Thursday, March 28, 2024

Freddie King: Texas Cannonball

If you’ve spent any time in a Texas blues club, you’ve heard not only T-Bone Walker, but Freddie King, whose influence goes beyond notes, style and material. The “Texas Cannonball” is there in the stinging leads that pierce precaution and in the low-slung blues breakers that remind everyone to tip the waitress or bartender. King’s […]

How to make a year-end list 1998

As a critic gets older, certain tasks become more difficult– like trying to show any interest whatsoever in the latest R.E.M. release. But other activities become a breeze, such as making a year-end list of the 10 best records. In the old days I used to spend weeks compiling the list that best defined my […]

1997: The Year of Chris Rock

Bill Hicks, Andy Kaufman and Sam Kinison are dead. Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy might as well be, as many chuckles as they’ve inspired in recent years. Then there are all those once-promising comics like Jerry Seinfeld, Rosanne, Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Allen, Brett Butler and Paul Reiser who’ve sold […]

Randy Travis Maui 1993

Randy Travis was, easily, my favorite singer when I was country music critic of the Dallas Morning News – he still is. So when I went to Oahu in 1993 for my sister’s wedding, I arranged a sidetrip to Maui. Randy was a great interview that day, didn’t flinch or hold back at all, and […]

Boyd Elder 1944 – 2019

In the 1960s at his Soho building in New York City, “minimalism” icon Donald Judd would take his phone off the hook and park his elevator on the second floor to avoid the agents, the media, and the young artists who saw him as a mentor. He wanted to work without distraction. Judd found his […]

SXSW 2001: The Throng Remains the Same

Welcome to Groundhog Week, where every day is exactly the same as it’s been the past few years. Oh, it may look a bit different as you stroll around downtown Beirut, but everything else is unchanged as we head into another campaign that Jon Dee Graham has dubbed “the festival of false hope.” Even the […]

Wow! Austin club residencies 2006

Toni Price is the undisputed queen of the calendar tattoo, making the term “residency” purt near permanent with her Tuesday night “Hippie Hour” shows at the Continental Club. In 13 years of Tuesdays, Toni’s missed her spiritual party about as often as the University of Texas offensive line has skipped supper. Then you’ve got the […]