Austin live music: Sixth Street, the Continental Club and ACL Live

East Sixth Street between Congress and the interstate was the club strip of the 1970s and 1980s, and on weekend nights it is still closed to cars and packed. Today the better music has moved a few blocks north to Red River Street, where the Mohawk, Stubb's and Cheer Up Charlies book touring rock, punk and indie bands on indoor and outdoor stages.

Stubb's, a barbecue joint with an amphitheater behind it, is the classic. Our tour leader picks two or three rooms each night and keeps the group together on the way back.

Austin City Limits is the longest-running music show on American television, first taped in 1974 at a studio on the University of Texas campus with Willie Nelson. Since 2011 it has been filmed downtown at the Moody Theater, a 2,750-seat hall built for it, which also hosts concerts most nights.

Taping tickets are free and given out by lottery, so we book a regular concert in the hall and add a taping when we can. Outside the doors stands a bronze statue of Willie Nelson, on Willie Nelson Boulevard.

The Broken Spoke has stood on South Lamar since 1964, a low wooden dance hall with a restaurant in front, and has hardly changed. Bob Wills played here, George Strait played here before he was famous, and Willie Nelson still turns up on the photos on the walls.

The bands play classic country and Western swing for couples who two-step around the floor in boots. There is a short lesson early in the evening, and our groups take it: nobody is too old, and the regulars are happy to dance with visitors.