Playlist: Best recordings ever made in Austin

Two hours of music on a Sunday, not just by local artists

Career-builder recorded live at Chicago House 1992.

What are the 25 greatest albums ever recorded in the Austin area (in which I’m including Luckenbach)? I’m going to be working on that list for a couple weeks, at least, and I’ve got a lot of listening to to, so I made a playlist of songs from the albums to be considered. I can click on the album title when I want to go deeper. Care to listen along?

If there are albums that seem ridiculously passed over here, they were most likely recorded elsewhere. Austin music classic Honky Tonk Masquerade (Ely) was made in Tennessee, Girls Go Wild (T-Birds) in Dallas, Red-Headed Stranger in Garland, Groover’s Paradise (Sahm) in California, A Bigger Piece of Sky (Keen) in Tennessee, Willis Alan Ramsey, in California, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, and so on. Sahm’s Return of Doug Saldana made the cut, as did the Jo Carol tribute album, but they’re not on Spotify.

Alot of folks boycott Spotify because it rips off musicians, but it restores to me something that was taken away when I retired from music criticism: getting all my music for (almost) free!

I’m welcome to any suggestions for this work in progress. This is going to be added to Overserved when I get the manuscript back for a final draft.