“How the hell am I speculated to do something after that?” gushed Tami Neilson, a New Zealand singer-songwriter who’d simply sung a music onstage with Willie Nelson through the annual Luck Reunion final month at Nelson’s ranch in Spicewood. Inside weeks, that music, “Past the Stars,” was launched as Neilson’s new single, full with a video she filmed through the pageant that captured her particular second onstage with Willie. She was in Luck, certainly.
2022 marked the Reunion’s tenth anniversary, and its creators needed to mark the event by increasing actions on the ranch past simply that once-a-year showcase. And so we now have Luck Presents, a fledgling live performance promotion firm run by a handful of music trade mavericks with direct ties to the Nelson household and a imaginative and prescient to create a musical oasis that is “Simply Exterior of Austin” — as Willie’s son Lukas Nelson described Luck in a music bearing that title.
Extra:Michael Bublé coming to Moody Middle after canceling final Austin present over COVID-19 guidelines
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Such locations in Central Texas are usually not unusual, after all. Willie’s pal Waylon Jennings made Luckenbach world-famous when he recorded a music name-checking the tiny Hill Nation hamlet within the Nineteen Seventies, shortly after Jerry Jeff Walker had recorded his landmark “Viva Terlingua” dwell album there. And loads of Austinites have headed an hour south on Interstate 35 to attend reveals on the 145-year-old Gruene Corridor close to New Braunfels.
However Luck has one thing totally different, one thing distinctive. That is Willie Nelson’s residence turf, the stays of a film set constructed for his Eighties movie “Crimson Headed Stranger.” Initially, the set was to be burned in a fireplace that was a part of the story, however the script was modified when Willie grew hooked up to the Outdated West buildings that included a saloon, a submit workplace and a chapel.
Quick-forward a number of many years — lengthy sufficient for Nelson’s grand-niece, Ellee Fletcher Durniak, to be born after which come of age as a New York style college graduate turned budding music entrepreneur. Whereas in New York, she met Matt Bizer at a present by short-lived however influential Austin band the Dedringers.
Extra:Willie Nelson retains on rolling at 89 with new album ‘A Stunning Time’
Earlier than lengthy, she and Bizer have been organizing a South by Southwest day occasion in Austin for the Dedringers and different bands. However Durniak — whose father, Freddy Fletcher, is the son of Willie’s late sister and pianist, Bobbie Nelson — had grown up on Willie’s expansive acreage, so it was maybe solely pure that her ideas turned to the Luck Ranch.
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How Luck Reunion received began
At dinner one evening with Willie and his spouse, Annie, they broached the topic. “It was like a pitch shot at nighttime: ‘Would you allow us to use the property?’” Durniak recollects. “And so they have been like, ‘Yeah, simply get a allow.’”
Bizer, who’d just lately constructed up a film-crew resume in Texas on tasks similar to Turk Pipkin’s Christmas story “When Angels Sing,” didn’t assume it may presumably be that easy. “I believed it was a joke,” he says with a chuckle. “After which a number of weeks later, Ellee and I have been speaking, and he or she was like, ‘How’s all of it coming with the planning?’
“I spotted in a short time, that’s how they function. If you happen to’re a part of the household otherwise you’re in that dialog, hastily you’re doing one thing.”
Durniak and Bizer organized their first present at Luck Ranch throughout SXSW 2012. For a number of years, it was known as the Heartbreaker Banquet, along side different companions who ultimately departed. By 2016, the occasion had been re-christened the Luck Reunion. Regardless of a significant rainstorm that yr, which halted the music for a number of hours, the occasion was an enormous success, producing buzz that put the Reunion on the map as a sought-after SXSW cease for a lot of outstanding performers and rising stars.
After a 2019 occasion that included the primary Austin-area present for Yola, who’d quickly be nominated for finest new artist on the Grammys, Bizer and Durniak started brainstorming for an 2020 enlargement that would come with extra reveals throughout SXSW’s second weekend. The pandemic grounded all of that, although the Luck Presents group managed to tug collectively a makeshift however fascinating livestreamed Reunion that included digital performances by everybody from Neil Younger and Paul Simon to Orville Peck and Courtney Barnett.
Their plans lastly took root this yr. After the normal Thursday reunion, Luck booked reveals with Americana luminaries Jason Isbell on Friday and Shakey Graves on Saturday. A late add was a Sunday efficiency by landlord Willie Nelson, who additionally performed a second present the next weekend.
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Extra:Prime-selling Colombian artist Karol G to play UT’s Moody Middle in October
Subsequent up is a Friday live performance by Pacific Northwest indie-rock band Modest Mouse, a sign that Luck Presents is greater than keen to work past the outlaw nation/Americana borders mostly related to the Nelson household. And so they just lately introduced an Oct. 1 look by theatrical rockers Flaming Lips.
