Tag: concert review

Despite illness, Rodney Crowell shines in hometown show at Heights Theater

 in Reviews


By Paul T. Mueller –

Sometimes seeing what a performer is overcoming to deliver a performance is as impressive as the performance itself. Early in his Oct. 18 show at Houston’s Heights Theater, singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell announced that he was battling “the mother of all colds.” But despite a voice that often sounded hoarse and strained, and taking an occasional break to cough (“It’s not COVID!”) or swig from a water bottle, he pushed on for nearly two hours, delighting the capacity crowd with signature songs from his long career and readings from his recent book, Word for Word.

Crowell is the closest thing to royalty in country and Americana music, and he looks the part – still slim at 72, with white hair and a vintage black Gibson acoustic. Without a band to back him up, he played and sang with a confidence born of decades onstage, clearly basking in the love of the hometown crowd.

Rodney Crowell in concert at the Heights Theater

He led off with “Highway 17,” the tale of a career criminal who buries his ill-gotten gains and spends years in prison dreaming of what he’ll do when he gets out and recovers it – only to find that it’s been forever lost under a newly built interstate highway. Afterward he explained that the song is based on a true story involving a family he knew as a child. “Grandma Loved That Old Man,” about his beloved grandfather and the wife who put up with his faults and flaws, got a similar treatment. And so it went, with fine renditions of instantly recognizable songs interspersed with funny stories about how they came to be, and about how their author became a top-tier songwriter and performer.

The show, something of a career retrospective, included songs from Crowell’s days as a hotshot mainstream Nashville artist (“I Ain’t Living Long Like This,” “She’s Crazy for Leaving,” “ ‘Til I Gain Control Again”) as well as several from his more recent phase as an independent, more introspective artist (“East Houston Blues,” “Anything But Tame,” “Telephone Road,” “I Don’t Care Anymore”).

Crowell won enthusiastic responses for some songs he wrote with or about the late Guy Clark, a good friend of his for decades – “Stuff That Works,” co-written in the wake of his divorce from Rosanne Cash, and “It Ain’t Over Yet,” an imagined conversation between Crowell, Clark and Clark’s wife, Susanna.

After wrapping up the main set with “Please Remember Me,” Crowell acknowledged the standing ovation, put in one final plug for his book (“Christmas is coming, just saying,” he had noted earlier) and finished with “The Flyboy & the Kid” from his Tarpaper Sky album, a song he’d dedicated to Clark.

Health issues notwithstanding, Crowell headed quickly for the venue’s lobby, where he spent quite a while posing for pictures with fans and writing personalized inscriptions in the books they’d bought – and apparently loving every minute of it.

Review: John Egan’s musical twists and turns

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By Paul T. Mueller –

You never know quite what you’re going to get at a show by Texas singer-songwriter and bluesman John Egan. A song title might be familiar, but most likely Egan will throw in some twists that make it sound different from what you’ve heard before – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. This dynamic was on display at Egan’s Sept. 11 performance at Cowboy Surfer in west Houston. The 17-song set comprised both originals, including the mystical “St. Teresa” and the melancholy “Looking for a Place to Fall,” and covers, including Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” and Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Once a Gambler.”

Photo by Paul T. Mueller

All featured Egan’s gruff vocals and his masterful playing on an impressive collection of resonator guitars. Egan plays with a combination of picking, strumming and percussion, often using a slide, and the result is an almost orchestral range of sounds that bring fresh perspective to even the most familiar tunes. One big hit with the 40 or so in attendance was “Down in Houston,” a raucous account of Egan’s teenage years (he attended high school a few miles from the venue). He added a little snippet from a song by hometown heroes ZZ Top for good measure. Another high point was an as-yet-unrecorded “pandemic song” that might end up being titled “Count My Blessings,” with a sweet theme of gratitude in the face of adversity. “I’ve got an old guitar that I love to play,” Egan sang, “and I count my blessings every day.” That’s a nice message after a couple of tough years.

Review: Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison in concert

 in Americana Music, Reviews

By Paul T. Mueller–Titles are easy to throw around, and sometimes they’re just so much music-biz hype. Not so in the case of Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis. Partners both on and off the stage, they have been called “The First Couple of Texas Country Music” and “Americana royalty,” among other things. At McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston on June 30, Bruce and Kelly showed a capacity crowd how they got those titles and why they deserve them.

