Billy Bob's
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Billy Bob's Texas is a popular country & western nightclub on the outskirts of the Fort Worth Stockyards. It promotes itself as "The World's Largest Honky Tonk." Billy Bob's opened April 1, 1981 to national attention with Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers as the first performers. Other artists who appeared that first week were Waylon Jennings, Janie Fricke & Willie Nelson. Comparisons to Gilley’s Club, located in Pasadena where the movie Urban Cowboy was filmed (starring John Travolta), are frequent. However, Gilley’s Club measures only 44,000 square feet (4100 m²), about a third the size of Billy Bob's 127,000 square feet (12,000 m²). In addition to several dance floors, musical stages, arcade games, and billiards tables, Billy Bob's is the home to a small indoor rodeo arena, in which they have weekend bullriding events.
Billy Bob's is still a popular venue for a wide variety of C&W artists, with Willie Nelson making frequent appearances and serving as the host of their Fourth of July celebrations.
The nightclub quickly entered the public consciousness in the early 1980's with frequent references by the Ewing Clan on the TV drama Dallas.
[edit] Live albums recorded at Billy Bob's
Since 1999 the Smith Music Group, a music publishing company in Fort Worth, Texas has issued a continuing series of live albums recorded by major country music artists at Billy Bob's. All of the albums are titled Live at Billy Bob's Texas. The list is currently over thirty performances. Artists so far have included:
- Cooder Graw
- Cross Canadian Ragweed
- Deryl Dodd
- Exile
- Kevin Fowler
- Janie Fricke
- The Gatlin Brothers
- Pat Green
- Merle Haggard
- Jack Ingram
- Stoney LaRue
