B.B. King

Rodriquez - Annette Strauss Square Ampiteatre - May 3, 2013

Friday night at the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Annette Strauss Square Amphitheater, two things were pristinely clear: the gorgeous night sky above the blanketed crowd of BYOB-ers, and that the Search for Sugarman is now a full-blown phenomenon of followers who've found their guy in Rodriguez. ... More >>

The Search for the Perfect Guitar, Part III

"Vintage Silvertone Acoustic guitar," "1977 Dobro Duolian," "Martin 00X1 Auditorium Acoustic Guitar (14 Fret)" are just some of the headlines advertising guitars on Craigslist, but how are you supposed to play them, hear them, feel them? When you order a guitar online, you're missing an important p ... More >>

Record Store Day Approaches and Ben Harper Premiers at The White House

This is not your everyday Billboard chart. Each week, we'll tell you which bands are selling in the fine record shops in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where we consumers of music have impeccable taste. The day has finally come and Bill Wisener, Bill's Records owner, can hardly contain his excite ... More >>

Ten Must-See Concerts in DFW This Week: April 4-10

Editor: April showers, right? But a little water isn't stopping anyone, which is good because there are excellent shows happening this week. Including the blissfully strange Danny Brown, touring with beat master and unexpected meme star Baauer. -topic and his TeamFromNoWhere are throwing a party on ... More >>

Dallas Police Chief David Brown Casually Tweets About Firing Cops Before Asking for Blues Recommendations

I've got a really tough day ahead...not looking forward to the decisions I will have to make on some officers careers— David O. Brown (@DPDChief) March 1, 2013 If you follow Dallas Police Chief David Brown on Twitter, you were greeted this morning with the ominous announcement above. We're s ... More >>

Dead Flowers Talk About Bad Tattoos, Heartbreak Songs and Getting the Band Together

If you regularly go to LaGrange, Single Wide or Double Wide, you've seen a member of the quintet Dead Flowers. Earlier in the year, frontman Corey Howe was the opening act for The Revival Tour's stop at Trees, playing alongside Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan, Alkaline Trio's Dan Andriano, and Against ... More >>

Big K.R.I.T., Gomez, Katie Herzig and the Rest of Your Weekend

Big K.R.I.T.​It's a big weekend for music, y'all. We mentioned shows from Mind Spiders and Blackstone Rangers in print this week, as well as Texas Theatre's Soul Train Dance Party. But the biggest show comes to us from Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T., who will perform at Trees on Saturday night. L ... More >>

For 26 Episodes in 1966, WFAA Played Host to the Funkiest, Most Soulful TV Show in America

​Last night, I got a text from Peter Schmidt, who could not believe I've never written about a short-lived 1966 TV show called The !!!! Beat, hosted by iconic Nashville deejay Bill "Hoss" Allen. Wrote Peter, who'd come across it yesterday after a lunchtime discussion about Etta James turned up an ... More >>

And the Winners Are ... You

Our 23rd annual Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase a scene ready for the spotlight.

Buddy Guy: "If [Clapton] Says That I Am The Greatest Guitar Player Ever, Then Maybe I Am."

Buddy Guy​At 75, guitarist Buddy Guy remains as nimble of a string-bender as he was when his career started over 50 years ago. And what a career it's been: Eric Clapton calls Guy the greatest player ever, and, clearly, Guy has influenced generations of blues guitarists. He still makes gr ... More >>

Sterling Winfield Engineered Pantera Albums, Toured The World and Produces Hellyeah

Welcome to Local Music 'Mericans, where we meet the people in the local music scene that you don't see on stages. Sterling Winfield​It's such a cool thing when our LMA subjects have the humble beginning of simply being a fan. Even more exhilarating is the fan who elevates to a position of we ... More >>

For Sale, a Very Rare Keepsake From When The Byrds Played the Forest Ballroom in June 1968

Heritage Auction Galleries​Says here the the Forest Theater was built in '47; my father, who grew up a few blocks over on Park Row, recalls how, in the mid-'50s, Shearith Israel used the movie theater for High Holiday services when they were finishing out the synagogue's present-day location on Wa ... More >>

Okkervil River, Chromeo and a Ton of Other Show Announcements

One of the many incarnations of Okkervil River​Still fresh from the release of their new album I Am Very Far, Austin's Okkervil River seems to be working quite hard to let everyone know about it. The album is quite solid, thanks in part to the production work of local producer John Congl ... More >>

Tonight, Tonight: Amos Lee at House of Blues, Chris Watson at Dan's Silverleaf, The Lonesome Heroes at The Kessler and Murder FM at Trees

Another frigid Thursday evening and another quality collection of musical options for the discerning music fan...

