Despite the uphill struggles of everyday life, embodied in songs like “Nobody Gives A Damn,” the hapless characters on this band’s sixth album keep striving for the “Best Seat In The House.”

Southern rockers Blackberry Smoke guide the Find a Light Tour into The Rialto Theater.

Shit-hot guitarist Chris Shiflett, best known for his tenure with Foo Fighters, opens the show. Details here.

Out on their first West Coast tour in more than 18 years, seminal indie rockers Duster grace the Club Congress stage. Backed by Hikikom ori, Soft Shoulder and Droll. Details here.

Mayhem ensues when The Black Market Trust cut loose their infectious brand of traditional vocal jazz in the Copper Hall at Hotel Congress. Details here.

Friday:

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Courtesy of Ticketfly

From Flint, Michigan, country outlaw Whitey Morgan sings it straight, with no chaser. His working class psalms serve to help the downtrodden drink their sorrows away, leaving the world a tiny bit better place. With country neo-traditionalist Alex Williams. At The Rialto Theater. Details here.

Acerekó performs Afro-Cuban/jazz at Crooked Tooth Brewing Company. Details here.


“Drinking Class” hero Lee Brice spreads “Rumors” at The Diamond Center. Details here.

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Courtesy of Fox Tucson Theater

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie”: Singer-songwriter Don McLean drives “the Chevy to the levy.” With special guest Al Stewart. At The Fox Theater. Details here.

The Living Deads, Pigmy Death-Ray and Taco Sauce place “a whole lot of hell in your handbasket” at Sky Bar. Details here.

Folding vocal harmonies into their folk/country/rock/funk, Amber Norgaard & Sabra Faulk entertain in the tasting room at Sand-Reckoner. Details here.

Super Gay Party Machine: Tucson’s premier LGBTQ (and allies) dance extravaganza features Tempest DuJour, DJ Shorty and Häus of K. At Hotel Congress. Details here.

Tucson Symphony Orchestra presents Fresh Music, Copland and More. Featuring trumpeter Pacho Flores. The evening’s program includes Mozart’s Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio, Neruda’s Concerto for Corno da Caccia, and more. José Luis Gomez at the podium. At the Tucson Convention Center. Details here.

Saturday:

This American folkie has been described as “a Midwestern existentialist hobo.” Greg Brown with the founding member of transcendental folk band The Pines, David Huckfelt, at 191 Toole. Details here.

Seeing “Rebel Red,” alt/indie rockers Hunny arrive “Kicking Cans” at Club Congress. Backed by the fast-paced, jangly guitar-driven pop punk/rock of Hockey Dad. Details here.

Singer-songwriter Leila Lopez backed by bassist Brian Green are in the tasting room at Sand-Reckoner. Details here.

DJ Stubbie keeps the myth alive during The Fineline Revisited at the Surly Wench Pub. Details here.

With note-for-note renditions handpicked from the Beatles extensive catalog, The Fab Four tip the hat at The Fox Theatre. Details here.

Bluegrass fans should plan on taking a day trip to Casa Grande for the Agri-Country Bluegrass Festival. This gathering showcases some of the top bluegrass acts in the nation: Edgar Loudermilk featuring guitarist Jeff Autry, Cedar Hill, The Titan Valley Warheads, Jam Pak, Dusty River and James Reams & The Barnstormers. At the Pinal Fairgrounds & Events Center. Details here.
The Galactic Center says goodbye. It’s been a helluva ride. Galaxian: The Final Departure. H.R. Guerin, Elliot Tierney, Jacob Ladder and Lance Fairchild spin. Details here.

Sunday:

Celebrating three decades of “liquor, women, drugs and killing,” Supersuckers perform a mini-country set of songs from their latest release "Suck It", as well as classic albums unabridged. Lead singer Eddie Spaghetti adds, “Wear clean underwear because we’re gonna rock your pants off.” At Club Congress. Details here. Presented by a live band and theater ensemble, A Hamilton Music Revue is a gritty hip-hop throwdown showcasing the original mixtape music launched by the 2015 musical. “History has its eyes on you,” at The Rialto Theater. Details here.

