Charles Brown

Christmas Past: 10 Christmas Songs That Are Really About Drugs

While we celebrate the holidays, Rocks Off is resurrecting a few of our best Christmas-themed blogs from the past few years. (Wait... resurrecting is Easter. Never mind.) This blog originally appeared October 26, 2011. Halloween is right around the corner, so you know what that means: Time to start ... More >>

5 New Holiday Albums For Your Halloween Horror

Right now, as soon as you can either get to year nearest music retailer or click over to iTunes or Amazon, you can buy the first holiday-themed 2012 album we have heard of, Jason Gray's Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy. If that sounds early to you, well, yeah, but we actually got the email ... More >>

A Soulful Christmas In July

I didn't think I would succumb to sharing with the world how freaking hot I think it is because every time I see one of you complaining about it on Facebook, I envision your head between a Foreman grill. That might be pregnancy hormones speaking, but seriously; it's July, we're in Houston, it's ou ... More >>

Charles Brown, 47, Bayou Body Count No. 11

Houston police say Debra Norton, 45, shot her common-law husband early in the morning of January 13. He was hospitalized but died January 27, and now Norton faces murder charges. Police say Norton shot Charles Brown, 47, in the head about 3:30 in the morning of January 13. The incident occurred in ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Let me just get this out of the way right off the bat: I don't care for Mannheim Steamroller. I think their music is odd and a little creepy. But, that doesn't mean 1 ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Ella Fitzgerald's Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​There is an admission that I have to make having written all these Classic Christmas posts this year. When I think of Christmas, I don't think of carols or choirs or ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Originally titled The Magic of Christmas, when it was released in 1963, this collection of Christmas songs was basically cobbled together in support of what many -- m ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Elvis' Christmas Album

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​In 1957 at the near peak of his early success, Elvis Presley did what many artists did: He made a Christmas record. The result was what would become one of the best s ... More >>

Classic Christmas: The Perry Como Christmas Album

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​When we think back now about the 1950's, we tend to idealize them as the birth of rock and roll, when kids were wearing leather jackets and rebelling against their pa ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Bing Crosby's White Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Bing Crobsy was the first crossover pop star. He made movies, music, appeared in both radio and television programs and did all of it successfully and, more important ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Charles Brown & Friends' Merry Christmas Baby

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Blues musician Charles Brown released and re-released Christmas songs numerous times throughout his career. The Texas City native got a lot of mileage out of Christma ... More >>

10 Christmas Songs That Are Really About Drugs

memecenter.comMerry fuckin' Christmas, mang.​Halloween is right around the corner, so you know what that means: Time to start making a list and checking it twice. Bourbon, gin, scotch, vodka, Xanax, painkillers... Walgreen's and CVS have already stocked their shelves with wrapping paper, plas ... More >>

What A Houston Blues "Walk Of Fame" Could Look Like

Lightnin' Hopkins marker photo by Matthew Keever​It was a real pleasure for Rocks Off and Lonesome Onry and Mean to bring you this week's Houston Press cover story, "Old School," but it was also bittersweet. Not to put too fine a point on it, but none of these people are getting any younger - ... More >>

Soul City: Boogie-Woogie Godfather Amos Milburn

Black History Month is always a great time to recall some of Houston's greatest musical innovators and leaders. Rocks Off will highlight some of them during the remainder of February. ​Born in Third Ward on April 1, 1927, self-taught pianist Amos Milburn was one of the true godfathers of roc ... More >>

Blues Christmas

Inquiring Minds: Talking Christmas Music With Aaron Neville

​Even for a stone-cold atheist (which Rocks Off is not), listening to Aaron Neville sing "O Holy Night" has to be one of the true pleasures of the Western world. The best-known voice of New Orleans' No. 1 soul-funk family dynasty thanks to songs like "Tell It Like It Is" and Linda Ronstadt duet "D ... More >>

Tone Poem

More harmonious than tumultuous, Bright Star is an ode to John Keats's great love affair.

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: Houston and "Brazoria"

The final installment of our Five States of Texas project brings it all back home, to the new state of Brazoria, encompassing all of Southeast Texas from the Brazos Valley to Sabine Pass. ​Patron Saint: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. A master of rock and roll, country, Cajun/Creole, blues and jazz, n ... More >>

The Best Christmas Album of 2008 is... Metal?

Trails to Terror

2008 Halloween Guide

Houston Halloween Guide 2008

Trails to Terror

Ring in the Holidays at Charles Brown Blues Fest

The Houston 100: From Charles Brown to Sippie Wallace

The Houston 100: From Sir Douglas Quintet to Guy Clark

The Houston 100: From Guy Clark to Don Williams

O Christmas Song, O Christmas Song

I'm Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

No snow and no Bing for Racket

Holly Golightly

Friday, October 10

Club Directory

Grady Gaines and the Texas Upsetters / Calvin Owens

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

Kenny G.'s Revenge

Smooth-jazz fans blast Racket

Don Wilkerson

The Complete Blue Note Sessions (Blue Note)

Mixing It Up

She just wanted her comfortable suburban life. But when a concrete company intruded on her paradise, the homemaker turned warrior.

On the Off-Road Again

Country legend Ray Price continues to take the path less traveled

Legacy of Gristle

Though Clarence Hollimon has passed, he lives on in his work

Love Supreme

Husband-and-wife R&B team are back in H-town

Houston Highwayman

Local Jimmy "T-99" Nelson sets the blues straight

Of Life and Death

While Erica Sheppard sits on death row, penniless and convicted of a gruesome Houston murder, her cadre of elite Dallas lawyers is trying to prove that the justice system has gone fatally awry

Charles in Charge

A new collection confirms Ray Charles's position as the architect of soul

Get It While You Can

Jerry Ragavoy and the ghost of Janis Joplin

Rotation

Sound Check

Post-Christmas Clearance

John Frusciante and Hildegard von Bingen never went to Festus, Missouri

Rotation

End Game

This is the way the year ends, this is the way the year ends, this is the way the year ends, not with a bang but a ... year-end roundup