Politics are almost inherent, if not overt, when bands play in the Washington, D.C., area. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard 1960s protest songs played — often with an extra dose of passion — as encores at shows. Son Volt, the alt-rock/alt-country band led by Jay Farrar, didn’t need covers to weigh […]
I’ve long admired musicians who find it easy to collaborate, moving seamlessly (or so it seems) from group to group while maintaining their own careers. Neko Case and Emmylou Harris do this all the time, as do others, but Dave Alvin and John Doe are experts in the art of the side project. The longtime […]
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This story is about the night Pearl Jam’s lead singer went Americana, singing a cover of a Jason Isbell song. And how, despite the odds, my wife and I were there to see it. On Sunday, closing out the Innings Festival in Tempe, Arizona, Eddie Vedder broke into “Maybe It’s Time,” the song Isbell wrote […]
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The Brothers Osborne made a triumphant return to the Washington, D.C., area on Saturday, playing a 19-song homecoming set in front of a sold out, rowdy and boisterous audience at The Anthem. The Grammy-nominated duo, fronting a muscular six-piece band that is touring in support of their second album “Port Saint Joe,” showed their musical […]
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Americana Highways had a chat with Jon Dee Graham recently. Jon Dee Graham is nothing if not a realist about life in the music business. As his 60th birthday approaches at the end of February, the acclaimed Texas songwriter is working to raise money to make a new record he hopes won’t be his last. […]
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Every winter, Steve Earle takes a “break” from touring with The Dukes and performs a solo acoustic residency at City Winery, a gig that started when he moved to New York in 2005 and has since expanded to include stops in the venue’s other locations across the U.S. The partnership has proven fruitful. City […]
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Touring musicians with multiple albums always face a dilemma: How much should you play of the ‘new stuff’ vs. the songs the audience expects to hear. In many cases, the biggest hits are confined to the last two to three songs or the encores. Some groups have such deep catalogues that it’s impossible to […]
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There’s nothing quite like closing out a year with a bunch of heathens in our nation’s Capital. If not a bunch, then at least a band. The five-member Band of Heathens filled the main room at Hill Country Live on 7th Street and rocked a small but enthusiastic crowd into 2019. The Austin-based group performed […]
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For the past several years, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Los Lobos have come east to play a series of multiple night residencies at City Winery, the rapidly expanding venue that added Washington, D.C. to its stable in 2018. The six-member band arrived in the nation’s Capital on the Friday before Christmas for a two-night […]
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It’s nice to see Ryan Bingham smile. That’s what the singer-songwriter did, early and often during his solo acoustic show at the 299-seat One World Theatre in west Austin on Wednesday. Bingham, whose first album since 2015’s Fear and Saturday Night comes out in February, tested out new material from the forthcoming “American Love Song” […]
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