BreakingGlasss debut their first original set on the Che’s Lounge patio, along with their intrepid acoustic post-punk noir. Details here.

“Mr. Heavy Metal,” nimble-fingered guitarist Marty Friedman, unleashes the full force of his latest release, One Bad M.F. Live at 191 Toole. Flanked by Immortal Guardian and Hands & Feet. Details here.
The legendary Herb Alpert and his wife, Grammy award-winning vocalist Lani Hall, are at The Fox Theatre performing an eclectic mix of American standards, Brazilian jazz, some Beatles y mucho, mucho mas. Details here.

Theirs is a decidedly metropolitan sound, a soul-drenched reflection of life in the urban jungle of NYC. On The Sun “Get Focused” at Sky Bar. With chanteuses Jillian Bessett and Keli Carpenter. Details.


His songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Doug Sahm, Nanci Griffith, K.D. Lang, Joe Ely and numerous others. In a rare performance, singer-songwriter/essayist/painter Tom Russell is in the Copper Hall at Hotel Congress. Details.

Billy Sedlmayr, Gabriel Sullivan and Kaia Chesney are at Tap + Bottle Downtown. Details.

The Losers lay down their winning hand at Owls Club.

Propelled by sound, featuring the entertainers of Tucson Libertine League, Reveal: A Debut of Burlesque Performances tantalizes the senses at 191 Toole. Details.

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Courtesy of Tucson Libertine League

Piano Bar Thursdays continues at The Dusty Monk Pub. Details.

“The devil bites dirty.” Nitecall DJ Mijito hosts Wax and Wane: A Cocteau Twins Tribute at R Bar. Donations to benefit Borderlands Produce Rescue. Details.

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Courtesy of Wax and Wane: A Cocteau Twins Tribute Facebook event page

During the 1970s, with chart toppers “Me and Bobby McGee” and “For the Good Times,” this outlaw songwriter helped redefine country music. Kris Kristofferson & The Strangers are at The Fox Theatre. Details.

The Reverend Horton Heat is coming to town and we have a last-minute giveaway for ya!

Enter for your chance to win a CD of the new album Whole New Life signed by the band.

One lucky winner will also win the grand prize of a vinyl record of the album and two tickets to tomorrow night's show at 191 Toole! (Wednesday, Jan 16 at 7:30 p.m.)

Music writer Mark C. Horn highlighted the band's story in the Tucson Weekly music section this week:

For the better part of three decades, that band has spotlighted an alt-music cult legend who is often confused for his band's name. That man is Jim Heath, who—alongside longtime stand-up bass thumper Jimbo Wallace—has entertained his legions of fans with tireless tours up and down the highways and byways of the United States and abroad.

Heath and Wallace, who have weathered the rotation of a few able-bodied double bass drummers over the past 30 years, have a new album, aptly titled Whole New Life, via Chicago-based Victory Records. The band's 12th studio effort—and first since 2014's REV—proves it's never too late to teach an old dog a new trick.

The title of the new release is underscored by the additions of veteran Dallas drummer Arjuna "RJ" Contreras (Eleven Hundred Springs, Grammy-winning nuclear polka band Brave Combo) and precociously slick West Virginia blues piano player Matt Jordan to the mix.

And if that's not enough, Heath has expanded his vocal range to add menacingly fun vocals that are more than road-tested and built for speed in higher registers.

Coming to 191 Toole with their latest incarnation, Reverend Horton Heat will be hitting the Tucson stage to showcase the new album and play old crowd favorites with the newly expanded line-up...     

Read the full story here.

Enter to win:

During the apogee of bell bottom jeans, then burgeoning guerrilla photographer Ed Arnaud waxes nostalgic about how he managed to snap such killer shots, usually without the band’s permission. “I used to sneak my camera into shows in knee-high tube socks under big bells. I only had a 50mm lens at the time.” You could see a wobble in Arnaud’s strut as he passed through the entrance doors. Duping the bouncers—this before invasive full-body pat-down procedure became de rigeur.

