Tonight at South By Southwest is the much-anticipated NPR Music showcase at Stubb’s in Austin. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds headlines a bill that also includes Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Alt-J, Youth Lagoon and more. You can watch the show live on npr.org/music.
While we were in Texas gathering stories for our Hidden Kitchens Texas special, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Sharon Ely (wife of Gilmore’s Flatlanders bandmate Joe Ely) told us the story of Stubb’s and the man behind the legendary venue, C.B. “Stubb” Stubblefield, who opened his first barbecue restaurant in Lubbock in 1968.
Lubbock was very segregated back then, recalls singer/guitarist Gilmore. “One day [blues guitarist] Jesse [Taylor] was hitchhiking, and this big huge black man stopped and picked him up. It was Stubb. C.B. Stubblefield. He had a barbecue joint, a tiny little dive, and Jesse started hanging out with Stubb. … At some point, Jesse said, ‘Stubb, could I bring a few of my friends and play?’ It was unusual for a white kid and a black man to become close friends.”
Read more about Stubb, and his story at NPR.org.