However there’s additionally nonetheless room for stuff that’s proper down the middle of the strike zone. That’s the reason Willie, who turns 89 on April 29, is about to observe up Friday-Saturday reveals with George Strait at Austin’s new Moody Middle by collaborating in a Sunday birthday tribute at Luck Ranch that will even function performances by Margo Worth, Nathaniel Rateliff, Robert Earl Eager, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Vincent Neil Emerson and host Bruce Robison.
There’s extra to come back. Along with the Flaming Lips live performance, Durniak and Bizer are planning a collection of reveals this fall that they’ve tentatively dubbed Lucktoberfest. Performers haven’t but been introduced, however Luck Presents’ observe document so far nearly assures a slate of high quality bookings.
What makes Luck particular
Durniak says that this yr’s schedule in all probability will quantity to round a dozen reveals complete. That quantity may very well be greater subsequent yr, however she and Bizer don’t appear to have a selected goal in thoughts. “We select the folks we would like,” Durniak says. “It is acts that we actually wish to have on the market.”
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A part of what has made the Reunion so successful is a willingness to take probabilities on up-and-coming acts. The lone fixed is Willie, who headlines the present along with his Household band very similar to he does along with his half-century-old Fourth of July Picnic. However whereas the Picnic tends to concentrate on established acts and longtime Willie compadres, the Reunion is extra within the spirit of music discovery.
This yr’s model was a primary instance. Sure, there have been a few Picnic-styled bookings: Isbell was a particular visitor on the Reunion along with taking part in his personal Luck present the next evening, and the Nineteen Seventies-era Misplaced Gonzo Band offered a connection to Willie’s outlaw nation glory years. However the Reunion’s most memorable moments got here from rising stars similar to Allison Russell and Japanese Breakfast — each of whom scored “Austin Metropolis Limits” TV tapings this spring — and Danielle Ponder, who appears poised for a breakout much like Yola’s 2019 second.
Luck’s potential to scout and current such expertise is essentially a matter of “ensuring to look each place, and preserving that door open,” Bizer says. “We like to only attempt to elevate up no matter we will out right here. … Japanese Breakfast was clearly not the primary (act) you’d consider taking part in Luck, However for us, it is actually enjoyable to show folks to (artists) like that.”
There’s a precedent for such makes an attempt at constructing bridges between audiences on the planet of Willie. “What all people talks about on a regular basis in Austin is like, ‘Oh, he united the hippies and the cowboys,” Bizer says. “However we do not assume consciously (about that). The music, and the variety of people who find themselves drawn to that music, is what creates it. We make an area the place all people is accepted, and also you simply neglect about it while you’re there.”
And so, even with extra live shows being added on the property that don’t contain Willie’s onstage participation, his spirit runs by means of every thing that occurs at Luck Ranch. Certainly, what makes this place most particular is just that it is Nelson’s residence turf, and that he’s keen to share it.
“There’s only a pleasure that surrounds his units when he is on the market,” Durniak says. “I believe it truly is a way of pleasure. He pulls up in his pickup truck, proper as much as the backstage, and simply struts on. I can not communicate for him, however I believe he has the time of his life. I’ve seen one million Willie reveals, however there’s one thing totally different about him onstage at Luck.”
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If you happen to go to Luck Ranch
Friday: Modest Mouse with the Cribs, 7 p.m. (doorways at 5:30 p.m.), $55 normal admission ($125 VIP), $40 ranch parking go
Sunday: Willie Nelson birthday celebration with host Bruce Robison plus Margo Worth, Nathaniel Rateliff, Robert Earl Eager, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Vincent Neil Emerson, 7 p.m. (5:30 p.m. doorways), $35 normal admission ($150 VIP), $40 ranch parking go, $50 shuttle from Austin’s Arlyn Studios
Oct. 1: Flaming Lips, 7 p.m. (doorways at 5:30 p.m.), $47.50 normal admission ($125 VIP)
Parking/shuttles: $40 parking at ranch; $50 shuttle from Austin’s Arlyn Studios
The Austin Police Department has announced plans to reopen its popular Sixth Street to vehicular traffic during weekend nights, despite recent concerns in the wake of the New Year’s Eve terror attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The move comes as law enforcement agencies nationwide remain cautious about safety for upcoming large events.
New Orleans New Year’s tragedy: Here’s what we know about the attack and Texas connections
“The opening is in phases … the current phase is opening it on Thursdays and Sundays, and that has been taking effect over the past three weekends and without any incident,” said Austin police Chief Lisa Davis during a press conference. “Priorities here are keeping people safe.”