From local punks Civil Death to punk icons Black Flag, photographer Ed Arnaud presents Lake of Fire: Tucson Punk in the 1980s. A photographic event on Saturday, Jan. 12, 6 to10 p.m. at Wooden Tooth Records.

“Wooden Tooth describes my show as Tucson punk in the '80s.” Arnaud expands, “To be more specific, it’s photos of punk and underground bands that played in Tucson during the early ‘80s.” And, what Arnaud presents in his retrospective is only a glimpse into the richness of the scene. “There were so many great bands that came through Tucson then. Sometimes two or three shows in a week.” Most of which were low in attendance. “Drawing 10 to 50 people.”

Here is a sneak peak into rarefied air.

This week our cover story highlighted the triumph and talent of the  Tucson Jazz Festival, and here is your chance to go for free!

Enter to win a pair of tickets to one of four different shows happening between Jan. 11 and 20.

Shows included in the Giveaway are:

• Joey Alexander, Tucson Jazz Institute Ellington Band on Friday, Jan 11.
• Special EFX All-Stars, Groover Quartet on Saturday, Jan. 12.
• Tucson Swings Brightly with Nelson Riddle on Sunday, Jan. 13.
• Bobby McFerrin: Circlesongs on Sunday, Jan. 20.
  

Giveaway entrants may win tickets to one show only. Winners of the ticket giveaway will be notified by email and must come to the Tucson Local Media office to pick up their tickets.

To read our cover story about the festival, click here.

To find a full calendar of the shows and performances, click here.

Yvonne Ervin was born and raised in Springfield, Illinois. Her love for music blossomed early. As a child she played clarinet, eventually transitioning to alto and tenor saxophone. Later, at Springfield High School she “booked a band for the first time” for her freshman class dance, testing the waters as impresario.

In 1979, Ervin attended Illinois State University. Then, in 1981, the University of Arizona where she completed a double major in journalism and music performance. After graduation, she made Tucson her home.

In a touching homage to Ervin, filmmaker Bret Primack said, “She was a doer not a talker.” And achieve, she did.

For the past 30 years, Ervin worked as a journalist/editor/producer for radio and print media publishing articles, writing columns and liner notes, producing programming and interviewing jazz legends for KUAZ-FM, Tucson Weekly, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Citizen, Hot House Jazz, Down Beat and Music Hound’s Guide to Jazz, as well as RCA, Capri and Doubletime records. Thirty of Ervin’s interviews are archived at the Library of Congress.

A charismatic stage presence, Ervin emceed and interviewed jazz greats on stage at the Monterey, Montreux, Tanglewood and Telluride jazz festivals.

In 1989, Ervin became the founding executive director of the Tucson Jazz Society—working as a volunteer for eight years before becoming the organization’s first paid employee—erecting the structure from the ground up, brick by painstaking brick, into the largest jazz society in the country. Beginning her reign as “The Queen of Jazz in Tucson.”

She produced Jazz on the Border: The Charles Mingus Project and organized Primavera, the world's longest-running women’s jazz festival. Bitches Brew, her all-female ensemble in which she played saxophone, often performed. She served as the executive director of the Western Jazz Presenters Network—a coalition of 45 jazz festivals and venues in the West—and The Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance. Ervin served as vice president of the Jazz Journalists Association and the American Federation of Jazz Societies—representing the jazz industry on the International Association of Jazz Educators Board. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hired her to write the curriculum to train new jazz presenters for a National Endowment for the Arts funded program.

As a certified fundraising executive, Ervin, worked in New York City for a dozen years as executive director of the Candie's Foundation. After returning to Tucson in 2011, she was director of development for the University of Arizona’s Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry and marketing director for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Arizona Dance Theatre.

Impressive as such, this is in no way a comprehensive list of Yvonne Ervin’s accomplishments.

After being approached by Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and Elliot Glicksman, Esq., in 2015, she launched the Tucson Jazz Festival. A labor of love.

Primack expands, “She loved the music and the people who played it. She cared and helped people. She was a hero.” From the festival’s inaugural concert—which saw such diverse artists as Burt Bacharach and the Robert Glasper Experiment to this year’s lineup which includes Bobby McFerrin, Pink Martini and Trombone Shorty—Ervin led a one-woman crusade to bring world-class jazz to Tucson.

