When Jack White of the White Stripes announced at Stubb’s Austin in June 2003, “It’s good to be in Texas, the home of Blind Willie Johnson,” you can be sure that few on hand had ever heard of the gospel blues singer/guitarist who pioneered a ferocity that still lives in modern rock. The first songs […]
Story originally published March 2014 on Arts & Labor blog. I sometimes refer to the Austin Music Awards as the Austin Moser Awards and it wasn’t a jab so much as the truth. Margaret Moser’s Olympic-sized personality dominates every aspect of the proceedings. Her graciousness is reflected by the vast number of categories and her […]
His gospel points to a higher power, for how could man alone make music for the angels?
On Oct. 9, 2000, which would’ve been John Lennon’s 60th birthday, Jody Denberg hosted a tribute concert at the KGSR studios. On Facebook, Marsha Milam posted about how Jimmy LaFave just walked in, asked Jody which songs were left (Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and many other acts were involved) and when he found that “In […]
The best Bob Dylan show I ever saw, will ever see, was in November 1995 at the Austin Music Hall. This was not long after his friend Jerry Garcia died from substance abuse-related causes, and Dylan seemed sharper, more in-the-moment, than the barely coherent legend I saw at the Chicago Theater a couple years earlier. […]
By Michael Corcoran It’s the latest in a series of dead Friday nights on Beale St., and if 11-year-old “Little Momo” Tabron appears any more bored, you’ll be tempted to snap your fingers in front of his face. This kid – who’s spent half his life playing drums for tips on Beale – looks as […]
By Michael Corcoran One Saturday, every Saturday, in Fort Worth, 1960: A pair of 12-year-olds in the T.H. Conn music store messing around with the various stringed instruments hanging from the walls. The shorter of the kids always went back to his favorite guitar, a beat-up Epiphone Texan acoustic, which had the sweetest tone he’d […]
His love of music was contagious.
Mike Flanigin puts down the guitar to sit behind a “desk”