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In response to the attack in New Orleans, where a man drove a truck into a crowd of holiday revelers on Bourbon Street, causing multiple casualties, Austin police said they are taking additional precautions.
Biden is traveling to New Orleans following attack that killed 14, injured 30
“Next couple of weeks, we will see increased presence of officers, not just in the downtown area, but throughout the city,” Davis said.
The initiative to open Sixth Street is not new.
“Since the 90s and the 80s, I believe, it has been tried multiple times to open the street, and it can be done, but we have to be very thoughtful about the way to do it,” Davis said.
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To ensure public safety, a crowd management expert and a crowd psychologist have been hired to assist with the process, according to the chief.
“We’re gonna start with the 300 and 400 block of Sixth Street, because that is where it was concentrated,” Davis said. “When it comes to a point we’re seeing crowds that are too big, we’re gonna close the street down and so just to get that flexibility.”
The new legislative session starts soon. All this month, 7 On Your Side will be taking a look at some of the big issues at the state capitol. Among them is education after the legislature failed to pass a school funding measures during the last session. As a result, districts across Central Texas are finding themselves “in the red,” including Austin ISD
AUSTIN, Texas – The new legislative session starts in one week. Among the major issues facing lawmakers will be education, after the legislature failed to pass a school funding measure during the last session. Against that backdrop, districts across Central Texas are finding themselves in the red, including Austin ISD.
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“In my time on the board, we have not had this much of a deficit,” said Austin ISD board president Arati Singh.
Singh is concerned about the current $92 million budget deficit, about 10% of the overall budget.
“It is tough. It’s not easy,” said SIngh.
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“I am definitely concerned as a school leader,” said Melissa Rodriguez, principal of Lively Middle School.
In fact, about two-thirds of districts in Central Texas are operating in a deficit right now, and many ISD leaders point to stagnant public school funding from the state.
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“There is something historic happening here that our state is choosing not to fund public education,” said Singh.
Texas: The Issue Is: School choice fight
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is confident that school choice legislation will pass during the next legislative session, but Democrats say they won’t roll over without a fight. FOX 7’s Rudy Koski talks to vocal voucher opponent State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, about the fight ahead and if there is room for common ground.
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In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott’s school choice voucher plan fell short, and public school funding measures that were tied to it stalled as well, like teacher pay raises, enhanced career training for students, and raising what’s known as the “basic allotment”, the per-student amount that districts get from the state. The basic allotment has been stuck at $6,160 since 2019, despite big-time inflation since then.
“We rank near the bottom nationally in this per student funding,” said Singh. “It’s not actually based on the cost of actually educating a child.”
Singh also points to increased costs related to House Bill 3, the school safety law passed in 2023.
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On top of that, Austin ISD pays out hundreds of millions of dollars in school property tax money to the state every year in what’s known as “recapture,” a way to even out the wealth among Texas districts. Last year, AISD’s payment was $699 million, the highest in the state. That amount is based on local property values.
MORE 7 ON YOUR SIDE STORIES:
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“Yeah, it is [unfair], because property values really don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do with the needs of students in a city,” said Singh. “Over half of our students are economically disadvantaged.”
So, with the $92 million shortfall in mind, a committee was formed, which spent the fall figuring out how to make it up over three years. That plan was presented to the board in December.
“It is difficult,” said Superintendent Matias Segura at the December 12 meeting. “Everything has an impact.”
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In this current school year, the proposed cuts include things like eliminating some vacant positions, changes to technology, reorganizing departments, and reducing the number of special education vendors.
In the 2025-26 school year, the district plans to have some central office employees work from home, so it can lease space in that building, as well as changing bus routes, optimizing master schedules, and reducing portable classrooms, among other things.
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AISD gives update on special education
Austin ISD leaders provided an update on its progress in meeting the requirement for special education services.
The catch?
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“We don’t know yet how much of a cost reduction each of these will yield,” said Segura.
If the budget is not reduced by enough next year, that’s when district officials say the cuts will really start being felt at the school level.
“I am concerned that we would maybe have to consider increasing class sizes,” said Singh. “Cutting planning periods for our staff.”
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“We have to do more with less,” said Lively Middle School Principal Melissa Rodriguez.
Rodriguez says any cuts to the arts would be very tough.
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“Our students absolutely love participating in music, art, theater, guitar, orchestra. They are motivated by that,” said Rodriguez. “So if we take that from them, we’re really taking a big part of what they love.
Some parents and teachers are urging caution.
