George Jones

RIP George Jones: Texas-Born Country Legend Dies at Age 81

George Jones, the Southeast Texas-born Country Music Hall of Famer whom most agree would be a face on Nashville's Mount Rushmore, has died at age 82. According to Fox News, repeating information from Jones' longtime publicist Kirt Webster, the singer died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center late ... More >>

RIP George Jones: Texas-Born Country Legend Dies at Age 81

George Jones, the Southeast Texas-born Country Music Hall of Famer whom most agree would be a face on Nashville's Mount Rushmore, has died at age 81. According to Fox News, repeating information from Jones' longtime publicist Kirt Webster, the singer died early Friday at Vanderbilt University Medica ... More >>

Here's That George Jones Lawn Mower Story One More Time

Although it was hardly a surprise, country-music fans around the world have heavy hearts today after the passing of George Jones. Jones, a native of the Southeast Texas town of Saratoga who broke into the music business on Houston-based Starday Records, was far and away one of the most-decorated and ... More >>

Coming Next Week: The Texas 30

One day this summer, it must have been, a certain Mr. Craig Hlavaty brought a book he had found at a Houston-area thrift shop called (the) Genuine Texas Handbook into the office. This book is about everything you ever loved about Texas in the early '80s condensed into 200-something pages -- big hair ... More >>

Country Farewell Tours: How Well Do They Stick?

Wednesday's noontime announcement by Country Music Hall of Famer George Strait that he would retire from the road after his 2013-14 "The Cowboy Rides Away" farewell tour hit Rocks Off harder than it should have. True, he's 60, has a ranch and grandchildren, and has earned his golden years many, many ... More >>

Saturday Night: George Jones at Arena Theatre

George Jones Arena Theatre September 8, 2012 I never wondered what it's like to be almost 81 until Saturday. I never expected to live that long, and still don't. But while watching George Jones onstage at the Arena Theatre, it was difficult to not at least wonder. But hell, I'm not even 40 and mos ... More >>

Morbid Email Subject Heading of the Week: "George Jones Alive and Touring Through the Fall"

Look, Rocks Off is a countrycentric place. We love our classic country and good modern country like no one's business, and we have driven miles and miles to see some of our heroes. When country legend George Jones has taken ill these past few years, our hearts have all skipped a beat. We know that w ... More >>

Uh-Oh: George Jones Is Sick

It's never really not old, but since we've already been going through it with Levon Helm and the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb (who, gratefully, is at least out of his coma), this isn't good news at all. Saratoga native and Country Music Hall of Famer George Jones, the man who could break the Tin Man's pre-E ... More >>

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

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 that while Houston may not have been the musical business center that Nashville became, the Bayou C ... More >>

Houston Scores Big-Time In Latest Encyclopedia Of Country Music

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 since its initial printing in 1998. Michael McCall, Country Music Hall of Fame archivist and one of t ... More >>

Randy Travis' Arrest: Five Other Country-Music Arrests That Sound Like Country Songs

Randy Travis: Life is like a country song​Randy Travis' arrest sounded like nothing more than the opening verse to a country song. The singer is drunk, late at night outside a Baptist church, drinking wine out of the bottle. If that doesn't set you up for a redemptive last verse after you've ... More >>

Together Always: Country Duets for Valentine's Day

Maybe it's because I'm a Libra, but I believe that everything in life should be as harmonious as possible-love, especially. Duets might be the ultimate musical testament to such a theory. I'm not talking about the resonance that's created when a woman is vacuuming while her man watches television. I ... More >>

Locally Speaking

My Top Ten Local Albums of 2011

Nick 13

Top Five Cannibal Country Songs

​Songs about singers and other songs has long been one of Rocks Off's favorite fields of study within the wide-ranging curriculum of popular music. Off the very tippy-top of our heads, ABC's "When Smokey Sings," the Replacements' "Alex Chilton" and the Pogues' "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda ... More >>

Friday Night: George Jones At Arena Theatre

Photos by Lisa Rosato​George Jones Arena Theatre April 29, 2011 For Rocks Off, going to see George Jones radiated much the same feeling of apprehension we had about the Pogues show at House of Blues in October 2009. On one level, we half-expected - no, feared - a train wreck, a career-marring ... More >>

1991: Best Music Year Ever?

Rocks Off Sr.'s choice for 1991's best album.​1991 was one of the biggest years in modern music. It was when metal went pop, radio country ruled, grunge went mainstream, and rap began its climb to chart dominance, even if it was spearheaded by a white candy rapper from Dallas. There were man ... More >>

What's New In The Houston Scene Since You Were Here Last

Craig HlavatyThe jukebox at Grand Prize Bar. Note George Jones, ZZ Top, Lightnin' Hopkins, Prince...​Imagine that you have been frozen since September, or at least the beginning of the fall college semester. Or maybe you are an adult coming back to Houston to visit the folks, return Christmas ... More >>

Museum Of The Gulf Coast's Musical Treasure Trove

Photos by Craig HlavatyJanis Joplin's car​Rocks Off visited the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur this past Friday while on the the way to Louisiana for a quick vacation. The downstairs area is full of artifacts pertaining to the founding of the land around Port A, like military and anim ... More >>

Eclipse

Brooding folk for the Twilight crowd.

