"Clifford Antone will be missed," Texas music legend Willie Nelson said Wednesday. "He was a friend of mine, and my whole family and everyone who knew him loved him. He did as much, if not more than anyone, for the music scene. He knew the blues. We love you, Clifford."
Bobbie Nelson echoed the sentiment: "Clifford, I'm so very grateful to have known you. I am proud to call you my friend. We all owe you so much gratitude for all you have given us. Your love for music and humanity has enriched and blessed the lives of all of us in music. Clifford, we will miss you."
Antone, who died at age 56 on Tuesday, May 23, opened his first club on July 15, 1975, at Sixth and Brazos streets and ran two other locations before the club's current site on West Fifth Street. During 31 years, Antone brought to Austin the best of Texas, Louisiana and Chicago and blues names from around the world including Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Fats Domino, Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin, Eddie Taylor, Walter "Shakey" Horton, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Pinetop Perkins, Albert King, Luther Tucker, James Cotton, Jones, Willie "Big Eye" Smith, Bobby Blue Bland and B.B. King.
Antone's nightclub earned its reputation as Austin's "Home of the Blues" with its cultivation of local talent when the beloved blues man offered the stage to the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Jimmie Vaughan, Strehli, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Paul Ray & the Cobras, O'Brien, Barton, Denny Freeman, Kim Wilson and Charlie Sexton. In more recent years, the tradition continued with Doyle Bramhall II, Sue Foley, Bob Schneider, Eve Monsees, Gary Clark Jr., Jake Andrews, Guy Forsyth and Del Castillo.
At the family's request, donations to Antone's memory should be made to the Clifford Antone Memorial Fund, Prosperity Bank, Austin. Clifford's Blues is presented with assistance from friends of Clifford Antone.
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