There’s a tendency to presume that COVID-19 might’ve driven home one of the final nails in the coffin inhabited by the once-affordable popular music concert scene.
Realistically, it was the latest in 50 years of paper cuts that turned music from art into business, and made it just another part of our advertorial non-culture. Punk music once declared that any non-rock influences, and playing one’s instrument well, were selling out. Then disco tempted both rock and funk bands to actually sell out to a fad during the mid-to-late 1970s.
After a promising start, the 1980s New Wave continued that downward spiral, featuring prepackaged music videos — complete with programming, synthesizers and electronic drums, all eventually inhabiting everything from rock to country to rap — that became more of a force than honest, non-lip syncing live performance. Oddly, punk would later be linked by association to karaoke and trivia; open mic and open jam nights, all in the mantra of getting everyone involved and entertained, quality and talent optional.
Hip-hop’s rhythms and syncopation bubbled over in the 1980s, replacing the elements that sterile disco had removed, but they too were largely studio-generated and often lost in translation live, victims of over-reliance on only emcees, deejays, sampling and sequencing. And like most genres, there proved to be only a small percentage of quality artists. Seattle’s grunge movement provided a temporary comeback for live performance in the 1990s, but by then the video plague had infiltrated every form of popular music, making even watered-down artists who didn’t hail from one of the Disney locations seem like they did.
Deejays went from playing other artists’ records to recording their own, and the amounts paid for tickets eventually soared as a result of Ticketmaster, price-gouging festivals, and of streaming paying a fraction of what physical sales did. And you’re most likely to listen to, and order tickets on, your cellphone, that indispensable tool that stunts all human interaction and now makes becoming an amateur recording artist as simple as becoming an amateur photographer.
The internet led to the end of the recording industry as we knew it (video games now outsell music), as streaming and earbuds replaced records, tapes, CDs and actual stereo speakers. Boy bands, performers with nicknames, drum machines, and pitch-corrected and auto-tuned singing have furthered the downward spiral in the 21st century, all as noise ordinances limited outdoor performances. Satellite radio replaced the airwaves, and folks forgot how to actually listen as choreography usurped musical talent.
Want to hear classic rock? Listen to either 98.7 The Gator, the Palm Beaches’ predictable radio station, or watch TV commercials to hear every artist who sold out to advertising. Reggae? It’s so popular in South Florida that it’s more marketing tool than music. And popular competitive TV shows have long focused on already over-emphasized vocals, creating instant sensations along with outlets like YouTube and TikTok. Finally, video killed the radio star.
Celebrity is more valuable than authenticity across all facets of society, including politicians, authors and athletes. “Influencers” are now paid substantially more than most musicians. As the late Frank Zappa once said, “Americans hate music, but they love entertainment.” Still, South Florida’s 2023-2024 pop music season launches with a bang, featuring a festival headliner who was a legitimate country star before we started line-dancing into our current, aging tribute act darkness — the baby boomer gift that keeps on taking — a half-century ago.
It isn’t difficult to figure out who the prime outlaw is within the lineup of the Outlaw Music Fest: the Country Music Hall of Fame member and actor with the bio-diesel-fueled tour bus and a 50-year history of marijuana possession arrests. Ninety-year-old vocalist/guitarist Willie Nelson started out as a now unrecognizable clean-cut songwriter and performer in the 1950s and 1960s before the Texas native developed his persona — and a current look that includes his trademark long braided hair, beard, and bandanas. Also on board is Gov’t Mule, the 30-year-old bluesy rock group that gifted vocalist/guitarist Warren Haynes formed while he was still a member of the Allman Brothers Band. Original drummer Matt Abts has also remained throughout, and the quartet is rounded out by more recent additions in singing multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis and bassist Kevin Scott. The Americana-themed festival will also feature popular North Carolina folk/rock band the Avett Brothers, Florida-born country music vocalist Elizabeth Cook, and the “future folk” of singer/guitarist Particle Kid, a.k.a. Micah Nelson, Willie’s youngest son. 4:35 p.m. Friday, iThink Financial Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansburys Way, West Palm Beach (561-795-8883, $29.50-$5,113).
