Music in Austin
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Notes From a Limestone Ledge
  • 2022 Exhibit Updates Launch September 29, 2022

    Local Memory is happy to announce the official launch of updates to site and its exhibits for 2022.
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  • Charlie Barnet’s “Weird Austin” September 28, 2022

    In the recollections of Charlie Barnet, a New York musician, we can learn about the music scene in Austin and Texas during the early 1930s from an outsider’s perspective.
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  • New Article in Not Even Past September 24, 2022

    Local Memory is happy to announce the publication of “Local Memory: Telling Austin’s Music History” on Not Even Past, a digital magazine hosted by the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
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  • Bessie Smith and the Dunbar Theatre February 25, 2021

    Tracing the history of the Dunbar Theatre, one of downtown Austin’s African American movie/vaudeville houses from the interwar period, through Bessie Smith’s only known performance in Austin.
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  • Announcing “The Wild Side of Life: The Rise of the Honky Tonks, 1940-1950” December 28, 2020

    The Wild Side of Life documents the ascent of the Western Swing scene in Austin during and after World War Two.
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  • Music Hub UT: The Billboard College Music Polls, 1942 and 1943 January 27, 2020

    The University of Texas was already making Austin a major destination for national popular music acts all the way back in the 1920s.
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  • Event, September 29: The Texas Fiddle Tradition and Western Swing in Austin September 19, 2019

    Please join us on Sunday, September 29th, at 3 pm for a Local Memory research update and live interview!
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  • Visualizing the Economics of Music Performance in Austin in the 1930s August 21, 2019

    Today we’ve posted a new piece to our exhibit on music in Austin in the 1930s.
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  • National Bands in Austin in the 1930’s July 15, 2019

    Today we have a few updates to our exhibit Athens on the Colorado
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  • Interview with Alvin Fielder: R&B and Houston in the 1950s July 1, 2019

    In this interview with jazz pioneer Alvin Fielder, we discussed the historical connection of Rhythm and Blues with jazz and Fielder's experience in the Houston music scene in the 1950s.
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  • East Austin, Swing, and Other Updates to ‘Athens on the Colorado’ June 13, 2019

    Today we have a few new essays and a few updates to our exhibit Athens on the Colorado
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  • Austin Abroad: The Clarence Nemir Orchestra’s Depression Era Tours through Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East May 3, 2019

    Clarence Nemir’s was one of the first, if not the first, Austin pop music bands to go global—to tour beyond the United States and to bring a Texas sound to international audiences.
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  • The Swing and Rhythm and Blues of Johnny Simmons January 8, 2019

    Johnny Simmons was one of the quintessential bandleaders in Austin at the midcentury, although he is little remembered or celebrated today
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  • Welcome January 6, 2019

    This blog will offer readers an opportunity to get a sense of future narratives and content, while also showing how our ideas may change over time
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Local Memory: A History of Music in Austin is a project of the Texas Music Documentation Project.