Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Most Popular

  • Getting Off
    Attorney Tyler Flood says he wins 80 percent of his clients' DWI trials, even if they were 100 percent drunk as a skunk.
  • City of Coffee
    Is Houston about to become America's coffee capital?
  • Looking for a Bull Market
    Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
  • BBQ Buffet
    Korea Garden Grille offers a stellar selection of barbecue items in unlimited quantities — and new and interesting ways to eat them.
  • Enough About Mi
    Is the authentic little Vietnamese noodle shop Banh Cuon Hoa #2 too adventurous for your tastes?
Most Popular sponsored by

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of Houston's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & Houston Press

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Riverfront Times

    Babe 'n' Arms

    Tom was a hot-tempered cross-dresser with a garage full of guns--and then he became Rachel.

    By Nicholas Phillips

Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen

Saturday, March 4, McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk, 713-528-5999.

Share

  • rss

By William Michael Smith

Published on March 02, 2006

Between them, these two have written entire chapters in the history of whatever you want to call what happened when rock met country, when Acapulco Gold and blotter acid met Bill Monroe and the Louvin Brothers, when the light show met the moonshiner. You could play word-association games with Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen's resumes all day: Gram Parsons. Flying Burrito Brothers. The Byrds. "Desert Rose." "High Fashion Queen." "Sin City." Their collective and individual impact on the evolution of "country rock" into "alt-country" is impossible to overstate. Nowadays, their wardrobes might have progressed from the Burrito Brothers-era psychedelic suits to the quieter, less conspicuous garb of workaday singer-songwriters, and I suspect that if there's any substance abuse today it's sneaking an extra Vitamin B or a slug of ginseng when the wife's not looking. But despite almost 40 years on the pop music scene, they still have their pitch-perfect voices, their bluegrass chops baptized in the spirit of rock and roll, a satchel full of killer songs and a personal aura that leaves you glad to have been in their presence during that one otherwise lonely hour.