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Books
AUSTIN TO ATX:
THE HIPPIES, PICKERS, SLACKERS & GEEKS WHO TRANSFORMED
THE CAPITAL OF TEXAS
by Joe Nick Patoski
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2019)
Pages 376
Illustrated
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-62349-703-3
$32.00
Reviewed by Dr.
Kirk Bane
March 1, 2021 |
Popular
author Joe Nick Patoski has insightfully chronicled Lone Star culture
in such engaging studies as STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN: CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
(1993), SELENA: COMO LA FLOR (1996), WILLIE NELSON: AN EPIC LIFE (2008),
and THE DALLAS COWBOYS: THE OUTRAGEOUS HISTORY OF THE BIGGEST, LOUDEST,
MOST HATED, BEST LOVED FOOTBALL TEAM IN AMERICA (2012). Published
in 2019, AUSTIN TO ATX provides an entertaining, perceptive, and comprehensively
researched overview of the Texas
capital, its diverse denizens, and the dramatic changes that have
come with time. Initially known as Waterloo, the small settlement
changed its name to Austin
(in honor of empresario Stephen
F. Austin) in 1839.
Patoski thoroughly examines "Austin's ascendance from state capital
to capital of all things alternative." He describes the city as "music
mecca, film industry hangout, source point of the retail organic food
movement, high-tech hub and game development hotbed, noncorporate
tourist destination, and, for at least a fortnight every March, the
Coolest Place in the World," with SXSW.
Such intriguing characters as Mirabeau B. Lamar, O. Henry, J. Frank
Dobie, Janis Joplin, Roky Erickson, Willie
Nelson, Molly Ivins, Billy Lee Brammer, Jerry Jeff Walker, Americo
Paredes, Darrell Royal, Liz Lambert, Bud Shrake, Arizona Dranes, Gilbert
Shelton, John Mackey, Aaron Franklin, Elizabet
Ney, Richard Linklater, Lance Armstrong, Michael Dell, Shelby
Hearon, Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge, Ann Richards, and Matthew McConaughey
populate Patoski's pages. Moreover, the author discusses many of the
city's iconic landmarks, including Threadgill's, the Broken Spoke,
Armadillo World Headquarters, Antone's, and, of course, Scholz Garten,
"where music, beer-drinking, dancing, and conversation have been a
way of life for more than 150 years."
Texas history enthusiasts, especially those interested in the City
of the Violet Crown, as O. Henry "floridly described Austin," should
read this superb study. Patoski fans will be glad to know that he
has a new book coming out early this year, THE BALLAD OF ROBERT EALEY
AND HIS FIVE CARELESS LOVERS, "the wild oral history of Texas blues
shouter Robert Ealey and his salt-and-pepper blues band." |
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