Editor’s note: KXAN+ host Esmeralda Zamora spoke with Antone’s co-owner Will Bridges and Waterloo Greenway Conservancy CEO Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette for an in-depth discussion about the Austin Blues Festival. Watch the full interview on our free KXAN+ streaming app, on KXAN’s social media channels or in the video embedded in this article.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin Blues Festival is more than a weekend of music. It’s a bridge between Austin’s musical past and a rapidly changing city.
Rooted in the legacy of Antone’s and revived at Austin’s evolving Waterloo Greenway Park, organizers say the festival is working to preserve the blues as both a cultural touchstone and a communal experience. This year, the festival returns on April 24-26 at the Moody Amphitheatre.
Austin’s blues beginnings
For Antone’s co-owner Will Bridges, the story started half a century ago. The iconic downtown venue, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, has long called itself “Austin’s home of the blues.” Bridges said that identity traces back to the vision of founder Clifford Antone, who opened the club back in 1975 to give young musicians and aging legends a place to meet, learn and play.
“Clifford, who was very passionate about the blues and kind of the blues family of genres, took it upon himself to create that home, and that was Antone’s,” Bridges said. “Preserving the Blues is a big part of our mission here at Antone’s, and it was a big part of Clifford’s mission all the way back when he started the club in 1975.”
When Antone launched his own blues festival at Waterlook Park in 1999 and 2000, it brought national names like Buddy Guy and Susan Tedeschi to Austin audiences. More than two decades later, Bridges said reviving that tradition felt not only natural but necessary.
“It sort of became a goal of ours, a dream of ours, really, to take the magic of Antone’s outside of the four walls and pay homage to the Blues Festival that Clifford had started,” he said.
That revival found a partner in Waterloo Greenway, where the newly built Moody Amphitheatre created the perfect outdoor home for a modern blues festival. “We were welcomed with open arms,” he said. “They said, not only do we want to do this with y’all, but let’s become partners.
New space meets legendary genre
To help understand the significance of Waterloo Greenway’s role, CEO Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette said it helps to see the 35-acre park system as more than green space.
“I hear people call it a green zipper through the eastern side of downtown, but it’s really, in my mind, a green ribbon, connecting, eventually, Lady Bird Lake all the way up to where Waller Creek goes into UT,” Dr. Pierce Burnette said.
She added that the partnership with Antone’s is natural. “The mission of Antone’s and the mission of Waterloo Greenway are very parallel, very similar,” she said. “That’s to bring people together in a very united way and what better way to do that is with music.”
As Austin grows, Dr. Pierce Burnette said public spaces like Waterloo Park are essential for keeping culture accessible. She shared that the partnership makes sense because it’s for the public and it gives public access.
When the venue is quiet, the park is still alive. “When it’s not operating as a venue, the park itself, you’ll see people eating lunch, on break from work, you’ll see children playing, you’ll see people just walking around, pressing pause for a bit,” Dr. Pierce Burnette shared.
She added that festival weekends transform that open space into something magical. “It’s going to be wrapped in music and magic,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot happening, a lot of memories being made, a lot of unity and family.”
Why blues still matter
Bridges described blues as the “root genre” that shaped nearly every major American style, rock, jazz, gospel, R&B, and even hip-hop. Its simplicity, he said, creates space for creativity and connection.
“Blues is incredibly simple and that’s kind of the beauty of it, it leaves lots of room for expression,” Bridges said.
At Antone’s, the tradition of passing down the blues is still alive. “The best way to preserve the blues is to actuate it, to do it, to play it, and to play it in front of an audience,” he said. Many club nights at Antone’s feature what he calls “Clifford-approved show,” where artists carry the genre forward in real time.
Dr. Pierce Burnette echoed that emotional power. Growing up in the 1960s, she said blues was “the soundtrack to life” in her home. Today, it remains universal. “Everybody gets the blues,” she said.
It’s also an antidote to the rush of modern life, she said. “Music has a way of letting us relax, letting us press pause for a little bit and kind of just dance and feel vibrant and it’s one of those moments that people can really come together as a community.”
A festival made for Austin
This year’s Austin Blues Festival returns April 25-26 at Moody Amphitheater, with a lineup that includes Parliament Funkadelic, George Clinton, Jimmy Vaghan, BadBadNotGood and many more artists and bands.
Both Antone’s and Waterloo Greenway highlight the presence of Houston-Tillotson University’s Jazz Orchestra, a meaningful addition for Dr. Pierce Burnette, who once served as the university’s president. “It’s like a dream come true for me, and so that makes it an even more special moment for me,” she said.
Festival goers can expect a single-stage setup, long sets, breaks to explore the park and an event Bridges calls “a real good time.”
For Dr. Pierce Burnette, the festival is becoming something even bigger. “This is going to become an iconic event in the life of Austin… and who wants to miss out on an iconic event,” she shared.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.