Merle Haggard

Goodbye, George?

Strait's "The Cowboy Rides Away" tour closes out this year's rodeo.

Jailhouse Rock: When Artists Face Hard Time

Nothing earns an musician instant street cred quite like a night or two in the pokey. It's basically a rite of passage -- a guarantee that if you sign up for the public eye, you will, indeed, screw it up at least once in order to delight us with your antics. From the likes of good ol' boys like Mer ... More >>

Behind "Pancho and Lefty": "That Son of a Bitch Is a Smash"

"Pancho and Lefty" long ago became more than just a song and something closer to a pop-culture touchstone, particularly in Texas and the Southwest. According to Urbanspoon, you can even dine at Pancho & Lefty's Tex-Mex restaurant in St. George, Utah. Unforgivably, it charges separately for chips and ... More >>

The Best Concerts In Houston This Week: Alicia Keys, Maroon 5, RiFF RaFF, etc.

Alicia Keys, Miguel Toyota Center, March 18 Alicia Keys just keeps rising. The Harlem-raised soul singer and pianist has reached the peak of her profession, exuding a retro vibe and flashing her classical training while becoming a fashion-forward style trendsetter. Along the way, Keys has gone mult ... More >>

Saturday Night: Ray Price at Stafford Centre

Ray Price Stafford Centre January 12, 2013 Ray Price has seen scoundrels, outlaws and pop-star pretty boys rule over country music for most of his lifetime, but he sounds determined to go out the same gentlemanly crooner he's always been, the picture of stoicism to the last. Price, who celebrated ... More >>

The Rocks Off 100: Miss Leslie, Queen of the Honky-Tonks

Who? Miss Leslie if you're country, Leslie Anne Sloane has played fiddle/violin in both the classical and country/bluegrass styles since age 5. In 2004, she started Miss Leslie and Her Juke-Jointers, which can usually be found once or twice a month at finer roadhouses and honky-tonks in the greater ... More >>

Merle Haggard

Don Williams

Loretta Lynn

Glen Campbell's 15 Greatest Hits - As A Guitarist

Yet another reason to love Pet Sounds.​In a few hours, Rocks Off will be down at the Stafford Centre, watching the sold-out first Houston-area stop on Glen Campbell's extended "Farewell Tour." It might be the only one, but the tour is booked well into 2012, so we figure there's got to be a Dos ... More >>

Pop Rocks on Sting: "Rock Stars...Is There Anything They Don't Know?"

You rotten flexible bastard.​ Sting. He's the artist we love to hate: Sting, everyone's favorite somnambulant acoustic pop star, has developed a somewhat checkered experience in Central Asia. In 2009, Gulnara Karimova--herself a fledgling pop singer under the name GooGooSha and daughter of ... More >>

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: Music Fans Love Their A-Holes

You rotten flexible bastard.​Sting. He's the artist we love to hate. From The Atlantic: Sting, everyone's favorite somnambulant acoustic pop star, has developed a somewhat checkered experience in Central Asia. In 2009, Gulnara Karimova - herself a fledgling pop singer under the name GooGooSha ... More >>

Rough Justice: Bloodthirsty Bar Greets Bin Laden's Death

ericalessandrini.blogspot.com​Osama bin Laden is dead. Following a late dinner at Van Loc Sunday, Rocks Off was a block or two away from Leon's Lounge when a friend texted us the news around 10 p.m. When we entered the bar, our buddy Lonesome Onry and Mean's daughter in the military had just ... More >>

Graphic: Top Five Rejected Girl Talk Mash-Ups

​Tonight is the big, wildly anticipated Girl Talk show at Verizon Wireless Theater. The show was originally slated for the House of Blues, but ticket sales and space dictated the gig move a few blocks away to capture the magic. Girl Talk, aka Gregg Gillis, is notorious for his inventive mash ... More >>

Rocks Off's Favorite Songs Of 2010

​Editor's Picks: Jamey Johnson, "Lonely at the Top": Ouch. Merle Haggard, "I've Seen It": Double ouch. Patty Griffin, "Move On Up": Help me, Jesus. Please.

