Playbill

Xanadudes (Now We Are Here) Pay Tribute to Late Cars Frontman Ric Ocasek

Xanadudes (Now We Are Here) Pay Tribute to Late Cars Frontman Ric Ocasek

Mark Winters Debut Record Carries Positive Vibe

Mark Winters Debut Record Carries Positive Vibe

I support

Local

Community

Journalism

Support the independent voice of Houston and help keep the future of the Houston Press free.

Tommy Tutone's "Nu-Wave Americana" and Ongoing Love Affair with Jenny

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 19, 2019

It’s a pretty sure bet that the Houston Fire Department would frown upon lighting fire to a bunch of wood on the stages of the Cactus Records and the Mucky Duck just to create atmosphere for a musical performance. But that’s what singer/guitarist Tommy Tutone wants to do – at...
Mac Sabbath's Fast Food Philosophy

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 30, 2019

This is Texas, where we take our beef seriously. After all, we are residents of the state where Oprah Winfrey was sued by an Amarillo cattleman for disparaging the food on her talk show. Remember, this actually went to trial in 1998. Winfrey and her guest were ultimately found not...
Pablo Cruise Set Sail with a New and Bigger Engine

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 24, 2019

One of the more interesting aspects of pop culture is when a musician or band whose songs have not graced the charts in years (sometimes decades), suddenly has an unexpected resurgence. It could be from a song well-placed on a movie, TV, or video game soundtrack. Or a remake. Or...
The Steel Woods Start Spreading the News - Old and New

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 8, 2019

In terms of health, influence, and popular usage, in 2019 it’s pretty safe (but sad) to say that printed newspapers have had their best days in the rearview mirror. But Tennessee-based Southern rockers The Steel Woods are conjuring up at least the spirit of ink-smeared broadsheets to deliver their contemporary...
The Sax of Boney James Wafts Across the Studio, the Stage, and...the Seas

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 4, 2019

Since 1992, saxophonist Boney James has been on the road as a headliner a lot. A lot. And even before that, he spent seven years as a sideman to jazz and R&B artists like Morris Day, the Isley Brothers, Teena Marie, and Randy Crawford. In fact, it was that last...
Michael McDonald on the Road: It Keeps Him Runnin' This Summer

By Bob Ruggiero
Jun 24, 2019

On “Hail Mary” – the opening track of Wide Open - Michael McDonald plaintively asks this question of the woman who he is desperately trying to win back: “Does the sound of my voice still carry?” And on 70+ minutes of the 2017 record of all-original material (his first in...
Brit Floyd's Damian Darlington on Flying Flags and Building Walls

By Bob Ruggiero
Jun 17, 2019

Damian Darlington remembers the first time he heard the music of Pink Floyd. He was about 10 years old when the band’s “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” single was catapulting to the top of the British (and later, American) charts. The song, with its resigned Roger Waters vocals,...
Pete Yorn: One Man, One Mike, Two Guitars, and a Lot of Stories

By Bob Ruggiero
May 13, 2019

Contemporary musicians can certainly have an interesting relationship with social media – or at least those who actually handle their own Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts and don’t leave it up to a publicist. Some find it a great way to keep in touch with their fans personally and get...
Nils Lofgren Gets Blue with Lou, Hits the Road with Band

By Bob Ruggiero
May 9, 2019

Even in terms of rock and roll pairings, they seemed like a truly odd couple of musical collaborators. But more than 40 years ago, singer/guitarists Lou Reed and Nils Lofgren worked on a baker’s dozen of tunes, and nearly half of those are making their public debut on Lofgren’s new...
The Marcus King Band's Southern-Fried Confessions

By Bob Ruggiero
May 8, 2019

The life and outlook of people are often tied to the geography of their upbringing. And for musicians, that geography and the people and the places they’ve been around will usually influence their work. For singer/guitarist Marcus King, that place is Greenville, South Carolina, up in the northwestern area of...
The Allman Betts Band Sets Out to Stake Their Own Musical Claims

By Bob Ruggiero
May 3, 2019

Devon Allman remembers very clearly the first time he met future bandmate Duane Betts. It was 1989 and the two were thrown together on a bus that was taking the group that their fathers belonged to – a little act called the Allman Brothers Band – on a reunion tour...
Circles Around the Sun: The "Accidental" Jam Band

By Bob Ruggiero
Apr 25, 2019

Neal Casal wasn’t expecting that a one-off, one-gig assignment would turn into a completely new and ongoing musical endeavor. But that’s exactly what happened in the summer of 2015 when the guitarist was asked by the Grateful Dead management to record some original instrumental music to be played for tens...
Steve Boone Offers Another Taste of The Lovin' Spoonful

By Bob Ruggiero
Feb 6, 2019

It was the evening of August 23, 1966. In the bowels of New York's Shea Stadium—though only they knew it—the Beatles were preparing for what would likely be their final concert in front of a paid audience. But instead of pacing the floor, the biggest band in the world were...
Tweed Smith Keeps Her Birthday Party Rolling

By Bob Ruggiero
Jan 24, 2019

Growing up in 1950s/60s Houston, young Alice Faye Smith – named for the popular performer from a couple of decades earlier – always knew she wanted to be a singer. There was really no other career path for her, simply because it was all around her. Everyone in her family...
Lettuce Funks Up the Jam Band Scene

By Bob Ruggiero
Dec 21, 2018

Part of the appeal of having SiriusXM satellite radio and its scores of music channels (with even more on the app) is that pretty much every single band or performer past or present will be played on at least one station. For the Boston-bred Lettuce, that channel is Jam On...
Fastball Celebrate Two Decades Since Breakthrough Album and "The Way"

By Bob Ruggiero
Dec 4, 2018

The members of Fastball are in a pretty good mood these days. The Austin-based band have just released a 20th anniversary reissue of their breakthrough album All the Pain Money Can Buy that includes the original album’s 13 tracks, plus 9 more rarities, demos, and outtakes. “We wanted to mark...
Houston All-Stars Pay Tribute to the Texas Tornado

By Bob Ruggiero
Nov 16, 2018

The name Doug Sahm would not make any list of the Top 20 Most Famous Texas Musicians. Nor would it likely appear on a Top 50 roster. But among diehard fans of Texas music, his name and influence ranks far higher. After all, this is the guy who wrote “Texas...
Gary Lewis is Still a Playboy

By Bob Ruggiero
Oct 30, 2018

It’s fairly unusual for a band to hit No. 1 on the charts with their very first single – and especially considering they had never even gone on a tour before. But that’s exactly what happened in February 1965 when the debut by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, the tale...
Judy Collins & Stephen Stills Rekindle Relationship of the Musical Kind

By Bob Ruggiero
Oct 29, 2018

As musician couplings go, the romantic tenure of singer/songwriters Stephen Stills and Judy Collins was fairly brief – less than two years in the late ‘60s, as both of their careers were in sharp ascension. She as a folksinger and he about to launch Crosby, Stills and Nash. Though their...
Country Blues are a Big Damn Deal to This Musical Preacher

By Bob Ruggiero
Oct 5, 2018

Call the Rev. Peyton a “throwback,” and he’ll likely take it as a compliment. Looking like he stepped out of a 1930s kinescope about rural mountain people (or a “Popeye” cartoon), the singer/guitarist/songwriter gets both inspiration from and is a practitioner of the kind of acoustic fingerpicking country blues that...