Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/367813
116 AUSTINWAY.com Freddy Fletcher is the epitome of calm while sitting in his tandem kayak in the middle of the Colorado River in Bastrop, where he moved from Austin two years ago. The 60-year-old yoga enthusiast and longtime runner has more than earned this kind of serenity: His ACL Live at the Moody Theater has been an unmitigated success almost from the moment it opened its doors three years ago. The three-story music venue is such a part of Austin's nightlife scene that it's hard to imagine the anxiety that Fletcher lived with during its development. "It was scary thinking people were going to go, 'You really screwed up a great, historic PBS TV show,'" says Fletcher from his office at ACL Live, which is on the street named after his uncle, Willie Nelson. His fear was that, as the new venue for the iconic Austin City Limits tapings in addition to the regular concerts, he would disappoint a lot of people, including friends and for- mer band mates such as Delbert McClinton and Billy Joe Shaver. (Fletcher used to be a touring drummer.) "I grew up here and wanted to preserve the history," he says. "This has always been a music town, and I felt like Austin really needed a world-class facility." Fletcher's hope was that he and his partners would build something that would become a legacy like Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, and they appear to have succeeded, routinely drawing t h e m u s i c m a n Fr eddy Fletcher