This Tue., Nov. 11 is jam-packed with live music offerings — breakdown below.The Lone Bellow“Then Came the Morning”– the latest single from The Lone Bellow off a forthcoming album produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner – is a lushly-textured, finely-arranged number with gospel-hued backing vocals and swells of strings driven by the distinctive soaring intones of frontman Zach Williams. The Brooklyn ensemble touches on alt country, roots, folk and soul aesthetics, and the follow-up to their 2013 self-titled is expected sometime next year. (Jaeb Theater at Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa)
Heart Confession: I like ‘80s-era Heart. Ann and Nancy Wilson’s midi-rock phase brings me right back to grade school with odes like “What About Love,”“These Dreams,”“Nothin’ At All,”“Alone” and “Never.” I dig the classic ‘70s fare, too –“Barracuda,”“Magic Man” and the like – but can’t say I’d be sad to hear any of the aforementioned hits during their latest stop in town. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)
WMNF Listener Appreciation Party: Black Taxi with Dropin Pickup, The Reaction The community-funded radio station invites listeners who made pledges over $20 during its fall drive to come out and kick it at this live music throwdown featuring New York rockers that have nurtured a rather impressive local following (Black Taxi), a popular Bay area jammy-roots band (Dropin Pickup) and a new group of acoustic folk-pop makers (The Reaction). If you didn’t pledge, you can become an ‘MNF member to get in; call 813-238-8001 for more info. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
Phillip Phillips A week chock-full of TV reality competition winners (and runners-up) concludes with Phillip Phillips, American Idol’s 11th season champ and purveyor of a few albums worth of lush, driving folk rock with pop-catchy appeal; the latest, Behind the Light, was released this past May. (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg)
An Evening with Randy Newman While Randy Newman hasn’t spent much time on the Billboard (his only No. 1 charter was Three Dog Night’s 1970 cover of his song “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)”), the wry-poignant piano-rollicking singer-songwriter behind “Short People” has put out a rather lot of material in his nearly half-century career: 10 studio LPs, a few live albums and several comps (including the two-part Songbook series featuring Newman stripping down his more orchestrated material to solo piano/vocal recordings), a musical, and 24 film scores included. His film work has received plenty of accolades; a few Academy Awards (for songs in Toy Story 3, “We Belong Together,” and Monsters Inc., “If I Didn’t Have You”) along with six Grammys. Likely this solo date will find him belting smoky, bumblebee-buoyant vocals in songs from both his studio and film repertoire. (Capital Theatre, Clearwater)
CLICK HERE to see a full schedule of happenings for tonight and the rest of the week...