Houston Gets Over-The-Air Country-Music Channel

​Believe it or not, some of us get by just fine without cable or satellite TV. When Rocks Off goes home at night - the odd evenings we stay home, that is - not only do we enjoy the finest network television has to offer, but the cornucopia of choices across the digital-TV spectrum: B- and C-mo ... More >>

Stuff You Should Know About: Maddox Brothers And Rose

"America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band" ​Lonesome, Onry and Mean was watching a YouTube of Merle Haggard's "Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)" recently and, as he introduced the song, Merle commented that the inspiration for the song was the Maddox Brothers and Rose. According to Hag, "No one rem ... More >>

Last Night: Merle Haggard At Mo's Place

Photos by Jason Wolter​Merle Haggard Mo's Place November 7, 2010 Next month, President Obama will look on while Willie Nelson inducts Merle Haggard into the Kennedy Center ring of honor, our nation's artistic equivalent of a Purple Heart. A glance at the Hag's tour calendar could offer a sma ... More >>

Solange Knowles Admits She's A "Blipster"

​ As a white thirtysomething male who digs Merle Haggard, Al Green and Skynyrd, Rocks Off is well aware our hipster cred is pretty much in the toilet. Even the bands we do like that were once considered at least kinda "cool" - Wilco, Spoon, Phoenix - now share air time with Jack Johnson and the Da ... More >>

Where Are We Drinking?

"Kid, there are only two things I want in life right now. A pack of Salem Lights and to play some goddamned Merle Haggard on the jukebox. Now get the hell out of my way or you're gonna get a picture of my middle finger to 'post' on your 'blog.'" Think you know where we're drinking this week? Leav ... More >>

Aftermath: Merle Haggard And Kris Kristofferson Help Us Make It Through The Night

Photos by Jason Wolter​There's a line in Merle Haggard's "Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver)" that has become a daily affirmation of sorts for us. It's not the pre-parenthetical part of the title, although we've wondered that often enough. It's this one: "Are we ... More >>

My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers: 18 Readings From The Book Of Hag

​ When Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson take the Verizon stage for tonight's "Who's More Grizzled?" grudge match, they'll bring with them a century of experience as two of the most iconoclastic, poetic voices in popular song, country or any other genre. No disrespect to Kristofferson (four wor ... More >>

Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson

Honky-Tonk Revival

Is Houston ready for country? Again?

Merle Haggard

Mama Tried: A Mother's Day Playlist

Where would we be without our mothers? Ummm... nowhere. So even though mothers come in all forms, from the highest quality (such as the kind the Gray boys are blessed with) to the absentee variety to the just plain crazy, you've got to at least remember that they're the reason you even exist at all. ... More >>

Vinyl Ranch’s tribute to Urban Cowboy

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

Texas Sapphires

Nothing Happening Here: Protest Music, Then and Now

Meat Puppets, Rise to Your Knees

CD Review

KAY'S LOUNGE

Three Wise Men

Off and Running

Merle the Pearl

Is the Hag the greatest three-tool talent in country music history?

Playbill: Two High String Band

Redneck Renaissance

Gretchen Wilson’s return to town makes us wonder, What’s really behind all these songs about Wal-Mart, cheap beer and NASCAR?

Heybale

Saturday, October 15, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899.

David Allan Coe

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

He's Gone Country

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

Rotation

Owed to Billy Joe

Today all the best poets are singers. That's why a singer should be Texas's next poet laureate.

The Meat Purveyors

Pain By Numbers (Bloodshot)

Chicago Oasis

T.K. Bitterman's Sex with an Alligator

Racket

Cedric Turner ventures into an abyss far deeper than ones traveled by most bluesmen

Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash

Walk Alone (Ultimatum Music)

Picking Away at History

Singer-songwriter Tom Russell explores his past to understand his present

Merle Haggard

If I Could Only Fly (Anti/Epitaph)

Night & Day

July 30 - August 5, 1998

Hats Off

Dwight Yoakam's the last great country singer -- and he doesn't need a twang to prove it

Master of the Universe

From presidents to pop stars, Merle Haggard has a song for everyone

Rotation