Aerosmith’s “Peace Out: The Farewell Tour” begins in South Florida during the 50th anniversary of the release of the group’s self-titled debut album. Despite sounding like a demo recording, that debut produced the power ballad “Dream On,” which became a smash hit. Vocalist Steven Tyler, guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer made better-sounding, harder-rocking releases through 1977 (Get Your Wings, Toys In the Attic, Rocks, Draw the Line), earning the Boston-launched band comparisons to British contemporaries the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, before literally becoming a Vegas act. Tyler’s penchant for ballads and keyboards, played either by him or other musicians, and the band hiring outside songwriters in the 1980s led to the group’s biggest subsequent hits sounding more adult contemporary than rock. And recent tours have featured drum tech John Douglas instead of Kramer, Aerosmith’s funky, rocking engine. Soulful, bluesy rockers the Black Crowes — co-led by singing, guitar-playing brothers Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson — open the show as a tough act to follow. 7 p.m. Oct. 20, FLA Live Arena, 1 Panther Parkway, Sunrise (954-835-7000, $170-$4,608).
Stevie Ray Vaughan has cast such a long shadow since his 1990 death that countless imitators have tried to surf in his blues-rock wake — presumably forgetting that his uniqueness was what made him rise through the plastic ‘80s as a legitimate roots music icon. But occasionally, a glimmer of hope arises in a blues man of substance and originality, like Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. The 24-year-old’s authenticity stems from his birthplace of Clarksdale, Miss., and its culmination thus far has been notching the Best Contemporary Blues Album title for his latest release, 662, at the 64th annual Grammy Awards last year. Named for his Mississippi area code, the stinging sophomore album followed his equally impressive debut, Kingfish, from 2019. Both feature Ingram’s story-telling lyrics, vocals and guitar playing, as do his live performances with his stellar backing band. Just as Vaughan’s soloing and chordal sounds encompassed influences like Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and his brother Jimmie Vaughan, Ingram’s collage is a legitimate, modernized update that ranges from Hendrix and B.B. King to Buddy Guy and Prince. 7 p.m. Oct. 21, Lyric Theatre, 59 SW Flagler Ave., Stuart (772-286-7827, $55).
On the surface, Keith Urban resembles the country equivalent of late rock singer Jim Morrison — a male model type who looks the part of a star more than earns that status through talent. But at least Urban plays guitar, and even if that only makes him the country equivalent of Jon Bon Jovi, the 55-year-old artist born Keith Lionel Urbahn has as much country authenticity as possible for a New Zealand native with dual United States and Australia citizenship. Urban’s rise started in Australia in the early 1990s, and was invigorated when he moved to Nashville in 1992. But it was his guitar playing — influenced by iconoclastic pop/rock players like Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham — that first stood out as he contributed his instrumental talents to recordings by Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks and Toby Keith. Urban’s vocals and songwriting have risen to the fore within his solo career, and his celebrity increased as he judged on the competitive vocal TV shows The Voice and American Idol. He’s also half of one of the world’s preeminent celebrity power couples with actress and wife Nicole Kidman. 8 p.m. Oct. 21, Hard Rock Live, 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood (954-315-9112, $75-$475.25).
It’s the “Damn Right Farewell” tour for legendary blues guitarist and vocalist Buddy Guy, the masterful 87-year-old player who gained notoriety in his native Louisiana before moving to Chicago, finding fame, and helping to define that city’s muscular blues sound in the 1960s. The son of sharecroppers, Guy has since won eight Grammy Awards and influenced not only generations of blues guitarists, but also bluesy rockers like Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayer, and Gary Clark Jr. Underrated opening act Los Lobos is one of the countless acts that emerged out of Los Angeles, but theirs is a sound all their own. Now in its 50th year, the band gained stardom in 1988 by covering Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” for the biopic of the same name. Yet singing guitarists David Hidalgo and Cesar Rojas, bassist Conrad Lozano, and multi-instrumentalists Louie Perez and Steve Berlin have continued to spotlight their highly original songwriting, blending their combined American and Mexican ancestral sounds on tracks from How Will the Wolf Survive? (1984) through Native Sons (2021). 7 p.m. Oct. 22, Pompano Beach Amphitheater, 1806 NE 6th St., Pompano Beach (561-223-7231, $47-$130).
