Johnny Cash

Essential Rock and Roll Literature For Budding Music Writers

Right about now young, budding rock writers and nerds are sitting on gift cards and credit from the holidays, and may need to know what books to pick up at the local bookstore or Amazon to further their education. It's not enough to just read every new music blog or (gasp!) pick up a few music mag ... More >>

Return to Glory: Rick Rubin's 5 Best Comeback Productions

Recently, Black Sabbath confirmed that record magnate and production auteur Rick Rubin would be twiddling the knobs on their new record, set to be released next year. It will be their first with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals since 1978, and a lot of their reputation is riding on this. Not that it will ma ... More >>

Million Dollar Quartet

5 Treehugging Tunes By Conservative Country Artists

​Today is the Girl Scouts of America's annual World Thinking Day, which they celebrate each year by dedicating 24 hours of contemplation on the world and the people in it. Now, Rocks Off isn't a Girl Scout, but we keep a close eye on them because we've proven in the past they are in fact our o ... More >>

Unchained: The Man In Black's Late-Life Comeback

The Resurrection of Johnny Cash: Hurt, Redemption, and American Recordings By Graeme Thomson 254 pp., $19.95, Jawbone Press In 1993, Johnny Cash may have been a country-music icon, but for all intents and purposes, he was also one in need of some serious restoration. Two decades removed from his la ... More >>

10 Great Pictures Of Johnny Cash

​Do you remember where you were when you found out that Johnny Cash passed away, on September 12, 2003? This member of Rocks Off was in our tiny S-10 pickup, delivering pizzas somewhere in Pearland, when one of the country stations he was flipping through delivered the news that the Man In Bla ... More >>

R.I.P. Marshall Grant, Johnny Cash's Tennessee Two Bassist

Marshall Grant, the Memphis bassist who along with Carl Perkins' brother Luther, were the members of Johnny Cash's seminal band the Tennessee Two, died early Sunday in Jonesboro, Ark. Cash's daughter Roseanne reported via her Twitter account Sunday that Grant had died of aneurysm, and that she h ... More >>

Four Musicians The G.I. Bill Put On Their Way

Library of Congress

Rocks Off's Fantasy RodeoHouston Lineup

Photos courtesy of Houston Livestock Show & RodeoGeorge Strait in 1996​If you walk through Reliant Center, hanging from the ceiling are banners listing almost every musical performer RodeoHouston has hosted since the '60s. The names reflect the hallowed history of country and fleeting fancies ... More >>

Gothic Council Debates Unionization, Johnny Cash

evilpoppy.org.uk​In Wisconsin, there's a huge political fight over what form of bargaining state-worker unions will be able to use in the future, and it got us thinking. After all, goths provide many valuable goods and services to the community, such as dark music, disturbing art, and a whole ... More >>

Future Elvis: What If The King Had Lived?

​Do you realize that Woody Allen, Julie Andrews, the dude who was in the Darth Vader suit, and Ron Paul are all the same age as Elvis Presley would be on Saturday? Look at Woody Allen next time you see him on TMZ and just think, he's as old as Elvis. In order to get in the frame of mind to t ... More >>

What Do Rappers Read?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Every Monday that isn't a national holiday, Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​This Week's Panel: Bun B, Chingo Bling, The ARE, Kyle Hubbard, Rob G ... More >>

The Ten Bleakest Songs In Country Music History

decodedstuff.com​Country music isn't all high-tech rednecks and honky tonk badonkadonks. Country artists have a tendency to, every now and then, sing about some dark, disturbing stuff. Sometimes scary, sometimes violent, and sometimes just weird, here are some country songs that rival the blac ... More >>

The Music of True Blood, Episode 1.7: Getting Crispy With Johnny Cash's "The Fourth Man In the Fire"

Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston. With Season 2 just completed, Rocks Off is now working our way backw ... More >>

I Gave Her a Ring...: Musical Minutiae About Fingers and Birds

​Although we recently discovered how to access the primitive version of Facebook on our non-iPhone (so watch out), Rocks Off generally lives in an Internet-free bubble outside the office. And happily so, so it took until Monday's late local news for us to see - and subsequently laugh our fool head ... More >>

Another Chapter of the Rocks Off Beatles Rock Band Saga Is In the Books

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt​Despite some technical difficulties that got things off to a late start, Rocks Off and several of our friends had a fine time at our "Helter Skelter Halloween" party Tuesday evening at Coffee Groundz. Special thanks to the one or two of you who actually showed up in co ... More >>

Slide Show: Albums That Went Darker

​ For most rock acts, the traditional way to deal with success is to rework their lyrics, image and sound to become palatable to a larger audience. Usually this means brightening the subject matter, cleaning up the bad words, softening the sharp edges on those power chords and getting haircuts tha ... More >>

Jason Aldean

Don't Ever Count Britney Out — Just Like These Others.

Back in Black

Aftermath: ZZ Top at RodeoHouston

Mark. C. Austin/ Click here for a slideshowAftermath can not begin to tell you how much of a beacon ZZ Top was for him over the past few days. The lil' ol' band from Texas' RodeoHouston finale may not have had anything to do with SXSW per se, but knowing the first thing he woul ... More >>

They Don't Make Cop Concerts Like They Used To In Beaumont

Via Bayou, the Beaumont Enterprise's lively blog, we got directed to an old posting on the Octane Radio Network.And let's just say -- they don't make police concerts like they used to. In 1957 -- when Rock and Roll was still the Devil's Music -- the Beaumont cops bring in Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee ... More >>

Johnny Cash/Various Artists: Johnny Cash Remixed

Johnny Cash Up In Da Club

Stageside Blogging: Snoop Dogg Walks the Line

Aftermath: Twotenanny at the Mink

Vinyl Ranch’s tribute to Urban Cowboy

Leon’s monthly country-music installment pays tribute to classic country cinema

Jennifer "Miss Pop Rocks" Mathieu's Matagorda Island Discs

Pop Numerology: How High Can You Go?

The Sad Kermit Video

Kermit hurt himself today

Various Artists

Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly

Hope Springs Eternal

A northern suburb tops our third installment of rating greater Houston's taste in music

Johnny Cash

American V: A Hundred Highways

The Great Cash-In

Never Go to a Party in Friendswood

Where does your town rank in the Houston-area good-taste stakes?

Hello, He's Not Johnny Cash

Walk the Line never strays from the dull telling of a tall tale

Neil Diamond; Bobby Bare

12 Songs; The Moon Was Blue

Best Jukebox

Those Bastards!

Johnny Cash's legacy lives on

Let the Picture Paint Itself

The Houston Kid hits his stride a quarter-century into his recording career

Banjos and Body Piercings

William Elliott Whitmore brings old-school bluegrass to the punk underworld

Reprogram Your Life

An omnivorous three-headed DJ monster wants to rewrite your old musical code with hip-hop vibes

Best Toy Store

G&G Model Shop

Prodigal Sons

The Man in Black claims his Bastards

Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash

Walk Alone (Ultimatum Music)

Houston Kid

Rodney Crowell sets his topsy-turvy East End childhood to music

Wanted Man

Johnny Cash may just be a legend, but he's never sounded better

Rotation

Rotations

Down and Dull in Austin

South by Southwest disappoints -- again