Yvonne Cerise Ervin left this world on Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018. She had been hospitalized since October with hepatitis A. Following liver transplant surgery she succumbed to a heart attack. She was 59 years old. 

ChamberLab mastermind, composer/performer Chris Black is charging into the New Year with a glut of fresh material. And, he’s pledged to release a song per week exclusively to his email list.

Here’s what you have missed so far.

Week 1 delivered “Angel Goodnight.” A lullaby for solo double bass using natural harmonics.

Week 2 introduced “Butch.” A stomp for bass, drums, and glockenspiel, heralding the arrival of Butch. “If you're a friend of Butch, this is a happy song. If you aren't, then it isn't,” Black says, enigmatically.

And, Week 3 brought “Came Unglued.” Which Black describes as “frantic and calming. Suitable for all listeners.”

Piqued your curiosity? You may want to sign up: www.chrisblackmusic.com

David Fitzsimmons once dreamed of hosting his own Prairie Home Companion. It was 2008, and at the prompting of radio personality Bobby Rich, he began creating celebrity-studded radio plays to benefit the Southern Arizona Diaper Bank. “Attendance swelled,” Fitzsimmons says. He was onto something. 

In recent years, he’s translated the format into The Arroyo Café Radio Hour, a live show and AZPM broadcast he produces every December at the Rialto Theatre. This year’s event is Saturday, Dec. 22. Tickets are $15 at rialtotheatre.com. The show always sells out. 

“We’ve raised more than $20,000 in the (four) years we’ve been at the Rialto,” Fitzsimmons says. “This year the funds are going to AZPM (Arizona Public Media), because I love NPR, Reveille Men’s Chorus because I love their mission and music and Mariachi de Pueblo High School because Pueblo educator John Contreras has a wonderful music program that deserves support.”

Reveille’s Grandsons of the Pioneers are a regular feature of the show, performing in the almost-forgotten harmonies of the popular Western music genre. The 20-year-old organization promotes excellence in music, but also human rights, diversity and advances against AIDS.

“Our musical director Lindsay McHugh is the heartbeat of our show,” Fitzsimmons says. “She is a music teacher and a classical opera virtuoso. She gives us our Gaslight melodrama flavor.”

Besides the Grandsons of the Pioneers, the show’s musical guests include Mariachi Aztlan de Pueblo High School, the popular folk and roots quartet French Quarter and Tucson’s American Idol contender Crystal Stark. Fitzsimmons says, “Her comedic chops always delight us.” 

Each year, an all-star cast of comedians begin meeting in September with veteran radio producer Marty Bishop to write the show. Regulars include Estrogen Hour co-founder Nancy Stanley; KXCI personality and podcaster Brigitte Thum; veteran sketch writer Mike Sterner; comedian and attorney Elliot Glicksman; in-demand local Josiah Osego, and, shaking off the cobwebs of comedy retirement, adman Jay Taylor.

Also featured are Wilbur Wildcat and, and a mystery guest. Fitzgerald says only that “It isn’t Santa Claus.” 

AZPM Producer John Booth, who formerly worked for the PBS documentary series Frontline, edits the show. Fitzsimmons says Booth hopes to take the show statewide one day.

Rialto executive director Curtis McCrary says the venue’s staff looks forward to the Arroyo Café Radio Hour to kick off the holiday season. “It really brings the spirit of the season alive—corny jokes, uncomfortable events with your relatives, music that drives you crazy, hokey Christmas fashion, and at the center of it all, Mr. Dave Fitzsimmons, serving as the Ham that no Christmas celebration should be without! We all get to have super Christmas fun while raising money.”

Comedy Family Christmas at The Mint

Drown your family-holilday-anxiety hangover at The Mint on December 25. The club’s Tuesday comedy night, hosted by Jose Joey G, takes a hiatus in January, but closes out the year with headliner Polo Cisneros and feature comedian Bri Giger. An open mic follows.