Armadillo World Headquarters

Yeah.

I imagine this being played at like Armadillo world headquarters.

Sure.

It gave me, it gave me vibes of, um like i don't know john denver almost like some of that like take me home country road kind of vibe or um maybe even like a little neil young vibe in there

know.

And he had been part of the Armadillo World Headquarters, which sort of put Austin on the map as the live music capital.

So he was a fantastic musician.

And he had this bass player friend who would come and visit from time to time.

I, I was writing for a magazine called, um, Performance, and, um, uh, I was talking with some of their roadies.

Uh, they played at Armadillo the, the evening before Thanksgiving, and on Thanksgiving Day, Armadillo always had, the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin always had a big softball game, and I played shortstop for the Grateful Dead then, and they said, "Come with us to Dallas," so that's what I did.

Uh, listen, first of all-

This man, this man has done a lot

Well, he's going up to Austin doing beer sales.

He's going into music venues, and this is when Willie's getting back in Texas, and he's getting popular, and you've got Gary P. Nunn and some of these other guys that are later known as Cosmic or Outlaw Country, and they're selling out places, one in particular, Armadillo World Headquarters.

And the one thing you notice about that place specifically is Everybody had Lone Star.

All the musicians had Lone Stars in their hands while they're playing.

But he has this idea of tying the music in to it.

And what he wanted to do is he's like, well, we don't really have a ton of money here.

He's like, let me start off by working with this particular venue, Armadillo World Headquarters.

And he worked with Jim Franklin, one of the guys that ran the place and was kind of their resident artist.

It spilled into San Antonio and the rest of Texas.

But remember, Austin was where Willie and Gary P. Nunn and all of those guys were playing, specifically at a place called Armadillo World Headquarters.

I mean, if you're going to talk great music venues, even though it closed in, I think, 80, 81, it was open around a little over 10 years or about 10 years.

It was the GOAT of venues of that kind at that time.

And really, even today, and yes, half anybody in Austin that's been around for a while, it was Armadillo World Headquarters.

But it was kind of in conjunction with them and one of their regional sales guys, Jerry Retzloff, who...

Hey, you know what? Every time I go into this Armadillo World headquarters and other bars in Austin, I'm seeing a crap load of Lone Star being consumed.

I mean, outside of, I think, the Astrodome in Houston.

He played with brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter and helped to persuade Johnny Winter to focus on blues rather than R&B covers.

After returning to Austin, Turner became a house drummer at legendary venues, including Antone's and Armadillo World Headquarters.

His reputation earned him opportunities to perform with blues giants such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Freddie King, and even Jimi Hendrix.

Blues singer Classie Ballou Jr. was born in Elton, Louisiana, on August 21st, 1937.