Before she was one of the stars of the 1960s, Janis Joplin got her start performing at Threadgill's in Austin, Texas. The iconic club recently announced it will close permanently due to the coronavirus.
Before she was one of the stars of the 1960s, Janis Joplin got her start performing at Threadgill's in Austin. The iconic club recently announced it will close permanently due to the coronavirus.Before she was one of the stars of the 1960s, Janis Joplin got her start performing at Threadgill's in Austin. The iconic club recently announced it will close permanently due to the coronavirus.
Threadgill's is part of Austin's creation story. A welder and bootlegger named Kenneth Threadgill converted a gas station into a beer joint and opened it in 1933, as soon as Prohibition was repealed. But it was in the early 1960s that Threadgill's entered American musical history., who played blues on her autoharp, began coming to the Wednesday-night folk sessions at Threadgill's. She sang like nobody the salty old proprietor had ever heard.
"Kenneth Threadgill, as I understand, welcomed Janis Joplin to Threadgill's and nurtured her — and this, at a time when no one liked how she looked," pianist Floyd Domino, a Threadgill's regular, remembers."A lot of people didn't like how she sang. And he gave her confidence, and she ended up going out to San Francisco and the rest is history."
After Joplin left for the West Coast and went on to become a rock and roll idol, Kenneth Threadgill came into his own as a country singer, known for his Jimmie Rodgers-style yodeling. Joplin and Threadgill remained close, even after his tavern went out of business. Then in 1981, a local hippie music promoter named Eddie Wilson acquired the decrepit structure on North Lamar Boulevard and renovated it. Threadgill's was reborn.
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