“I’m confused about why you would rush to vote on a budget when we don’t yet know what will come out of the legislative session,” said Tracy Dunlap, a teacher at Maplewood Elementary School, at the November 21 AISD board meeting.
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Abbott moves even closer to passing school vouchers
Election night brought Texas Gov. Greg Abbott another step closer to getting his school choice plans passed, allowing taxpayer dollars to help parents pay for private school tuition.
But, as all this happens, some are opening up their pocketbooks to help.
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“People who reach out to us and say ‘I’m seeing what’s happening to public schools and I care and I want to do something to support it,’” said Michelle Wallis, executive director of the Austin Education Fund.
“The work that we’re doing through the Austin Ed Fund feels even more critical now,” said Wallis. “We funded 66 projects across Austin to the tune of about $450,000 this year.”
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Still, the district will need much more to get out of the current hole. Recent comments from Gov. Greg Abbott about the upcoming session has some people feeling optimistic.
“We will fully fund public schools in the state of Texas. We will provide teacher pay raises,” Abbott said in November.
Austin ISD listed recapture reform among its legislative priorities. But for Singh, boosting the basic allotment will be the real game-changer.
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“We really need the state to step up,” said Singh.
Austin’s budget deficit would be even higher if not for $30 million in cuts that were made at the central office over the summer, including 12 layoffs, as well as $20 million from the passage of Proposition A by voters in November.
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The upcoming round of cuts is expected to be finalized by the school board in the coming weeks.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s John Krinjak
University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell talks with reporters at a press conference in August 2024. He announced Tuesday he is leaving for Southern Methodist University.
University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell announced Tuesday he has accepted an offer to lead Southern Methodist University, a private university in Dallas. His last day at UT will be May 31, according to the University of Texas System.
“I am very grateful to Chairman Kevin Eltife and the UT System Board of Regents for the incredible opportunity they provided me to serve UT Austin in this role,” Hartzell wrote in an email announcing his resignation to the UT community.
Eltife and UT System Chancellor J.B. Milliken congratulated Hartzell on the new role.
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“We have worked closely with UT Austin during Jay Hartzell’s five years as president, and we will continue to do so in the months ahead to ensure a smooth transition,” they said in a statement.
Hartzell has served as the president of UT Austin since 2020, when the UT System’s Board of Regents voted unanimously to name him to the job. He replaced Greg Fenves, who served as president for five years before leaving for Emory University in Atlanta.
The SMU Board of Trustees voted unanimously to offer Hartzell the position following a national search. Chair David B. Miller praised Hartzell as a respected leader in higher education.
“His leadership at UT Austin and commitment to advancing programs across diverse disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, arts, education, business, law, student life, and intercollegiate athletics, make him an excellent choice as SMU’s eleventh president,” Miller said in a statement. “He also understands the vital role Texas and its universities play in the nation’s vibrant economy.”
In his email, Hartzell said by accepting the job he was following the advice he gives students: “Follow your passions, take some chances, stretch outside your comfort zone, and think of how you would like to make an impact.”
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Hartzell noted that under his leadership UT Austin achieved new highs when it comes to applications, enrollment and graduation rates. Just last year, he announced UT Austin would tighten requirements for automatic admission for Texas high school students in response to the growing number of applicants. The number of applications for freshman admission for the fall 2025 term increased by more than 24% over the previous year.
During Hartzell’s tenure, UT Austin also launched new academic programs, more resources for student housing, began the renovation of the Tower and joined the Southeastern Conference.
His time as president was also marked by challenges and controversy as he led the university through a state-mandated ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as pro-Palestinian protests last spring.
UT Austin laid off dozens of employees who used to work on DEI programs after Senate Bill 17 took effect last January. Some students and faculty raised concerns the flagship institution was going beyond the scope of SB 17 and eliminating offices and programs that didn’t violate the law. Republican lawmakers indicated during a hearing in November that they plan to expand DEI restrictions at public colleges and universities during the legislative session that begins next week.
Hartzell received both praise and criticism for his response to pro-Palestinian protests on campus last year, which resulted in more than 130 arrests. His decision to call in state police was hailed by Republican leaders, but blasted by some faculty and students.
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Hartzell, who previously served as dean of the McCombs School of Business, said he is grateful for his nearly three decades at UT Austin.
“I will be eternally grateful for my 29 years at UT as a student, faculty member, and administrator,” he said. “My wife, Kara, and I will always be Longhorns — as alumni, parents, passionate supporters, and fans — even when we are no longer on the faculty or staff.”
Hartzell announced the decision to leave UT Austin a day after the university promoted Rachel Davis Mersey to executive vice president and provost. She has held the key position on an interim basis since Aug. 27.