Modern country music songwriters know that all they need to do to ensure a hit song is to come up with an anti-federal government and/or anti-woke theme, so just call the leader of the Zac Brown Band the anti-Jason Aldean (the Hutchinson Island resident with the purposely controversial hit “Try That In a Small Town”), who appears at this same venue less than a week before. The 45-year-old, Atlanta-born Brown, the band’s lead singer, guitarist and banjo player, is not just the multi-Grammy Award winner who’s led his band for more than 20 years. In 2011, he founded Camp Southern Ground in Fayetteville, Ga., which hosts annual summer camps promoting diversity and inclusion for kids ages 7-17, and supports post-9/11 veterans year-round. He’s also supported Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit aimed toward revitalizing musical education in underprivileged public schools. Brown’s nine-piece act blends elements of rock, pop, bluegrass, soul, blues and R&B into the foundation it’s presented from its 2008 debut The Foundation through the Grammy-winning Best Country Album Uncaged (2012) and its latest effort, the post-COVID release The Comeback. 7 p.m. Nov. 2, iThink Financial Ampitheatre ($37-$2,611).
Very few modern artists in this, the age of backing tracks and glamour; choreography and lip-synching, could pull off a solo show with just their voice, a weathered acoustic guitar, and multiple harmonicas. Yet that’s exactly what Sweden-born roots music ambassador Anders Osborne did on consecutive nights last year at the Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton. This year, he ups the ante by adding fellow vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Sloane for a duo performance. Osborne’s long residency in, and association with, New Orleans always add spices to his gumbo of original compositions and cover tunes, and Sloane’s creativity and popularity throughout the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., area (including with Yellow Dubmarine, his reggae-themed Beatles tribute act) will be on display as he adds further R&B, funk, rock and soul ingredients. Osborne has been a solo recording artist since 1989, and his prowess as a composer is as versatile as his live performances. Country star Tim McGraw had a No. 1 hit with his tune “Watch the Wind Blow By,” and Osborne co-wrote two tracks on blues star Keb Mo’s Grammy-winning 1999 album Slow Down. 7 p.m. Nov. 2, Funky Biscuit, 303 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton (561-395-2929, $40-$70).
Every once in awhile, you hear a singer who completely surprises you because their vocal sound is completely different from what their appearance makes you expect. The leader of the Marcus King Band is one of those singers. The 27-year-old South Carolina native looks the part of a modern country music star with his trademark cowboy hats and long hair, creating anticipation of a growling delivery of anthemic songwriting. But the vocalist/guitarist performed in gospel acts during his formative years; studied jazz theory and performance, and has a soaring, soulful voice that belies his appearance — and is featured on original material that straddles blues, Southern rock, and R&B. He’ll even throw in the occasional country influence of Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. King’s 2020 debut El Dorado earned a Best Americana Album Grammy Award nomination, and his 2022 follow-up Young Blood debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart. Dallas-launched country singer, guitarist and songwriter Joshua Ray Walker, a flamboyant stylist who also has an unexpected sound, opens the show. 7 p.m. Nov. 5, Revolution Live at the Backyard, 100 Nugent Ave., Fort Lauderdale (954-449-1025, $32-$396).
Georgia might be second only to California in historically producing significant popular music acts, and Blackberry Smoke is one of the Peach State’s 21st-century exports. The Atlanta-launched quintet, which tours as a seven-piece band, formed in 2000 and debuted its recording career with Bad Luck Ain’t No Crime in 2003. Vocalist/guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist/vocalist Paul Jackson, bassist/vocalist Richard Turner, drummer Brit Turner, keyboardist Brandon Still, guitarist/mandolinist Benji Shanks and percussionist Preston Holcomb now frequent South Florida, including a banner performance at the Abacoa Ampitheatre in Jupiter in 2021. Parts rock and blues; country and folk, the Americana group’s releases have traversed several different charts. Holding All the Roses (2015) topped Billboard’s American country chart; Like an Arrow (2016) topped both the U.S. country and U.K. rock charts, and Homecoming: Live in Atlanta (2019) landed atop the U.S. Americana/folk chart. The soulful band is likely to play selections from all, plus Little Piece of Dixie (2009), The Whippoorwill (2012), Find a Light (2018), and You Hear Georgia (2021). 8 p.m. Nov. 9, Pompano Beach Amphitheater ($34-$55).
Only a handful of musicians have changed the sound of a group just through their inclusion, and guitarist Martin Barre definitely qualifies. Replacing fellow Brit Mick Abrahams in Jethro Tull for the group’s 1969 sophomore album Stand Up, Barre proved to be the prime ingredient in turning lead singer Ian Anderson’s outfit from a blues-rock vehicle into one of the leading historical progressive rock acts. The 76-year-old guitarist’s stinging fretwork has primarily been featured through solo recordings over the past 20 years, but his sound is always informed by the band he transformed. Barre released MLB: 50 Years of Jethro Tull, his latest in a 30-year solo recording career, in 2019. The pre-COVID tour to support the chronology featured not only Barre’s talented quartet members Dan Crisp (vocals, guitar), Alan Thomson (bass) and Darby Todd (drums), but also special guests in original Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker and that band’s longtime keyboardist Dee (formerly David) Palmer. This tour is called “A Brief History of Tull,” and tickets are also available for a forthcoming separate, non-concert meet-and-greet ($100) with Barre, who’s as masterful of a conversationalist as he is a guitarist. 5 and 7 p.m. Nov.10, Lyric Theatre ($52).
