B.B. King

Milton Hopkins & Jewel Brown

Homegrown Houston - 3G

Obama's Best Campaign Strategy: Keep Singing The Blues

After President Obama crooning Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" at a Harlem fundraiser became an unlikely iTunes sensation, even topping the ringtone chart, history is now repeating itself with his version of "Sweet Home Chicago" caught on an episode of PBS' In Performance at the White House Tuesd ... More >>

Rick Lee & The Night Owls

After President Obama crooning Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" at a Harlem fundraiser became an unlikely iTunes sensation, even topping the ringtone chart, history is now repeating itself with his version of "Sweet Home Chicago" caught on an episode of PBS' In Performance at the White House Tuesd ... More >>

Hunger Games Filmed in Appalachia, Music Recorded in Europe

​For most musicians who aren't playing in orchestras or as session musicians, a musicians' union is about as useful a roadie who can't lift anything over 20 pounds on doctor's orders. But, for the thousands of musicians who do work in the film, television and recording studio industry, they re ... More >>

Dead Rock Stars & Dia De Los Muertos Album Covers

Photo by Marco Torres​According to a recent Associated Press article picked up by everyone from The Huffington Post to Fox News, Day of the Dead celebrations are on the upswing, a trend attributed in part to the growing Latino population and Hispanic influence on the culture, as well as changi ... More >>

Texas Pop Festival Finally Getting Historical Marker

Mike PorterBathe, hippies, bathe!​Rocks Off can't do anything about the drought, but this weekend we will be breaking our own personal drought and returning to the Austin City Limits Music Festival after taking 2010 off. But long before ACL, there was another massive musical gathering in Texa ... More >>

Buddy Guy

Mike PorterBathe, hippies, bathe!​Rocks Off can't do anything about the drought, but this weekend we will be breaking our own personal drought and returning to the Austin City Limits Music Festival after taking 2010 off. But long before ACL, there was another massive musical gathering in Texa ... More >>

Houstonians Place High In International Blues Contest

​This past week, Ezra Charles & the Works and The Mighty Orq, both long-running pillars of the local blues scene, each represented Houston and the Houston Blues Society at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tenn. The week-long competition brought in 110 performers from all over the ... More >>

Who's Too Old To Rock & Roll?

​It's entirely possible that the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney will each go on tour this year. With ages ranging from 63 to 69 among the four remaining core Stones, the band is obviously the oldest continuing touring rock act, capable of breaking ticket records almost 50 years into the gam ... More >>

Elvis: 30 Famous Quotes About The King

​Rocks Off is celebrating Elvis week this week - the King would be 76 years old on Saturday. (Or hell, maybe he will be 76 years old on Saturday.) That's more than three-quarters of a century, but it just doesn't seem like a very long time. Maybe that's because whether or not he actually died ... More >>

Lightnin' Hopkins Historical Marker Dedication

​Rocks Off is celebrating Elvis week this week - the King would be 76 years old on Saturday. (Or hell, maybe he will be 76 years old on Saturday.) That's more than three-quarters of a century, but it just doesn't seem like a very long time. Maybe that's because whether or not he actually died ... More >>

Hidden Treasure

Somehow, Chez Lounge has remained anonymous for more than three decades.

Last Night: Cyndi Lauper At House Of Blues

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Cyndi Lauper House of Blues August 12, 2010 See a slideshow of Cyndi Lauper's performance at the House of Blues last night. Hoping Cyndi Lauper might tackle Lightnin' Hopkins Thursday night proved a little much, but lady can sing the blues. Perhaps sensing that her fa ... More >>

Aftermath: Booker T's Rock-Solid Soul And Farm-Fresh "Onions" At Wired Live

Photos by Brittanie SheyThat's right, Booker T also plays guitar.​ Booker T has had a hand (well, two hands) in crafting so many pop, soul and R&B staples that the hardest part of his pre-concert routine must be making out his set list. Where do you put "Green Onions"? How many of the dozens o ... More >>

Eyeballin: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! - the Rolling Stones In All Their Late-'60s Satanic Majesty

In late 1969, the Rolling Stones were at a musical crossroads. They were two years away from the deep blues of Sticky Fingers and its follow-up, the majestically scuzzy Exile On Main Street. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still very much tinkering with their new bluesier direction that would t ... More >>

The Forgotten Festival

The 1969 Texas International Pop Festival

That Other Rumble in the Jungle

Documenting an epic concert in Zaire, Soul Power puts on quite a show.

