Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Buddy Guy Heading to ACL Hall of Fame

Singer-songwriting legends Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin, and blues giant Buddy Guy will be inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, Class of 2019.

The ceremony will be at ACL Live at the Moody Theater in downtown Austin on Thursday, October 24th and musical highlights and inductions from the ceremony will air on PBS later.

2019 Hall of Fame Inductees

SHAWN COLVIN

A mainstay since moving to Austin in 1993, singer/songwriter Shawn Colvin is one of the city’s greatest musical ambassadors. Her songs are slow-release works of craft and catharsis that become treasured, lifetime companions for their listeners. Born in South Dakota, she was raised there until she was 11 years old and relocated to Canada and Illinois for the remainder of her adolescence. Colvin originally moved to Austin, Texas in the seventies, singing with the Western swing band the Dixie Diesels. She hit New York City to join The Buddy Miller Band in 1980 where she began to write the songs that would comprise Steady On, her Grammy-winning, 1989 Columbia Records debut. In 1997 she reached the Top 10 at Top 40 radio and won the top honors of Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 1998 Grammy Awards with “Sunny Came Home,” from her breakthrough, platinum-selling album A Few Small Repairs. Colvin’s candid memoir Diamond in the Rough was released in 2012 to critical acclaim. Diamond in the Roughlooks back over a rich lifetime of highs and lows with stunning insight and candor. Colvin maintains a non-stop touring and recording schedule, her most recent release is 2018’s album of lullabies, The Starlighter (Amazon Music). This fall, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of Steady On, she will be releasing a special, newly-recorded all acoustic version of that landmark album. Colvin has a trio of headlining appearances on Austin City Limits to her name: in 1991, 1995 and 2001. She was a guest of Lyle Lovett’s during his Season 22/1997 appearance and returned for a guest spot with Sheryl Crow that same season, Patty Griffin’s guest in 2010, and most recently performed in Season 41 in 2015 as a guest of James Taylor’s.

BUDDY GUY

Buddy Guy’s astounding career spans over fifty years with just as many albums released. Career highlights include the 2015 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, eight Grammy Awards, thirty-seven Blues Music Awards, twenty-three W.C. Handy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honor, Billboard Music Awards’ Century Award, Presidential National Medal of Arts, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to name a few. At 82 years young, Guy proves unstoppable as he continues to record and tour around the world. One of the last of his generation of blues musicians, the singer and guitarist is undeniably one of the most influential axemen of the twentieth century, impacting Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Keith Richards and more. Born in Lettsworth, Louisiana, Guy moved to Chicago in 1957 and became a session guitar player for Chess Records. After a string of successful duo albums with harmonica player Junior Wells, Guy struck out on his own and has dominated the blues landscape ever since. The blues titan recently released his eighteenth solo LP in 2018, the Grammy Award-winning The Blues is Alive and Well. Guy has made three headlining appearances on Austin City Limits, in 1991, 1998 and 2018, and guested with John Mayer in 2003. No stranger to the Hall of Fame, the blues great performed in tribute to inaugural inductees Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble in 2014.

LYLE LOVETT

One of the most unique figures in contemporary music, singer/songwriter and bandleader Lyle Lovett has appeared on Austin City Limits more times than any act with the exception of Willie Nelson. Born in the small town of Klein, Texas, Lovett attended Texas A&M University, where he played open mics and barrooms, sometimes accompanied by his schoolmate Robert Earl Keen. He moved to Nashville in the early eighties, signed to MCA Records and released his self-titled debut album in 1986 to widespread acclaim. Lovett’s distinctive, quirky blend of country, folk, Western swing, jazz, blues, gospel and pop over the course of more than a dozen albums have made him one of music’s most vibrant and iconic performers. His works, rich and eclectic, are some of the most beloved of any artist working today. Among his many accolades, including four Grammy Awards, Lovett received the Americana Music Association’s inaugural Trailblazer Award in 2007, and was named the official Texas State Musician in 2011. Lovett made his ACL debut in 1985 as a member of Nanci Griffith’s backing band and he’s made eight headlining appearances: 1987, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2004 and the final taping in ACL’s original Studio 6A in 2011. He’s appeared on two Songwriters Specials in 1994 and 2008, and in tributes to Walter Hyatt in 1997 and Townes Van Zandt in 1998, and as a featured guest of Leo Kottke in 1988, Delbert McClinton in 1997 and Shawn Colvin in 2001. Lovett was handpicked by his longtime friend Willie Nelson to perform at his own induction into the inaugural ACL Hall of Fame in 2014.