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Longhorn Ballroom

Music venues in Dallas
Longhorn Ballroom Sign and Bull
Longhorn Ballroom Sign and Bull

The Longhorn Ballroom is a music venue and country-western dance hall in Dallas, Texas (USA). It was known in the early 1950s as Bob Wills' Ranch House when the large ballroom was built and operated by O.L. Nelms, an eccentric Dallas millionaire, for his close friend, western swing bandleader Bob Wills. When Wills left, O.L. Nelms leased the sprawling dance club to Jack Ruby who later killed Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy's accused assassin. O.L. Nelms then sold the property to his close friend and business partner Dewey Groom. On January 10, 1978 it achieved brief infamy in national music circles when the Sex Pistols appeared there and during their performance taunted the audience, resulting in someone throwing a beer bottle and breaking Sid Vicious's nose, and he continued to play with blood running down his chest. Before the Sex Pistols, the venue hosted mainly country music artists including Charley Pride, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Ray Price, Conway Twitty, Bob Wills, Loretta Lynn, Hank Thompson, Willie Nelson and Patsy Montana. A famous photo that often circulates on the internet shows the venue's marquee advertising both the Sex Pistols concert and a Merle Haggard concert the following night. The Bob Wills concert album, "The Longhorn Recordings" featuring the music of Bob Wills and his steel guitar player Gene Crownover was recorded in the early Sixties at Longhorn Ballroom. One of the two music videos for Aerosmith's 1989 single "What It Takes" was filmed at the Longhorn Ballroom. The Longhorn Ballroom returned to brief infamy in 1991, when 2 Live Crew refused to go on stage for a scheduled show, resulting in fights among their fans and police. Dallas soul stalwart Johnnie Taylor released a live video filmed at the Longhorn in 1997. Bobby Patterson, who claims in the introduction to his KKDA radio show to be "able to leap the Longhorn Ballroom in a single bound," recorded a live album there in 2002. From October 1996 to February 2017 it was owned and operated by Raul Ramirez who also operates the restaurant Raul's Corral Mexican Restaurant adjacent to the ballroom. In February 2017, Jay LaFrance bought the Longhorn Ballroom and performed extensive restorations on the historic venue. The ballroom became a 23,000 square feet indoor-outdoor space that could be configured to host a variety of events and group sizes up to 2,550 indoors and over 5,000 outdoors in the Longhorn Park on the Trinity River. The Longhorn Ballroom has been temporarily closed since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Longhorn Ballroom (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Longhorn Ballroom
Corinth Street, Dallas

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Wikipedia: Longhorn BallroomContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 32.7598 ° E -96.7926 °
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Corinth Street 200
75215 Dallas
Texas, United States
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Longhorn Ballroom Sign and Bull
Longhorn Ballroom Sign and Bull
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