Bruce and Kelly packed 22 songs into their hour-and-a-half set, the first of two shows scheduled for the evening, and the third of four in a two-night stand. (They’ve pretty much transcended the need for last names at this point – according to one report, the named artist on their upcoming joint CD will be “The Bruce and Kelly Show.”) Despite the time constraints of a two-show night (and their willingness to talk to fans and pose for pictures between sets), the performance never seemed rushed. One hit followed another with an easy grace that belied the high-level artistry behind the music. Strumming and occasionally picking acoustic guitars, the two singers got excellent support from Geoff Queen on electric guitar and steel guitar, John “Lunchmeat” Ludwick (Bruce’s brother-in-law) on standup bass, and Joey Shuffield (of Fastball) on drums.

The show featured a mix of songs written by Bruce and Kelly, together or separately, along with some interesting covers – but no Christmas songs, Bruce noted, in a reference to the couple’s now-famous Christmas shows. There were plenty of country tearjerkers, such as Bruce’s “The New Me,” Kelly’s “If I Left You,” and “Cheater’s Game,” said to be the title track of the new CD. And there was lighter fare as well, including a nice version of Don Williams’ “We’re All the Way,” a tribute to a long-run relationship, and “Wrapped” and “Desperately,” both written by Bruce and both hits for George Strait some years back. Kelly turned Kirsty MacColl’s “Don’t Come the Cowboy with Me, Sonny Jim!” – sung at a fan’s request – into a happy romp, and the fact that she hummed her way through a few unfamiliar lyrics only added to the fun.

Bruce called for requests at one point and seemed pleased to hear calls for some of the duo’s less well-known songs. Upon learning that one group of fans had traveled from Louisiana for the show, he conferred briefly with the band and launched into his rueful road ballad “Rayne, Louisiana,” featuring some nice slide guitar by Queen. But the hits got their due as well, among others the divorce lament “Angry All the Time” and the sad and beautiful doomed-love ballad “Traveling Soldier.”

Kelly, who appears to have discovered a cure for aging, showed off her fine voice all night. There’s always been sweetness and sadness there, but she’s not afraid to throw in a little snarl too, as on her you-done-me-wrong song “What World Are You Living In?” and especially on a fine rendition of Tom T. Hall’s “Harper Valley PTA.” This is someone who knows exactly what she’s doing, and loves doing it.

“Don’t believe the hype,” the hip-hop philosophers Public Enemy once advised. In the case of Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis, feel free to ignore that advice.

 

Follow Sun209: American Music News at @sun209com.

Review: Bonnie Raitt in concert at Nashville’s Ryman

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By Ken Paulson

–Bonnie Raitt’s show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last night was as loose as they come and every bit as entertaining.

Whether explaining that she hadn’t found time to do a set list, calling former band member Rick Vito to the stage or saluting Nashville’s songwriters, Raitt was casual, comfortable and in command.

She drew heavily from Slipstream, her excellent new album. Songs like “Marriage Made in Hollywood, “Split Decision” and “Down to You” stood up alongside her classics.

A surprise cover on the album and in concert is “Right Down the Line,” the 1978 Gerry Rafferty hit. Stripped of its ‘70s production sheen and infused with reggae, it was a bluesy highlight.

Raitt saluted John Prine and his manager Al Bunetta, and recalled her mom and grandmother in a touching introduction to Prine’s heart-rending “Angel from Montgomery.”

This was a generous set running more than two hours with an extraordinary encore.

Praising songwriters Allen Shamblin and Mike Reid, Raitt delivered their “I Can’t Make You Love Me” in stark and powerful fashion, followed by “Have a Heart.” She closed out the evening sharing vocals with Vito on a raucous version of the 1959 Elvis Presley hit “A Big Hunk O’ Love.”

Raitt – and her music – have aged beautifully.

Concert review: Spanky and Our Gang

 in Americana Music, Reviews

by Terry Roland

–The new Spanky and Our Gang played to a sold-out audience at Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena, California this month, not so much a reunion as an acknowledgement of the way Americana music connects us to our past and to each other.

