Angus Wynne III — Soul City, Texas IPOP, and the Roots of Showco

Co-founder of the original Showco promotion business

Angus Wynne III helped create the Dallas concert-promotion business from which Showco’s history begins. His partnership with Jack Calmes brought together an interest in music, experience organizing events, and relationships that connected North Texas audiences with national performers.

Building the Showco name

Wynne and Calmes both promoted music events during their college years. As their work expanded, they established a booking and promoting office in the Quadrangle. Wynne is credited with choosing the Showco name.

The early business belonged to a changing Dallas music scene. Its work involved finding artists, arranging appearances, and persuading audiences to come out for live music. Those activities established relationships that would remain important as the Showco story developed.

Soul City

In 1967, Wynne and Calmes opened Soul City on Greenville Avenue. Its bookings brought performers such as Stevie Wonder, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry into a small club setting.

The club also connected the musicians around Showco. Calmes, Rusty Brutsche, and David Alley played in the Soul Society, the house band. In Jim Bornhorst’s account, Brutsche built the club’s sound system—a reminder that musical performance and technical problem-solving were already intertwined within this group.

Wynne and Calmes sold their interest in the club in 1968, but their work as promoters continued.

The Texas International Pop Festival

Wynne was a central organizer of the Texas International Pop Festival, working with Calmes and Alex Cooley to bring the event to Lewisville over Labor Day weekend in 1969.

Planning was already underway before Woodstock. Wynne’s visits to other festivals, including Atlanta and Woodstock, informed his approach to producing the Texas event.

The festival drew a large audience and became a landmark in Texas music history. It also lost money, forcing the partners to confront the risks of producing an event on that scale.

His place in the larger history

After the festival, Wynne and Calmes pursued different business paths. Calmes subsequently joined Rusty Brutsche and Jack Maxson in establishing Showco’s touring sound business in 1970.

Wynne’s contribution belongs to the beginning of that history: the promotion business, the Showco name, Soul City, and the relationships and experience built through live events. Recognizing that role gives the later sound-company story its proper foundation.

The photographs, recordings, and interviews collected here preserve his part in Dallas music and Showco’s formative years.

Meet Jack Calmes · Meet Rusty Brutsche · Meet David Alley · Alumni Directory

Sources include Jim Bornhorst’s 2018 presentation and the In the Studio interview, Dallas Morning News profile, and Denton County history linked below.

Beyond the early Showco years

Angus also appeared in films including True Stories (1986), Talk Radio (1988), and JFK (1991). He came from a prominent North Texas family, including his father Angus G. Wynne Jr. (Six Flags Over Texas) and his brother Shannon Wynne (Dallas restaurateur). Now retired and living in Dallas, Angus still gets out to music events and remains a familiar face in the community.