The Flatlanders / Susan Tedeschi / Robert Earle Keen / Steve Earle: Live from Austin TX [CD and DVD

Live from Austin TX was first broadcast as a 30-minute segment on the acclaimed television show Austin City Limits, a program that initially aired as a pilot in 1975 featuring Willie Nelson, then a relatively unknown performer, and began running as a regular series in 1976. It was originally designed as a showcase on KLRN (now KRLU) television at the University of Texas in Austin for what the show’s producers called “the lively, adventurous and unconventional music scene” in the Texas capital. Over the years however, it has grown nationally and internationally in scope, broadcasting performances from artists as diverse as bluesman B.B. King, Canadian folk-poet Leonard Cohen and the legendary country swing band Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys. Elvis Costello, Fountains of Wayne, Wilco and others were featured on the 2004-2005 season, which is now in reruns.

These DVDs are releases from the New West Records and Austin City Limits collection issued in the fall of 2004 to highlight a series of Austin concerts. With the noticeable exception of The Flatlanders offering, the DVDs feature simultaneously released compact discs. Each of the Live in Austin TX performances boasts audiences who are true music fans and appreciative of the efforts given by the performers, yet there is something missing on each of these discs. Because they were taped for television, the requirements of staging and the need to be conscious of an audience that is not present in the concert hall tends to drain the performances of some of their spontaneity.

The Flatlanders DVD is the best of the releases, mostly because of the maturity and unity presented by the three main Flatlanders, singer-songwriters Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. As they take their turns at the mike, individually commanding the spotlight but never demanding it, always working as part of a larger whole, you can sense the special bond that comes from their having grown up in the music business together. On 15 songs spanning roughly 70 minutes, the band demonstrates a musical teamwork that allows their individual powers to blend into a larger, organic whole. It would be wrong however to say that the whole here is greater than its parts — instead, these parts feed on each other, build on each other, weave themselves together to create some great music. Gilmore, who dominates the earliest releases by the band (see Live at the Knite, a 1972 concert released by New West in the summer of 2004), is a heavy presence here, but not to any greater degree than Ely or Hancock. In fact, Ely, on “I Had My Hopes Up High”, and Hancock, on the wonderful “Julia”, match the best of what Gilmore has to offer and the band as a whole seems to excel when handling material written by others, like Utah Phillips’ “Going Away” and Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freight Liner Blues”.

There are moments on The Flatlanders’ Live in Austin TX when it becomes clear that the recording industry missed out on something special back in the early 1970s. The Texas super group has an obvious connection, it’s shared yet contrasting sensibilities combining to create a country folk-rock that has a bit of Texas swing at its foundations. That said, the easy sense that pervades the DVD means that there will be few surprises. You know what you’re getting from this show — which is pretty damn good, really. But unlike recent live DVDs — for instance, The Blasters’ Going Home or Bruce Springsteen’s Live in Barcelona — that extra level of energy is missing.

The same goes for the Robert Earl Keen’s performance. Keen is an interesting performer and storyteller with a quirky ear and a warm sense of humor. His 2001 show features some great tunes — “Dreadful Selfish Crime”, an eight-minute version of “The Road Goes on Forever”, “Merry Christmas from the Family” (one of the best Christmas songs ever recorded) — that place him squarely in the populist, roots-rock end of the country spectrum. Keen’s performance here is strong and his band hits on all cylinders. He offers subtle, quiet takes on Townes Van Zandt’s “Snowin’ on Raton” and Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone”, but overall his performance is rubbed clean of spontaneity.

Susan Tedesci’s June 2003 performance is stronger, driven by her expert blues guitar playing. Tedeschi is a tremendous vocal stylist, most obviously reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt; she is no Janis Joplin or Ella Fitzgerald, but the Massachusetts native finds the emotional core at the center of each song and allows her voice to wrap around it. She growls her way through her own “The Feeling Music Brings” and brandishes a funky, wicked rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s in Need of Love Today” and Paul Pena’s “Gonna Move.” Her gravelly take on the Bob Dylan classic, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” is almost worth the purchase price of the CD by itself. The furnace quality of the blues as a genre helps energize the performance, though I can’t help but feel that Tedeschi has a bit more to offer than what is contained here. Again, the needs of television appear to be weighing the performance down, but like the Keen disc Tedeschi’s Live from Austin TX performance is as good a starting point as the uninitiated listener might find.

There is a greater level of energy on Steve Earle’s DVD and CD, recorded shortly after his debut Guitar Town was released. It is a performance that showcases a musician very much in thrall to his influences and full of restless energy. Bruce Springsteen hangs as a huge presence here (Earle turns in a wonderful performance of his “State Trooper”) as are outlaw country legends like Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. Earle, as later live releases have shown, is a dynamic presence on stage, but on Live from Austin TX, his dynamism is lost to some degree by a lack of focus born of youth.

These are quibbles, however. The performances are better than solid and, overall, the first set of releases give the listener and viewer a good sense of what television audiences have experienced for years.