With the exception of Elaine ”Spanky” McFarlane, the original players are gone. They included Oz Bach, Malcolm Hale and Nigel Pickering. They were important to the sound, the vocal harmonies and the arrangements that made songs like “Sunday Will Never Be The Same,””Can I Get To Know You” and “Lazy Day,” so appealing.

Indeed, their string of hits that made it to the Top 40 during a two-year period from 1967 to 1969, still can be heard on oldies and easy-listening radio stations today. During their active years, they were featured on national television shows like Ed Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers and The Hollywood Palace. But their legacy included much more than a few catchy hits.

With jazz and pop vocal arrangements that foreshadowed artists like Manhattan Transfer, they recast such songs as Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” and “Echoes (Everybody’s Talking)” by Fred Neil as intricate pop vocal symphonies. This work never found a long-term audience and eventually the band fell apart.  During a brief reunion in 1975, they released the album “Change,” which included songs by future Americana artists like Guy Clark and Tom Waits.

The current incarnation includes a collection of musicians who have joined  Spanky’s musical journey over the years. Keyboardist Bob Ebenstein joined her when she was taking Cass Elliot’s place in the ‘80s line-up of the Mamas and Papas. Lead singer and acoustic guitarist Jim Carrick, was a close friend of Nigel Pickering. Gospel singer, Karen Dupont lives close to Spanky in Ferndale, California. Percussionist Eddie Ponder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, worked with Spanky during her L.A. folk-rock days. Bassist Chris Matheos is an accomplished music theorist. To fill things out, Denny Dias of Steely Dan has been added to provide a counterpoint to Jim’s acoustic lead guitar work.

This new band plays an eclectic spectrum of music, much like an accomplished jazz band. Their repertoire is fearless, covering a wide range of songs, including the set opener, “Sinner Man,” which dates back over a hundred years, a tribute to Etta James, a nod or two to Tom Waits, Guy Clark and Fred Neil and some fierce and passionate gospel singing from Karen Dupont. Especially inspired was her cover of Springsteen’s “Cover Me,” which was transformed into a righteous gospel song.

All of this eclecticism would have seemed disjointed without Spanky at the center, rendering acoustic re-arrangements of songs like “And She’s Mine,” and “Sunday Will Never Be The Same.”

Spanky led the musicians more like the heart of a late-night jam session than a frontwoman for a band. While her voice has deepened considerably since the late ‘60s, she still has an achingly soulful howl,whether she sings blues, jazz, folk or country.

The strongest moment of the show came with the closing song “Give A Damn.” This song still resonates, especially with today’s political movements from both the left and right, symbolized in Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Movement.

The controversy 40 years ago over the use of the word, “damn” overshadowed the message of the song, which speaks to the need for everyday humanity and compassion for the poor and displaced. But as the two-hour show came to an end, it was clear that taking a good wakeful look around is needed more than ever.

Review: Richie Furay Band live

 in Americana Music, Reviews

by Terry Roland
The Richie Furay Band’s brief February tour through Southern California was important for this veteran country-rock artist. His last time around was with his old bandmates Neil Young and Stephen Stills on their long-awaited Buffalo Springfield reunion tour. While most of the audiences who attended the Springfield shows in California were familiar with Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame and the iconic Neil Young, fewer have had the chance to hear Furay in the years since the band’s demise.

For the audience, it was a reminder of his considerable contributions to the legendary band. Fewer still realized that he was a co-founder(along with Jim Messina) of the band Poco, which helped to define country-rock even before they had a string of soft-rock hits in the late ’70s and ’80s.

If the Feburary 3rd concert, the final show of the tour in San Juan Capistrano at The Coach House, was any indication, the summer Buffalo Springfield tour paid off, as the Richie Furay Band played to a capacity audience. The show was dynamic, energetic and fresh. With his band, including Scott Selen on lead guitar(and a near orchestra of other instruments), Selen’s son, Aaron on bass, Alan Lemke on drums and Jesse Lynch on background vocals, Richie delivered a strong set of songs spanning 40 years.

Opening with the familiar Buffalo Springfield classic “On My Way Home,” he also faithfully recreated a trilogy of Neil Young’s songs he originally recorded on the first Springfield album. The first two songs, “Do I Have To Come Right Out and Say It,” and “If Flying on the Ground is Wrong,” were a reminder of how good Young’s quirky lyrics sound with Furay’s distinctive voice. Young’s “Nowawdays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” was stunning, with an arrangement and lead guitar work by Scott Selen that did Neil proud, and matched the duet Furay performed with Young during last summer’s tour.

The set included a strong sampling of early Furay/Messina Poco. As conceived by the two former members of Buffalo Springfield, Poco was an energetic, passionate and dynamic band that pushed country-rock to its limits during their heyday in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when Furay left the band.

The band missed his energetic presence, but went on to a string of commercial successes with soft, breezy and sometimes overproduced pop music. At this concert, Furay conjured up that original sound and reminded us all where it all began. This is not easy. While Poco always had at least two and sometimes three instrumentalists playing off each other, Furay’s band today relies on virtuoso Selen alone. He recreates the sound of Jim Messina’s distinctive electric guitar leads, Rusty Young’s frenetic steel guitar riffs and even throws in an occasional banjo, acoustic guitar and keyboard when needed.

During the show this musical chemistry hit the mark with Furay’s song
dedicated to Gram Parsons, “Crazy Eyes.” During the course of this 12-
minute opus, Selen moved from instrument to instrument as the music
flowed through its various tempos and changes, the musical equivalent
of a triathlon. The live performance eclipsed the original recording,
with a sense of soul and urgency, immediate and bittersweet. Trading
vocals with his daughter Jesse, Richie revisited the song he wrote
as a way of reaching out to Parsons and which was released
days before Parsons died. It ends in sad, but knowing resignation with the line, ”Crazy eyes, you’re as blind as you can be.” As presented live with this band, it is a masterful, and soulful statement about the loss of a friend to addiction.

What became clear during the two-hour set is that Richie Furay is a soul singer. Whether he sings an original gospel song like “Rise Up,” or his new song to his wife of 45 years, “Still Fine,” he gives every song his whole heart.

Richie has a unique and distinctive voice and in live performance infuses every lyric with a feeling that often transcends and raises each song to a new level.

After a standing ovation and encore of “Kind Woman” slowed down to a blue-eyed soul pace, Richie Furay seemed much younger than his years. Indeed, the musical future remains bright for this country-rock innovator, with or without a call from Neil Young.

Glen Campbell’s return to the Ryman

 in Americana Music

We reported here about Glen Campbell’s November 30 show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, but a return performance on Dec. 5 was postponed due to illness.
Campbell made up that date this week.
Here’s what Dave Paulson of the Tennessean said about the show:

“Little appeared to be impeding his performance Tuesday night. Teleprompters set up at the edge of the stage were glanced at for lyrical cues – almost a necessity for anyone tackling the songs of wordy popsmith Jimmy Webb – but Campbell remained in fine voice and proved to still be a staggeringly sharp and fluid guitarist, wowing the crowd early on with an explosive solo on “Gentle” and muscular melodic licks on his classic “Galveston.””

Read the Tennesean’s full review here.

Concert review: Elvis Costello at the Ryman Auditorium

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Roy Acuff wouldn’t have approved.

There on the stage of the legendary Ryman Auditorium tonight was a go-go dancer moving to the music of Elvis Costello and the Imposters. The dancer’s cage – and the multi-colored “Spectacular Spinning Songbook” that drove the setlist- contributed to a carnival-like atmosphere and an entertaining and outlandish show.

This was in sharp contrast to Costello’s performance on the same stage in 2008. That was a lethargic show, top-heavy with tracks from the then-current “Momofoku” album.

Tonight the Ryman’s karma must have taken over. Every time the wheel was spun, it turned to classics like “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” “Everyday I Write the Book” and “Clubland.”

Audience members were invited onstage to spin the wheel, dance and lounge. One woman bent the rules and requested a song that wasn’t on the wheel. She was rewarded with a striking version of “Almost Blue.”

The show began and ended with high points, book-ended by Nick Lowe songs. Costello opened with two songs from “Get Happy” – “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” and “High Fidelity, and then played a driving cover of Lowe’s “Heart of the City.”

The show closed with Lowe’s “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding” and a cover of the Who’s “Substitute.”

Indoor fireworks indeed.