Matt Stieb
Built in 1878, Gruene Hall Celebrates its 40th anniversary as a music joint this weekend.
As we celebrate the 40th b-day of Gruene Hall, in all its importance to the township and John Travolta, let's not forget the key role the building has played in the music of Texas. Behold, the greatest live recordings of all time from Gruene Hall! Or, at least the greatest recordings we could find at Gruene Hall in fifteen minutes searching YouTube!
Loretta Lynn, 2015
Playing the hall just after her 83rd birthday, Loretta Lynn gave a sold-out performance with a big-ass band on Gruene's small-ass stage. Like in rap, in country music you can tell someone is the real deal if they've got a small thesaurus of nicknames — The Coal Miner's Daughter, The First Lady of Country Music, The Decca Doll, 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner.
Jerry Jeff Walker, 1989
Walker: "Let's see if we can wake everybody up here with a little 'Trashy Women.'"
Guy One: Woo!
Guy Two: Yeah! [In creepy, malt liquor uncle voice]
Way too creepy Guy Two! You're probably the same YouTube user who put up this recording of Jerry Jeff's '89 live album with a poorly formatted misogynist power point of VH1 celebs in less-than-glamorous moments. Lord knows we just wanna see the album cover. And maybe that one pic of Jerry Jeff looking like Foghorn Leghorn.
Ryan Bingham, 2013
Ryan Bingham is the Ryan Gosling of country music. Ladies love him, men only wanna revisit to that one super-famous noirish thing he did (Junky Star and Drive, respectively).
Q. Does Joe Ely only sleep in vintage red convertables?
A. No, he also sleeps in his garage filled with old Apple IIs and transcriptions of his chatboard conversations with Steve Wozniak.
Texas Tornados, 1992
Gotta throw away the trash-talking tone here, 'cause there's royalty in the embed code. Recorded by the BBC, this entire 1992 concert at Gruene Hall is on YouTube, so study up on the Tex-Mex glory.
