If last year’s inaugural Austin City Limits Music Festival was The Godfather, then this year’s edition was Godfather II — bigger, sleeker, glossier, and arguably better. Expanded from two days to three, boasting a correspondingly bigger array of acts, and […]
It’s long been a tradition in soul bands to have an MC start the band up before the singer is escorted out. The singer appears only when the audience is already in a rapture, after a long introduction. With the […]
Extraordinary things happen on a regular basis at Red Rocks, and the best results often come from determined opening acts. Guy Clark, playing before Lyle Lovett in June 2002, immediately comes to mind. The most memorable flash of last year’s […]
In the wake of Son Volt’s late-1999 split, Jay Farrar worked with artists ranging from Gillian Welch to Superchunk’s Jon Wurster, released two albums and an EP, and played a couple hundred shows across North America and Europe. He wrote […]
“A showman’s life is a smoky bar/The fevered chase of a tiny star/It’s a hotel room and a lonely wife/From what I’ve seen of a showman’s life.” Jesse Winchester wrote “A Showman’s Life” in 1978, but he hasn’t lived much […]
For a number of years, the names Graham Parker, Alejandro Escovedo, and Blue Rodeo were at the top of the list of solo artists and bands I’d long admired but had never seen perform. However, since 1997 I’ve caught Parker […]
It’s been said that a song’s power can be tested when it’s sung in a different language. While Joe Henry kept his vocals in English for this performance, it was the music that seemed foreign. Stripped of their usual lush […]
Shared connections in Central Texas brought these “Four Men From Now” (as they billed their tour) together, and their visit to the North Carolina Triangle’s premier listening room marked the end of a short southeastern US swing. These four songwriters […]
Like millions of Americans, Alejandro Escovedo, dogged seven years now by hepatitis C, has no medical insurance. Yet the master of moody roots chamber music has hundreds of musicians, from legends to locals, throwing benefits to defray his expenses (check […]
Though Elvis Presley’s transformation from unknown Southerner to eternal icon is endlessly fascinating, the story of his manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker (the title was honorary), is at least as intriguing. While Presley’s metamorphosis was played out in the public eye, […]
