Soul Music

After LMFAO, Is Motown Gone Too?

Rejoice, rejoice, LMFAO is dead! Rewind: RIP LMFAO FWIW :( All right, maybe not, but LMFAO did in fact do parts of the world a favor by breaking up or, in the "chic" term, "take a break" from making music together. But sadly, LMFAO has killed plenty of things -- shot glasses, making a trip to Mi ... More >>

RIP Donald "Duck" Dunn: 5 Other Great Label Bassists

See Also: "Support Staff: 10 of Pop History's Greatest Backing Bands" Donald "Duck" Dunn, the bassist for Memphis soul band Booker T & the MGs - the house band at seminal '60s Stax Records - passed away in his sleep early Sunday morning, according to his friend and longtime bandmate Steve Cropper. ... More >>

Friday Night: Rev. Al Green At Arena Theatre

Rev. Al Green Arena Theatre April 27th, 2012 Mark my words. If you check the local hospitals exactly nine months from now, you will surely see a spike in activity in the maternity wards. Al Green gets everyone and anyone into the baby-making mood. Even the comedian who opened the show alluded to th ... More >>

Friday Night: Lee Fields & The Expressions At The Continental Club

Lee Fields & the Expressions Continental Club April 27, 2010 A very few singers who missed out on being Al Green and Otis Redding when soul music first got big in the '60s and early '70s, people like Charles Bradley and Bettye LaVette, have been lucky enough to enjoy good second-act careers later i ... More >>

After American Idol And Bad Record Deal, Sundance Head Starts Over

Rocks Off hadn't thought much about Sundance Head since his 13th-place American Idol finish in 2007 and the momentary ballyhoo that followed. Head, the son of legendary Houston blue-eyed soul man Roy Head, remains the only artist who didn't finish in the Top 5 on Idol to sign a major-label deal. Bu ... More >>

Support Staff: 10 Of Pop History's Greatest Backing Bands

Being behind the scenes is what most musicians who don't write songs or sing expect of their lives once they start seriously playing. A career backing someone up can be extremely rewarding, particularly if you are part of a transcendent group of musicians that goes from simply backing up an artist i ... More >>

Warren Haynes, A "Man In Motion"

​Warren Haynes has one of the ultimate guitar player resumes, having played for years with the Allman Brothers, many tours with the Grateful Dead and offshoot Bob Weir and Friends as well as his own wildly popular jam band Govt. Mule. He's also toured with Dave Matthews. Haynes comes to town ... More >>

Beanz N Kornbread Cook Up Good Weather Muzik

Marco Torres​When Rocks Off ran into the production duo Beanz N Kornbread at SXSW back in March, we were advised to stay tuned for a big project set to drop sometime this summer. Well the summer is here, and that project is the impressive Good Weather Muzik. We caught up with the team to inqui ... More >>

Detroit Leanin': Who Is The Best Motor City Artist Ever?

detroitrockcity.altervista.org​Some places breed music. Due to sheer size, any big city will produce its fair share of talented musicians, and some - Memphis, New Orleans, Chicago - seem to have music in the water supply. But none, arguably, more than Detroit: John Lee Hooker, the Motown dias ... More >>

Last Night: Fitz & The Tantrums At House Of Blues

Photos by Jason Wolter​Fitz & the Tantrums House of Blues Bronze Peacock Room April 18, 2011 Soul music is about power, yoking that gospel id to the pursuit of more worldly affairs, but it's also about subtlety. Grunt all you want, but smooth and steady wins the race (and wins over the ladies ... More >>

Soul Patrol

Several Houston DJs are discovering it's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod world.