Ten Iconic Musical Nicknames, And 25 You May Never Guess

​You know what sucks? Getting saddled with a really awkward family nickname when you are younger and it following you until it takes a frenzied freak-out to stop it. We were once called "Pooter" by our mother until an eight-year-old Rocks Off gave her a terse look right before third grade star ... More >>

Died And Gone To Houston: A Honky-Tonk Jukebox

​Besides the whomping pullout section with brief thumbnail sketches of every artist playing Saturday's Houston Press Music Awards showcase on Washington Avenue, in this week's print issue of the Press you'll find a feature story Rocks Off was proud to co-write called "Died and Gone to Houston. ... More >>

Mark Chesnutt

SugarHill (Actually Gold Star) In the '50s, The Decade It Became A House Of Hits

[Ed Note: All this week, to celebrate the release of Dr. Roger Wood and Andy Bradley's new book House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios and preview this weekend's related festivities at Sig's Lagoon and the Continental Club, Rocks Off and Lonesome Onry and Mean ar ... More >>

Trash Theft Auto: Teen Swipes Motorized Shopping Cart From Porter Wal-Mart, Attempts Two-County Odyssey

Czichos should have gone all out and opted for the family-sized version.​Evidently Cody Czichos was tired of being at the Porter, Texas Walmart last Monday around midnight. So the 18-year-old sat down on one of Walmart's motorized shopping carts, revved it up, and pointed it toward home, 35 m ... More >>

George Jones

Taking That La-Z-Boy Out for a Drunken Spin? Don't Forget the Tunes!

Where are the cup holders?​As part of our court-appointed public service, we at Rocks Off don't condone driving while intoxicated. But if you must get behind the wheel after having a few, there are far worse things to be driving than a La-Z-Boy. From Yahoo! news this morning: "A Minnesota man has ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Our Pal Arty Hill Picks His Favorite Songs About Drunk Women

Arty Hill is a Baltimore, Md., honky-tonker who has been playing regularly in Austin the past couple of years. He also reads Lonesome Onry and Mean's blog religiously and has already penned a couple of new songs based on the goings-on in these pages. He recently contacted LOM about Mike Stinson's l ... More >>

Capsule Art Reviews: "BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP", "Katy Heinlein: Project Space, " "Sasha Pierce: New Paintings" and "John Sparagana: The Crisis Professionals", "Carlos Runcie-Tanaka: Fragmento"

Listology: Honky-Tonk Man Mike Stinson Chooses His Favorite Drinking Songs

Markus Cuff​Honky-tonk man and recent Houston transplant Mike Stinson knows a thing or two about a bottle. Lonesome Onry and Mean asked him to list his all-time favorite drinking songs, many of which you will no doubt hear this evening at Under the Volcano. "So many classic drinking songs, I could ... More >>

Capsule Art Reviews: "BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP", "Carlos Cruz-Diez: Crosswalk", "Carlos Runcie-Tanaka: Fragmento", "Second Seating"

Capsule Art Reviews: BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP," "Carlos Runcie-Tanaka: Fragmento," "Second Seating"

Big Lectric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep

Web exclusive

Bayou Beat: A 15-Foot Sculpture of George Jones' Head, $10 House of Blues Tickets, Free Tontons Show, etc.

​Heavy metal comedy troupe Steel Panther has cancelled tonight's Warehouse Live show. What's on VH-1 Classic? Tennessee-born artist Wayne White is crafting a 15-foot puppet head in the likeness of Saratoga-born honky-tonk legend George Jones. Entitled "Big Lectric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: A Twofer from the Ol' Possum

Since we've been debating the good, bad and ugly of honky-tonk in these (Web) pages lately, this marks a good point to announce the new American Beat/Sony reissue of two George Jones classics, 1972's A Picture of Me (Without You) and the next year's Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half As Bad As Losing You). ... More >>

Me and Mr. Jones

Byron Dean's Matagorda Island Discs

(In which locals sound off on the ten records they would take to Matagorda Island, the nearest major unpopulated sandbar to Houston.)

Don't Take Your Guns to Town

Country Music Pistol Packers Hall of Fame

David Allan Coe

Friday, September 2, at Texas Tumbleweeds, 13101 Kuykendahl, 281-872-7829.

When Wild Musicians Attack!

Ryan Adams is headed this way. Where does he fit in among the great meltdown artists of yore?

Shooter Jennings

Put the O Back in Country

He's Gone Country

The Nightfly tries out as the next Bocephus at Sam Houston Race Park

Defending the Dirty Thirty

And coping with Yankee slander

Playbill

George Jones

Bright Lights, Bridge City

The PC Cowboys, the world's only politically correct country band, speak in a Press exclusive

Big Country

Buddy and Julie Miller --

Rotation

Rotation

Rotation

Sound Check