#Westlake audio studio manager 1978 upgrade#
When he cashed out in late 1988-selling his interest to the same developer who is now nearing completion on a $55 million multiuse project on South Congress called Music Lane-O’Connor stayed on as part-owner and moved quickly to upgrade the rehearsal space. Everyone there was a hippie, a misfit, or both, and none were afraid of a little dope. Broke musicians dug the $65-a-month rent. Willie’s road crew-men with names like Poodie and Snake-had places to crash when Willie left the road. Many of the units were in two-story limestone-and-shingle structures that actually looked like apartment buildings, others were in dingy red-roofed bungalows ringed by live oaks, and all were occupied by exactly the kind of people you’d expect.
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The property also featured some empty South Congress storefronts, a roomy bar and grill favored by bikers and stray-dog guitar pickers, and, perhaps weirdly, some 230 flophouse apartments known unofficially as the Willie Arms.
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A onetime Willie capo who was bumped up to sweat-equity partner when Willie acquired the vast parcel of land, O’Connor was a music promoter from the old school, a gun-carrying hard case who turned the Opry House into Austin’s best eighties-era concert venue, a foundation for the Live Music Capital of the World moniker that the city would adopt in the nineties. The anchor of the property was the Austin Opry House, a 1,700-seat hall run by the complex’s co-owner, Tim O’Connor. It was the perfect place for an outlaw to build an empire. He’d bought it on the cheap, in 1977, when the strip was a no-man’s-land, light-years away from the tony tourist spot it is now back then its main commerce was gun shops and streetwalkers. The property ran along South Congress Avenue near the now-famous Continental Club, barely a half mile south of what was then called Town Lake, stretching east from the intersection at Academy Drive. But lesser known in the lore is Willie World’s gritty urban prototype, a sprawling fourteen-acre complex Willie owned for much of the eighties in the heart of Austin’s city limits.
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#Westlake audio studio manager 1978 movie#
Most Willie Nelson fans know at least a little about his idyllic Hill Country world headquarters, home to his ranch, his golf course, his recording studio, and his Old West movie set, Luck, Texas. This essay is part of a special project devoted to Willie Nelson where you’ll find more essays about the Red Headed Stranger, our new podcast “One by Willie,” an animated rendition of “On the Road Again,” and a ranking of all his albums.