Aftermath: Rod Stewart at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Craig Hlavaty​Ageism has always pissed off Aftermath immensely. There's something awfully arrogant and defeating about shamming older cats for still wanting to rock out, even if they are edging dangerously close to seventy years of age, as Rod Stewart is. No one begrudges B.B. King or Leonard Cohe ... More >>

Summer Sounds

Enough shows to keep concertgoers busy all season long

Get Lit: Delta Blues by Ted Gioia

Raw and untamed in its sound, performed by larger-than-life characters who might have popped out of fiction, and shrouded in a (often self-mythologizing) mystery, it's no wonder that the Delta blues attract such interest and scholarship, and is lauded as the most "true" distillation of the genre ... More >>

Tonight: Blacktop Gypsy at the Firehouse Saloon

Not many acts on MySpace list as their influences Merle Haggard and Fleetwood Mac. Or George Jones and Sheryl Crow. But Dallas outfit Blacktop Gypsy does, and it doesn't take many listens to their music to get the connections. Certainly the template is country but with three women in the mix there' ... More >>

Jonny Lang

The artist behind Lie to Me and Turn Around brings his special brand of blues to Houston

Cool Out on Your Commute

2009 is only a few days old, and Houston's radio climate is already improving. Not on the FM dial, which remains a wasteland north of 91.7 (same as it ever was), but starting at 4 p.m. today, commuters can immerse themselves in the swinging sounds of Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, B.B. Kin ... More >>

Aftermath: Buddy Guy at House of Blues

Photos by Craig Hlavaty As Aftermath was cradling his camera, taking pictures of Buddy Guy on Friday night at the House of Blues, he got a bittersweet twinge in his music-loving soul. Once he and B.B. King shuffle off this mortal coil and join the big blues jam in the sky, there wil ... More >>

Tonight: Gary Nicholson at Dosey Doe

Photos by Craig Hlavaty As Aftermath was cradling his camera, taking pictures of Buddy Guy on Friday night at the House of Blues, he got a bittersweet twinge in his music-loving soul. Once he and B.B. King shuffle off this mortal coil and join the big blues jam in the sky, there wil ... More >>

Mail Call: What's in the Crate?

Photos by Craig Hlavaty As Aftermath was cradling his camera, taking pictures of Buddy Guy on Friday night at the House of Blues, he got a bittersweet twinge in his music-loving soul. Once he and B.B. King shuffle off this mortal coil and join the big blues jam in the sky, there wil ... More >>

Evelyn Rubio y Calvin Owens Orchestra Azul

La Mujer

Buddy Guy

Can't Quit the Blues

Here's to Hope

Houston artists light up the Illumination Project 2004

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Houston artists light up the Illumination Project 2004

Grady Gaines and the Texas Upsetters / Calvin Owens

Jump Start (Gulf Coast Records) / The House Is Burnin' (Sawdust Alley)

Lost in Space

Meet the new radio, XM. It's big. It's bad. It's nationwide.

Hammond of the Gods

Eugene Hawthorne ditches his bass and goes barefootin' with soul-jazz

Preservation Hall

Project Row Houses will revive Houston's first home of black music

Houston Blues

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Smart Pop

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Internalizing the Blues

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Teddy Remembered

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Fresh Spin

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Press Picks

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Groove United

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

Educated Sounds

Local hero Joe "Guitar" Hughes knows success takes more than talent

No More Same Old, Same Old

Buddy Guy finally gets the respect he's always wanted

Ardent Idea

Can a Spot from Dallas do better than a Big Star from Memphis?

Rotation

Can a Spot from Dallas do better than a Big Star from Memphis?

Press Picks

Can a Spot from Dallas do better than a Big Star from Memphis?

Big Sandy and his Boys

Can a Spot from Dallas do better than a Big Star from Memphis?

Flop Like an Eagle

Brad Tyer checks out of the Hotel California after five songs