Plans for music museum in Austin hit sour note with some
AUSTIN — A decadelong rivalry between Houston and Austin for bragging rights over the location of the official state music museum is tuning up for a new fight.
On Tuesday, the Senate Business and Commerce Committee is scheduled to hear a bill that would designate Austin as the location, even though supporters in Houston insist the Bayou City was selected several years ago.
At stake are millions of dollars in tourism traffic, whether the museum is located in Houston, with its historic connection to Texas’ music and the recording industry, or Austin, which claims to be the “Live Music Capital of the World.”
“By all rights, Houston should have this museum,” said Stephen Williams, a founding member of the Museum of American Music History, a coalition of more than 50 organizations, private collectors and families who he said has been working for years to get the museum located in Houston. “Austin is trying to steal it and bring it to Austin when it should be in Houston.”
Supporters of the Austin museum say that’s bunk, that the legislation is part of a plan to further develop a museum district near the Texas Capitol — the Bullock State History Museum, the Blanton Museum of Art and the new music museum — in a project that will cost state taxpayers nothing.
“This is part of a bipartisan effort to create a museum that would make the state money,” said Sen. Kirk Watson, co-author of Senate Bill 1147 and former Austin mayor who has represented the city in the Legislature since 2007. “If there’s an issue with the
project, I’m not aware of it.”
Other opponents of the measure express irritation that state government is moving into turf dominated for years by private museums.
In a state with a rich music history — ranging from polka, country and jazz to Texas swing, zydeco and rock — and one that officials estimate is home to more than 28,000 musicians and events drawing more than 19 million people, the winner could attract hundreds of thousands of fans from across the nation like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
Part of master plan
Under the bill, the State Preservation Board — chaired by Gov. Greg Abbott, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus as vice chairs — would establish a nonprofit private foundation to create and operate the Texas State Music Museum on what is now a parking lot across from the Bullock Museum.
Members of the new foundation would be appointed by Abbott, and costs of the museum “shall be paid from revenue generated’’ by the foundation, according to the bill.
State officials said the site is part of a master plan approved last year by the Texas Facilities Commission, and would feature a multi-story building on the site, with parking and other amenities. Other agencies would occupy portions of the building.
Williams, who has been publicly protesting the plan, said his Houston group was to receive a $10 million federal grant from the state several years ago for a museum to serve as the state’s showcase music history. However, he said the money never was released because of politics in Austin, even as his group was moving to buy a downtown building.
Now, he says the group has selected another Houston site.
The museum has been the subject of several bills over the years, all of which officials said failed to pass. “But the official designation of Houston as the site for the museum still stands,” Williams insists, a designation that came with the federal grant.
One already in Austin
While Williams and other Houston supporters are upset with the Senate bill and an identical House bill, other private music institutions also are questioning the move, especially the private Texas Music Museum, located just a mile east of the Capitol complex site.
“We have really worked our hearts out for the past 33 years, and this really sort of messes up our dreams,” said University of Texas professor Clay Shorkey, board chairman at the museum that he said has a large collection of recordings, exhibits and artifacts. “We really want to see an excellent Texas music museum, something really wonderful that can tell the story of music history in Texas, but this (proposal by the state) is really kind of disturbing.”
At the Texas Musicians Museum in Irving, owner Thomas Kreason told the Dallas Observer he is concerned that private museums like his will have to compete for state resources, funding, collections, even tourism dollars.
“If you have your grandfather’s rare (musical instrument or collection), you’re going to drive right past Irving and take it to the ‘official’ Texas music museum,” Marianna Kreason told the Observer. “Everybody knows it will go to the official one.”
Still in the early stages
While Williams and others say Abbott is pushing to approve the Austin museum plans, aides insist the plan was agreed to by several state agencies after a review process. Other Austin supporters say the new museum should be in the capital, where tourists come to see statewide history. John Wittman, Abbott’s press secretary, declined comment.
For their part, officials at the State Preservation Board, which originally was established to restore and maintain the State Capitol and now oversees the Bullock museum, said they are just following the lead of the legislative sponsors of the two bills.
Like the proposed music museum, the Bullock has a related fundraising foundation to cover most of its operating costs. The rest, he said, is paid by a state appropriation.
“This is all in its very beginning stages,” said Chris Currens, a spokesman for the Preservation Board. “We have some in-house expertise that could be helpful in this project.”
“We have really worked our hearts out for the past 33 years, and this really sort of messes up our dreams.”
Clay Shorkey, University of Texas professor, board chairman of the Texas Music Museum in Austin