Dave Alvin surveyed the crowded room at The Birchmere and stated the obvious, tongue firmly in cheek. “Probably when you purchased the tickets, you said to yourself, ‘Dear God, I hope they tune a lot’,” Alvin said after performing “We’re Still Here” with Jimmie Dale Gilmore to open the third show on their “Almost Acoustic” […]
Thirteen years ago, on a Saturday morning just 10 days before Christmas, my cousin Kerry was killed while driving to Austin from the small West Texas town of Albany. His truck crossed over the median and slammed into an 18-wheeler on U.S. 183 South; police later said he apparently had a seizure and passed out […]
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Mark Davidson was an adjunct professor at the University of Texas and working for historian Douglas Brinkley as a research assistant in the summer of 2017 when he found a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that seemed like the right fit. The previous year, Bob Dylan had sold his vast archive to the George Kaiser […]
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We had a chance to interview Bob Dylan Center director Steven Jenkins recently. In first grade, Steven Jenkins was already “heavily into” The Beatles and The Beach Boys when he discovered Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume 1 in his mother’s record collection.“I didn’t understand the songs back then, but I was captivated by Dylan’s voice […]
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Josh Crutchmer’s Book on Cross Canadian Ragweed Last Friday, Josh Crutchmer was having one of those “mind in a blender days.” He was finishing a writing deadline for Never Say Never, a new book about this month’s “Boys From Oklahoma” reunion of Cross Canadian Ragweed, a band he has followed for more than two decades. […]
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The Boys From Oklahoma w/ Cross Canadian Ragweed, Turnpike Troubadours and more The Boys From Oklahoma, a stadium-sized celebration of Red Dirt music that spanned four nights and saw a reunited Cross Canadian Ragweed return to the stage for the first time in more than a decade, brought fans from all 50 states and several […]
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Bruce Springsteen at Camden Yards Through a Fan’s Life Tom Kaminski vividly remembers the first time he saw Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band live — July 8, 1981, the fifth of six shows that opened the new Meadowlands Arena near his hometown of Lodi, N.J. “It was ‘The River’ tour. The tickets were […]
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James McMurtry is a master — at storytelling, as a songwriter, and as a musician. All three were in abundant evidence during his annual late summer/early fall tour of the East Coast, where he performed a series of dates with fellow Austin musician and collaborator Betty Soo. Performing last Saturday at The Birchmere in Alexandria, […]
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Alejandro Escovedo interview Alejandro Escovedo at Wolf Trap – Opening for Jason Isbell, Theatre, 9/11, New Album and more As Alejandro Escovedo sat in a van, riding from Pittsburgh to Virginia on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he thought back to that day and how close he almost was to the airplane that struck […]
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John Mellencamp show at DAR Constitution Hall in DC John Mellencamp has always had a canny understanding of the lure and value of nostalgia. It permeates a number of his best-known songs — many of them recorded more than 30 years ago — and it remains a draw to the fans who see his shows […]
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