Willie Nelson was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame on Friday and fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey did the honors.
“There would be no Austin City Limits without Willie Nelson,” the Dallas Buyers Club Academy Award winner said.
McConaughey even managed to slip in his famous phrase “All right, all right, all right” at the induction. This came from his role in 1993’s Dazed and Confused.
Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett were on hand to see Willie Nelson honored, and they joined him on stage for a joint rendition of both On the Road Again and Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.
“It means a lot. It’s Austin City Limits and Austin — the music capital of the world,” Nelson said while still aboard his bus before the show.
Watch 40 years ago Willie Nelson preformed for the pilot of ACL! He returns tonight inducted into the Hall of Fame! http://t.co/Uqg78jHPMy
— Austin City Limits (@acltv) April 26, 2014
Willie Nelson wasn’t the only person inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame on Friday. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, longtime show producer Bill Arhos and former University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal, whose “pickin’ parties” with guitar songwriters at his Austin home after games helped inspire the show, were all inducted as well.
Arhos spoke about Willie Nelson’s issues with regard to the law and marijuana while at the event and how it didn’t seem to bother the singer too much.
“He said, ‘That’s like Wimpy getting busted for eating hamburgers,'” Arhos said.
Willie Nelson was also joined on stage at the close of the event by blues rockers Buddy Guy and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The trio performed their own rendition of Texas Flood.
The 40th season of Austin City Limits will start up this coming fall. Congratulations are certainly in order to Willie Nelson for his induction into the hall of fame.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
