Established October 27th 1949

It has been said that Clifford Antone didn’t choose the blues. The blues chose him. The Port Arthur native opened a sandwich shop in Austin in the early 70s, along the lines of his family’s business in Houston. But soon there were guitars and amps in the back of the shop, and before long the blues had taken over. The blues was inside Clifford Antone, and it had to come out. What he did when it was out was open the best nightclub in America, one that would showcase legends like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Jimmy Reed and dozens more. It would also give to Austin an alternative to the redneck rock renegades’ music that was taking over the city.

Two things are for sure in Austin: Willie Nelson will always draw a massive crowd, and Antone’s will rise again. Now back on Fifth Street, east of Congress Avenue, the club feels like it’s found its spiritual home. Just a couple blocks from its original location on Sixth Street, this is where the nightclub belongs. Clifford Antone, who died in 2006, can be felt in the room. He was a man who loved music and musicians, and Antone’s now is his living shrine to all the blues ever created, and to everything the blues continues to give to those who live for the music. As Jimmie Vaughan once tried to explain about the blues, “it’s something you either love or don’t like at all.” At the very beginning of the club all those years ago, Antone’s motto was “Home of the Blues.” It could just as easily now be “Home of the Blues Lovers.”