Email Author William Michael Smith

2012 Stories by William Michael Smith

• Houston Scores Big Time In Latest Editon Of Encyclopedia Of Country Music: Part 2

  published Mar 20, 2012

  Our second installment of Houston connections in the recently published second edition of The Encyclopedia of Country Music is a truly monumental list of writers, performers and performances that show... More >>

• Blue Monday

  published March 15, 2012

  Blue Monday is a Houston tradition that has virtually died out in the last few years. Once important social and musical events at such storied... More >>

• Tennessee Time

  published March 15, 2012

  Valerie June was all set to make her first appearance in Houston a few months ago when her schedule suddenly got a little crazy and she had to... More >>

• Houston Scores Big-Time In Latest Encyclopedia Of Country Music

  published Mar 08, 2012

  With 53 related entries, Houston fared well in the second edition of The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press, $65), released last month, the first revision of the 600-page volume si... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Boondocks Owner Arrested Saturday For Noise Violation

  published Feb 28, 2012

  Boondocks owner Shawn Bermudez was arrested and booked at the central jail Saturday night when Houston Police Department officers responded to another noise complaint at the popular Montrose nightspot... More >>

• Guy Clark To Play Galveston's Old Quarter In May

  published Feb 22, 2012

  Guy Clark, the quintessential Texas singer-songwriter, has just announced a one-off gig at Galveston's historic Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe for May 15. According to club owner Wrecks Bell, he had been... More >>

• Big Night

  published February 23, 2012

  As we laid out in the Houston Press cover story last year ["Old School," August 31, 2011], there's plenty of muscle and swagger in the... More >>

• Oklahoma Dust Storm

  published February 16, 2012

  Dusty, isolated and bleak, Elk City in far western Oklahoma seems an unlikely burg to birth one of America's greatest songwriting and composing... More >>

• Introducing...The Beatles: Celebrating Their First Ed Sullivan Performance

  published Feb 09, 2012

  Lonesome, Onry and Mean didn't get in much trouble in school. So his parents were a little disturbed to find the eighth grader in the principal's office on the afternoon of February 10, 1964. He and h... More >>

• Happy Birthday Joe Ely: The Lubbock Flash Turns 65

  published Feb 09, 2012

  I was living in Holland in 1977 when my younger brother, who had attended Wayland Baptist University on a track scholarship until booze and girls were discovered in his dorm room, came for a visit. Wh... More >>

• Kinky Songs Get the Dayton Treatment

  published Feb 08, 2012

  In our recent interview with Kinky Friedman, performing tonight at Dosey Doe in the Woodlands, we mulled over Jesse Dayton's on-going project of an album of Friedman's songs. Friedman was very enthusi... More >>

• Machine Head

  published February 9, 2012

  Any list of great thrash-metal bands — Slayer, Metallica, Hatebreed and a few others — has to include Oakland's Machine Head.... More >>

• Natalie Cole

  published February 9, 2012

  Few children of superstars ever seem to get out from under the cloud of their famous parents, but jazz legend Nat King Cole's daughter Natalie has... More >>

• Southern Discomfort: Kinky On the Road

  published Feb 07, 2012

  The one-liners come out of Kinky Friedman's mouth so fast you need a protective shield. "The only thing Rick Perry managed to do with his Presidential campaign was to make George W. look like Thoma... More >>

• Legendary Composer Miles Davis Honored with Stamp

  published Feb 01, 2012

  Jazz giant Miles Davis, along with immortal French chanteuse Edith Piaf, was honored last week with a commemorative stamp by the U.S. Postal Service. Davis's image is the well-known 1970 black-and-wh... More >>

• Los Lobos

  published February 2, 2012

  Is any band in America more revered or respected than East Los Angeles roots vatos Los Lobos? An American musical treasure, the core band... More >>

• Elizabeth Cook

  published February 2, 2012

  With her charming Deep South voice and aw-shucks manner, Nashville chanteuse and disc jockey Elizabeth Cook comes off as a pixie-ish, barefoot,... More >>

• The Comeback Cowboy

  published February 2, 2012

  Perhaps no musician screams "Houston" more than original urban cowboy Mickey Gilley, who will forever be identified with the Pasadena club named... More >>

• Some Questions About the Texas Music Awards 2012 Ballot

  published Jan 31, 2012

  If you think we were flabbergasted by songwriter Bob Cheevers touting his election as 2011 Songwriter of the Year in the Texas Music Awards sponsored by mytexasmusic.com and "sanctioned" (a hedge word... More >>

• What Every Musician Needs: Better Shut Up Lines

  published Jan 31, 2012

  We all hate the trope "Houston, we have a problem," but we do have a problem in Houston with talkative, inattentive crowds at live shows. Scanning back over reviews from the past two years, at least... More >>

• Ragin' Cajun Jo-El Sonnier Plays Nutty Jerry's Saturday

  published Jan 27, 2012

  Nutty Jerry's in Winnie has been doing a great job bringing in legacy acts like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Guess Who, Mickey Gilley, Ronnie Dunn, and Blood, Sweat and Tears. But the club really got... More >>

• No More "Wild Thing" For the Troggs

  published Jan 26, 2012

  Lonesome, Onry and Mean was sad to learn via Chuck Prophet's Facebook page this morning that Reg Presley, lead singer of Sixties proto-punkers the Troggs, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. The Tr... More >>

• UPDATE: Linda Chorney, Listen Up

  published Jan 25, 2012

  UPDATE -- a note from the author: We spoke to Mr. Ames again this afternoon. He informed us that he thought the conversation would not be used in our article and that it was only for background inform... More >>

• Delicate Cutters: NOT Like Civil Wars

  published Jan 24, 2012

  We received the new Delicate Cutters 2011 album Some Creatures on the same day that we received the new Dead Fingers album from one of our favorite labels, Big Legal Mess, the offshoot successor to Fa... More >>

• Drew Kennedy, Walt Wilkins, Jason Eady, Josh Grider, Susan Gibson, The Trishas

  published January 26, 2012

  Venerable southwest Houston tonk Firehouse Saloon hosts six "Texas music" acts for an acoustic showcase similar to KIKK-FM's Ten Man Jam series.... More >>