When New Orleans musicians settled in the capital, musical history was made. Graham Boynton reports on a new fusion in a soulful American mecca

Audio: Graham Boynton explains why Austin deserves the title, "music capital of the world" | iTunes | XML

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When local DJ Sammy Allred invited me to come down to the radio station and join him on his talk show, I didn't take too much notice. We were standing in a backyard in south Austin watching Billy Joe Shaver play a wonderful set of country songs on a rickety little stage in front of the garden shed. There were maybe 50 people there, just hanging around in the warm light of late afternoon, drinking Shiner Bock and margaritas; it was like a spring picnic with music—but what music. Anyone who knows anything about Waylon, Willie, and The Outlaws is aware that Shaver is one of the big country songwriters and would thus understand why the radio station offer came across as background noise. So, my attention was fully focused on the rail-thin, red-faced, sexagenarian country singer on the stage from when he opened his set to the moment he waved good-bye with the words "I wanna thank Austin for puttin' up with me, cos I have been a scoundrel."

Two days later I'm dozing in my hotel room when the clock radio clicks into life and I awaken with a start. It's tuned to KVET 98.1, one of the local country stations, and there's Sammy Allred's voice slurring in that liquid Austin drawl: "…and the English journalist I met promised to phone me and come down to the station. And I still haven't heard from him." Sammy is a local legend, chiefly because he's the co-founder of The Geezinslaws, the wonderful satirical country-western band that first appeared on the Arthur Godfrey show back in 1961. Guilt-stricken at having taken this kind offer so casually, I leap out of bed, phone the station, apologize, and promise I'll turn up at dawn the following day.

It is my first lesson in Austin manners. Being a small city, it takes visitors from bigger cities seriously and accords them respect that they don't necessarily deserve. Out-of-towners are smothered with hospitality and asked in return only that they have a good time and show up when invited. In New York or London or Paris, we make vague promises of hospitality to visiting foreigners and then hope they never call. In Austin, they want you to call.

The city's natural inclination to be warm, inviting, and hospitable has been truly tested this week, for Austin has been awash in foreign visitors. They're all here for South By Southwest, once an intimate alternative country music festival and now, in its twentieth year, widely regarded as the most important showcase on the international music calendar, bringing in about 20,000 out-of-towners who spend some $35 million over five days. There are upwards of 1,300 bands of all shapes and sizes playing gigs all day and night on street corners, in bars and restaurants, at barbecues, at the huge Auditorium Shores open-air site, and even, as I discovered, in that south Austin back garden. This is one hell of a street party, fueled by as eclectic a mix of popular music as you'll hear anywhere. In the space of 72 hours, I see performances by the exquisite Norah Jones and her band the Little Willies, Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny), various members of Asleep at the Wheel, the New Orleans Social Club (more on that later), and, in T.C.'s Lounge, a ramshackle little club in deep east Austin, a blues quartet called the Little Elmore Reed Band, featuring Mike Keller, who is regarded by the city's musicians as the finest white blues guitarist this side of Eric Clapton. And I miss Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett, and Rodney Crowell, all playing in the foyer of the Four Seasons Hotel in the middle of the day.