Spent A Year There One Knite

Spent A Year There One Knite resurrects The One Knite, a small dive bar in Austin TX during the early 1970s which inadvertently became the incubator for the city’s fledgling white blues scene.At the time, the Progressive Country scene was in full swing; record companies swooned over the hippy/country hybrid, and magazines like Rolling Stone presented Austin as the epicenter of Cosmic Cowboy movement, the antithesis to Nashville. While this press was not undeserved, it made it near impossible for anyone to play other types of music. Musicians like Stevie and Jimmie Vaughan, Denny Freeman and Paul Ray, already in town, struggled to find club owners willing to book their blues bands. Bands which, a few years later, would be known the world over: Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Cobras. Enter The One Knite, a small stone building on the edge of downtown. Repurposing a coffin as the door, the laid back, anything goes owners welcomed anyone, from the Banditos to the young long-haired blues players looking for a place to play. Almost immediately, the joint was packed, and a scene was born.Featuring interviews with both musicians like Jimmie Vaughan and patrons such as Austin Chronicle writer Margaret Moser, the film offers a balanced portrayal of the dystopian paradise known as The One Knite.

In the Looking for Treble program.