Idol Beat: Detroit, Shlock City

​In spite of Idol Beat's absence last week (I was undergoing treatment for nose hemorrhoids), Fox's karaoke juggernaut steamrollered on, topping the ratings once again for Wednesday and Thursday night. Last week's casualty, MySpace's Karen Rodriguez, wasn't much of a surprise. I mean, the bili ... More >>

Gladys Knight

Listening Back: KTSU DJ Marks 30 Years On The Air

Photos courtesy of Myron Anderson/KTSU​Friday marks Houston radio personality Myron Anderson's 30th anniversary at KTSU (90.9 FM). Best known for his Friday-morning show, "Listening Back With Myron Anderson," Anderson joined the Texas Southern University station as a student in 1981. That sam ... More >>

Can't Forget The Motor City: Our Favorite Motown Jams

​ She Said has always been a fan of Stax Records, the gritty Southern label started by a white brother-sister team in a movie theater in Memphis. Something about Stax' organic sound and integrated musical influences (this is the same city that gave us Sun Records) had always felt so raw and real. ... More >>

Can't Forget The Motor City: Our Favorite Motown Jams, Part 2

​ Rocks Off - sorry, He Said; we're still getting used to this whole identity-shift thing - is sure some of our readers think we do nothing except sit around and listen to the Drive-By Truckers all day. To which we say: Have you heard Bettye LaVette's The Scene of the Crime or Booker T's Potato Ho ... More >>

Inquiring Minds: Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes On Billy Gibbons, Lightnin' Hopkins, Ray LaMontagne And More

Shore Fire Media​ In this week's print edition of the Press, Warren Haynes talks about juggling his membership in the Alpha and Omega of jam bands, the Allman Brothers Band and The Dead, with the musclebound blues-rock engine he started in 1994, Gov't Mule. The Mule pulls into House of Blues Satur ... More >>

A Bizarre, and Sometimes Electrifying, Tribute to Michael Jackson, Luther and Marvin at Miller Outdoor Theater

​Saturday Rocks Off and a friend attended Keeping the Music Alive, a free concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The show was a tribute in honor of the late Michael Jackson, the later Bernie Mac, the even later Gerald Levert, the later still Luther Vandross, and the even yet later still Barry White - ... More >>

Dancin’ in the Streets…Motown & More Revue

Web exclusive!

Soul Nite

From Motown to the Orange Show, that’s quite a trip

Pocket Full of Soul Music: The Harmonica Documentary

Web exclusive!

Bell Biv DeVoe

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Gwil Owen's Gravy

Gwil Owen Gravy www.gwilowen.com Here's another good record that fell through my cracks this year but deserves to be mentioned. Gwil Owen lives in Nashville and can write to the country form anytime he wants to - or his checking account tells him he needs to. But on his latest project, Gravy ... More >>

Soul Day at ACL: I Feel Good!

Janiva Magness

New Life for Soul Train

“Dancin’ in the Street…Motown & More Revue”

Uptight? Everything is all right!

Bettye LaVette's an old soul, through and through

SXSW: Ending on a High Note with Darondo

The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker

George Clinton

Q&A with the master of funk

James Hunter

James Hunter performs Thursday, October 26, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main. Call 713-529-9899 for more info.

You'll Want Mo

Tommy Castro

Saturday, March 18, the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9666

Supreme Party

Greg Trooper

Saturday, April 30, at McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk, 713-528-5999.

Classics Rock

Which Greek god is your favorite musician?

Al Green

Thursday, September 18

Black Gold

A gusher lay beneath the surface, but you had to drill deep

What Was Going On

At long last, the spotlight replaces the Shadows that obscured the Funk Brothers

Isn't He Lovely

Glenn Lewis waits for the world to see him as more than just a Wonderkind

Wizard of Boz

Boz Scaggs evolves along with his beloved R&B

Aim to Please

Luther and his Healers know the cure for what ails most local bands

Billy Cook

Certified Platinum (Def Souf)

Besides "Let's Stay Together"

Ten other reasons to listen to Al Green

Whiggin' Out

Avant-rock takes shape in the Afghan Whigs and its wild front man

Charles in Charge

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

Rotation

Soul Survivor

Four decades after his first record, Solomon Burke is still in the studio -- and still in God's arms

Sound Check