Carousel Lounge

About this audio guide

This guide to the Carousel Lounge in Austin follows the circus-themed dive bar from its nineteen sixty-three opening by Cecil and Myrtle Meier, inspired by a trip to New Orleans, through a run-in with a fire inspector that reshaped its murals. It traces the couple's early day jobs and the blind organist whose decades at the keyboard defined the room's sound long before Austin called itself the Live Music Capital of the World. Best heard standing at the bar, beneath the murals the fire code helped create.