It’s easy to dismiss West Texas as just a vast, barren wasteland void of nuance or life. Those West Texans born and bred, they often daydream of escaping the endless miles of mesquite bush pastures, cotton field patches, and iron orchard oil wells. Still, something draws them back time and again. For millennia, its inhabitants have etched out corners and dugouts to break from the wind and fight off the sun. And through it all, they attempt to capture the brazen beauty of the land and the spirit of its people in song and story. It ain’t for the faint of heart. It’s a tough, bold country. The Panhandlers are four native sons from the outskirts of Texas society, having spent much of their lives in the high desert and southern prairie. Individually, Josh Abbott, John Baumann, William Clark Green, and Flatland Cavalry’s Cleto Cordero have long pursued that Far West Texas mythos and Panhandle lore. Scattered throughout their solo catalogs, the four frontmen have delivered earnest anthems and endearing balladry that embodies a Flatland life and South Plains dreams. Still, that hasn’t ever been quite enough for Abbott, Baumann, Cordero, and Green, who in early 2020 released The Panhandlers. […]

January 18 @ 19:00

Kenny G has a way with melody. That’s not necessarily a revelation, but more like a huge understatement, and it really comes into focus at this point in Kenny’s amazing career. This is a musician who has sold more than 75 million albums worldwide, owns the best-selling instrumental record of all time with 1992’s 12-times-platinum Breathless, has the number one Christmas record of all time with 1994’s 8-times platinum Miracles, and whose song “Going Home” has, improbably, become the official end-of-work-day anthem in China. At the heart of those achievements is Kenny’s ability to convey deep emotional resonance with his saxophone, a skill never more apparent than on Innocence, his 20th studio album and fifth for Concord Records.