She had to sin to be saved Signed to a major label before she was even voting age, Maria McKee was always doomed to take a fall. No one wants to hear your voice crack in public. McKee’s had a big, beautiful voice since the age of 20: Lone Justice’s…
Mas means less Colossal Head Los Lobos Warner Bros. The premier roots band of the ’80s has been mutating into the premier avant-rock band of the ’90s–first with Kiko, then as Latin Playboys, now this step in the evolution from bar-band traditionalists into studio creations. This isn’t Los Lobos anymore,…
Blue yodel In 1996, a 61-year-old white male singing country music–the gen-yew-wine article, that is, not this pop-pretty-guys-and-doll garbage NashVegas sticks a hat on and calls country–is a novelty, so much so that Prime-Time Live recently sent a Yankee down here to learn how to yodel from Don Walser. Guys…
Tiny Tim, big record Girl Tiny Tim with Brave Combo Rounder Records After struggling for so long to shrug off the novelty tag that has nipped at its heels since the get-go, Brave Combo teams up with the King of Shlock–the little freak who goes on Howard Stern to talk…
In 10 years of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin–the annual gathering of music-bizzers that has become the largest such confab of its kind, drawing well over 5,000 registrants and more than 600 bands–there have been plenty of great concerts and a myriad of impressive showcases…
When they were booked on the same Ed Sullivan Show episode in 1956, Elvis Presley told Ella Mae Morse that listening to her sassy ’40s records, such as “Get On Board Little Chillun,” “Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet,” and her million-selling “Cow Cow Boogie,” taught him how to sing. But…
For many of the faithful, Roy Ashley’s down-home twang defined what little remained of the old KNON-FM spirit. His was the voice of the people who drove pickups, drank Pearl, and knew all the words to “Waltz Across Texas.” On February 29, Ashley wished his audience farewell and abandoned his…
There are some things that, to be truly enjoyed, require a certain suspension of cynicism–stuff like reading fiction, finding God, falling in love…and music, of course. And cynicism about David Garza–or Dah-veed, as he prefers to be called–has been all but the party line in many of the hipper music…
Better than their bite The audience was so sparse all Dave Sardy could do was laugh. The Barkmarket frontman stood at the edge of the Orbit Room stage in late November, staring and smiling slightly at the 15 or so boys–and they were truly boys, kids in backwards baseball caps…
Hero worship Second Coming Bobby Patterson Proud Records At this late date–after a young career spent on the local Abnak/Jetstar label in the ’60s, a stint as performer, producer, and writer for Jewel/Paula in the ’70s, and lost years spent selling other musicians’ records–Bobby Patterson is still forced to re-lease…
The Devil and Greg Dulli Black Love Afghan Whigs Elektra Records Greg Dulli fancies himself rock and roll’s playboy, the homely dude transformed into a soul-singing sex god whenever he plugs in his guitar and stands in front of a video camera. He venerates his indiscretions, glamorizes the lifestyle of…
It came from Memphis Post-rock–that’s what they call it in rock-crit and indie-rock circles, a term that has come to signify the end of rock and roll and the beginning of something new fashioned from something dead. It means, as I understand it, that all rock and roll made now…
Pompadour circumstance Rockinitis Ronnie Dawson Crystal Clear Sound On hearing the news that Crystal Clear Sound was reissuing Ronnie Dawson’s 1989 LP, Rockinitis, kudos were in order for the Dallas-based label, which also did the Lord’s work in ’94 by distributing Dawson’s Monkey Beat! album in the U.S. After hearing…
Stop it, you’re killing me! Murder Ballads Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds Mute/Reprise When listening to Murder Ballads, you can’t help but compare it to recent media events–the films of Quentin Tarantino, the televising of the O.J. Simpson trial–that offer murder as a cheap-thrill hayride. Such is the niche…
Lou Reed speaks in a deadpan growl, his voice never rising or falling even when he becomes energized enough to stress a point. Through a phone receiver, it is almost impossible to tell when he laughs, except when a small gasp of air seems to escape his lungs. You get…
Until I heard from him last week, the name Marc Solomon brought to mind only an ugly, long-dormant childhood memory. Fifteen or so long years ago, Marc Solomon socked me right in the gut during Hebrew school–flat-out punched me for no good reason, other than to get a chuckle out…
City-and-western Live at Adair’s Jack Ingram Beat Up Ford Records Like the Old 97’s, Jack Ingram and his topnotch band belong to a generation of “country” musicians who come to the genre only after having tried their hands at other music: Ingram once strummed his guitar as a folkie, bassist…
The Geraldine Fibbers’ 1995 full-length debut Lost Somewhere Between The Earth and My Home is a majestic record, epic in its musical scope and explicit in its use of language. It’s the kind of record that comes along once every few years, that appears out of nowhere then slinks back…
Word processor Like Richard Thompson, who gave it his guest shot on 1983’s ironically titled Fame and Wealth, Loudon Wainwright III is a storyteller who recounts his tales to a small, fanatical audience; theirs is the cult of the literate and the twisted, the kind of folks who laugh when…
Four months ago, Erykah Badu was serving coffee at Grinders, the Lower Greenville coffee house across the street from the Arcadia Theatre, antique stores, and trendy dive bars. She was a 23-year-old would-be actress and dancer trying to make ends meet, living with her mom in the South Dallas home…
Great music should be described in terms of the mood in which it puts the listener. In the end, after the echoes have faded and the CDs are stored away in their jewel boxes, we remember the finest worksongs because, individually, they make us do things or feel strongly at…
It is 9 in the morning, a time most musicians do not see unless their day jobs beckon or they wake up to find themselves in the unfortunate embrace of a sleepover mistake. Deep Ellum usually does not wake at this hour, either, save for the construction site that is…
