Image: The Alcalde / Texas Exes
Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic was an Austin tradition for a while, or at least an Austin-area tradition, but after consistently hosting the event here from 2015 to 2023 — with 2020 and 2021 skipped for pandemic reasons, naturally — Texans were shocked to learn a few months back that the 2024 picnic would take place in Camden, New Jersey. Although the inaugural 1973 picnic took place in Dripping Springs, in the decades to follow Willie and friends hosted the famously itinerant music festival in other notably non-Texan locations including venues in Missouri, Washington, and (gasp) Oklahoma, so the Camden thing isn’t really historically unprecedented.
Still, it’s hard not to look back with nostalgia at the years when the event took place inside Austin’s cultural bubble, and judging by historical accounts the seventh annual picnic in 1979 might have been one of the best ever staged — Nelson, finding himself the new owner of the Pedernales Country Club in Spicewood, decided to host the festival out on the fairway. Despite the reservations of some nearby homeowners who preferred the golf course’s peace and quiet, Willie played to a crowd of thousands that year, alongside Leon Russell, Ernest Tubb, and other outlaw-friendly acts.
Image: Austin History Center
Lee Elsesser, a reporter for Fort Worth’s NBC news station KXAS, was also on the scene that day capturing a news package on the event. This was back when broadcast news assumed folks had pretty good attention spans — the nearly 20-minute story includes footage of the picnic, an exploration of Willie’s biography, and an interview with the man himself. You could basically just put this video on in the background of your Fourth of July party on repeat, so we think it’s a crime that the footage is currently sitting with only about 120 total views in the University of North Texas’ KXAS archives. This holiday weekend, go brush up on your Austin history, would you?
Leave a Reply