Dallas Children's Theater Gives the Big Bad Wolf his Day in Court in the musical 3 Little Pigs; hear Etta sing in Deep Ellum production.

For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: The Texas International Pop Festival "Box Set"

​Richard Hayner, keeper of the Texas International Pop Festival website, maintains he's still -- still -- writing a book about that Labor Day Weekend when Angus Wynne brought Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, B.B. King, Ten Years After, Santana, Johnny Winter, Sly and the Family Stone and on and on and ... More >>

For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: The Shape of Jeff Beck to Come at Louann's in '68

R.E. BarnesThis is an actual photo from that July '68 show at Louann's. The story behind it can be found here.​Three, almost four years ago I first mentioned it -- Jeff Beck at Lou and Ann Bovis's joint on Lovers Lane and Greenville Avenue in '68, with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood among those roundin ... More >>

Little Girl Blue

Listomania: 10 Songs Dad Made Us Hate

Hey Dad, need to put old Bob Seger back on the shelf. ​Dear Dad, First of all, Happy Father's Day. OK, now that that's done, we've got something to say. Our heads our going to explode, Scanners-style, if we hear you jack up the radio to ZZ Top's "La Grange" again. Maybe back in the day, when you ... More >>

The 15 Worst ...and Friends! Albums Of All-Time

​It's hard not to remember Santana's 1999 album Supernatural. Besides just the Rob Thomas collab "Smooth," which we've spent the past decade trying to erase from our memories, the album received a lot of attention at the time for being one of those records that featured a different collaboration w ... More >>

Q&A: Warren Haynes of Gov't Mule Shares His Thoughts on Turning 50, Jimi Hendrix, David Allan Coe and More

​Besides being ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone's Greatest Guitarists of All Time list, Warren Haynes is also one bad mother on stage.But, off stage, the Allman Brothers/Gov't Mule guitarist turned out to be a pretty affable guy who spoke quite eloquently about a number of subjects--beginning with wha ... More >>

Echoes and Reverberations: Without You, I'm Nothing

"Well, I was passing by a pawn shop in an older part of town, something caught my eye and stop and turned around / I stepped inside and then I spied in the middle of it all, was a beat up old guitar hanging on the wall / 'What do want for that piece of junk?' I asked the old man / He just smiled and ... More >>

Gig Alert: Tommy Castro Tonight at The Granada

​Tonight's already got a pretty full plate of musical offerings with Megadeath at The Palladium, Metric at Gilley's and The Whigs at the Loft. Hell, one could attend all of those without walking 100 yards. But for those who's tastes are more traditional, bluesman Tommy Castro makes a stop at the ... More >>

Fats Washington's "I Got Inducted Into The West Coast Blues Hall Of Fame 30 Years After The Fact Blues"

Q&A: Blues and Rock Guitarist Rocky Athas

Sure Hope You Like Norah Jones

Smoke on the Water

Out where the Jägermeister flows, we rock

Ian McLagan, Bugs Henderson

Friday, July 27, at the Granada Theater

Jerry Lee Lewis

Friday, March 30, at Nokia Theater

Coco Montoya

Thursday, February 15, at the Granada Theater

2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards

Walker, Texas Ranger

From Dallas came the man who first plugged blues into an amp--and into popular culture

This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

Odds & Ends

Local friends of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown pay tribute to the late musical legend

Feeling Blue

Here's Hoping

Hope springs eternal on Second Avenue, but real change comes slowly

Lost in Space

Meet the new radio, XM. It's big. It's bad. It's nationwide.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

SRV (Epic Records/Legacy)

The mind's ear

Jimmie Vaughan is two albums into a solo career he didn't necessarily want

Night & Day

March 26-April 1, 1998

Behind the lines

From reds to feds to blues

Out Here

Roadshows

Camelot in 4/4 time

A golden age in Dallas jazz turns 40

Reef's herbal remedy

Another sign of the end of the Brit-pop invasion?

Out There

Goldfingers

Why the classical world is sending love letters to Dallas guitarist Carlo Pezzimenti

Answer this door

DTC's Thunder is a sensual roof-raiser

A sharp right

In When We Were Kings, Ali delivers the performance of a lifetime

Bootlicking

Some of the best records are the ones never released