Looking back on our early career, Omega Productions, dba Omega Audio, was asked to record and provide the live soundtrack mix of an iconic, pioneering television broadcast, Opry House. The program was an early 1970s Texas country music concert television series filmed and produced in the studios of Dallas public television station KERA TV. It is widely celebrated as the original precursor to the legendary PBS music program Austin City Limits.
The series served as a crucial launchpad for the outlaw country music movement, capturing intimacy and raw energy before a live studio audience. Paul Christensen and Darrell Henke provided the recording and live soundtrack mix for the series. The highly influential series prominently spotlighted three massive icons of the era:
Willie Nelson (1974): Filmed in front of a live audience in the summer of 1974, Willie Nelson made a rare early television appearance. He performed definitive hits of his early catalog including “Whiskey River,” “Bloody Mary Morning,” and “Hello Walls.”- Waylon Jennings (1975): This episode captured the native Texas outlaw country legend at the peak of his mid-70s run. Waylon Jennings performed heavy hitters like “Ramblin’ Man,” “Good Hearted Woman,” and “Ladies Love Outlaws.”
- Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge: The series also dedicated a full episode to the powerful roots-and-country duo during their prominent collaborative era.
The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy(1975): David Allan Coe, ex-prisoner turned country-western star, is featured in this combination in-studio concert performance and documentary film. The program follows the star performing at country music fairs, visiting with family at his childhood home, and returning to the correctional institution where Coe claimed to have killed a fellow inmate. Musical selections performed by Coe and his Tennessee Hat Band include “The Fugitive,” “Longhaired Redneck,” and “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.”- Other prominent artists recorded at KERA TV included Michael Murphey, Steve Fromholz, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ray Wylie Hubbard, B. W. Stevenson, and Sammi Smith.
Working on the series helped create some great memories of those early years of what became the Progressive Country music revolution. In the years that followed, the company continued to record almost all of the artists from that genre.
Willie Nelson Segment:
