Old Quarter — Houston, Texas

The Old Quarter in Houston, Texas, was a small music venue that served as the central hub for the Texas folk and singer-songwriter community in the early 1970s — a scene that would eventually be recognised as one of the most significant in American music history. Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and the community of musicians and writers who gathered around them played the Old Quarter repeatedly during these years, developing the body of work that would define what later came to be known as Texas singer-songwriter music and Americana. The intimacy of the venue — a small club in a gritty part of downtown Houston — was perfectly suited to the music being made there.

Townes Van Zandt is the towering figure of the Houston folk scene of this era: a songwriter of extraordinary melodic and lyrical gifts whose life was tragically consumed by alcoholism and mental illness. His songs — 'Pancho and Lefty', 'Tecumseh Valley', 'If I Needed You', 'To Live is to Fly' — are among the most admired in American country and folk music, covered by Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, and virtually every significant Americana artist of the following decades. Guy Clark, his contemporary and friend, matched him in craft if not in self-destructiveness.

The original Old Quarter venue no longer exists at its downtown Houston location. A separate venue called the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe has operated in Galveston for decades as a continuation of the spirit of the original. Various Houston music heritage sites document the scene that produced Van Zandt, Clark, and others. The community of musicians who gathered in Houston in the early 1970s — before the Austin scene had fully coalesced — is increasingly recognised as foundational to the Americana tradition.