Like Steely Dan, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter Bruce Hornsby brings a heavy dose of jazz influence into what’s largely considered pop material. On his current solo tour, the 68-year-old Hornsby celebrates the 25th anniversary of Spirit Trail, his ambitious double CD from 1998. Like most of his work, Spirit Trail also includes elements of folk, bluegrass and rock and, in this case, Southern themes of religion, race and tolerance penned by the Virginia native. Hornsby, who was a touring member of the Grateful Dead from 1990 to 1992, has versatility that comes naturally. After graduating from high school in his hometown of Williamsburg, he studied music for a year in-state at the University of Richmond before attending the jazz launching pad the Berklee College of Music in Boston, then graduating from the University of Miami’s all-purpose program. Hornsby’s list of subsequent Grammy Awards follows suit —Best New Artist in 1987 to Bruce Hornsby & the Range; Best Bluegrass Recording for the song “The Valley Road” in 1990, and Best Pop Instrumental Performance for “Barcelona Mona” in 1994. 7 p.m. Nov. 11, Lyric Theatre ($80), 8 p.m. Nov. 12, Wells Hall, 707 NE Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale ($46.50-$284.25).
Vocalist Pink might be part of the nickname brigade, yet she’s popular enough to warrant South Florida shows on successive nights at two different venues in neighboring counties, a rarity. She’s also likely the only artist who’s been handed a fan’s late mother’s ashes onstage while recently performing in the U.K. Take that, Taylor Swift. The colorful, Pennsylvania-born artist formerly known as Alecia Beth Moore Hart’s “Trustfall Tour” runs well into 2024 and routes through the United States, Canada and Australia. And its stops will include not only selections from her ninth and latest album Trustfall, but also various aerial stunts inspired, and made possible, by her participation in competitive gymnastics as a child. The Grammy-winning, 44-year-old mother of two embarked on her musical career around the turn of the century, and has become one of the 21st century’s definitive musical celebrities through her soaring contralto voice, hair and fashion styles (including as a spokesmodel for CoverGirl), animal activism, and support of the LGBTQ community. 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14, Kaseya Center, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami (786-777-1000, $107-$385), 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15, FLA Live Arena ($130-$2,044).
Chris Wood, bassist for the Wood Brothers, came to the group well-versed in reinvention. Emerging out of the still-active 1990s trio Medeski, Martin & Wood — arguably the most important jazz/fusion collective since Weather Report, with neither of those acts featuring a guitarist — Wood changed colors the way keyboardist John Medeski did by stepping into New Orleans funk with members of The Meters, and the way drummer Billy Martin did with his historical instructional percussion books and recordings. The Wood Brothers also feature brother Oliver Wood on acoustic and electric guitars and multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix, all playing an Americana mix of original blues, folk, and roots rock. The idea for the side project stemmed from Oliver sitting in with Medeski, Martin & Wood during a concert in North Carolina in 2001, and the Colorado-born brothers eventually released their 2006 duo debut, Ways Not To Lose, produced by Medeski. Its bookend is their ninth recording, this year’s Heart Is the Hero, with its collage of acoustic and electric stringed instruments rounded out by Rix, who made the duo a trio a decade after the group’s inception. 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30 at the Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Hwy., Suite 70, Fort Lauderdale (954-564-1074, $33-$76).
The Adam Deitch “Super Jam” features the namesake drummer from the popular jam band Lettuce, along with his bandmate, trumpeter Eric “Benny” Bloom. Lettuce has existed since 1992, when its original members (like Deitch) all attended the Berklee College of Music. That band reportedly got its name through going to the various Beantown jazz clubs and requesting that management just “let us play.” Bloom has been on board since 2011, adding brass to the funk-jazz hybrid sound influenced by forefather artists like Tower of Power, Herbie Hancock, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Playing with them will be New York-based Japanese keyboardist BIGYUKI, who blends elements of soul, R&B and electronica into his own fusion hybrid, and bassist Brad Adam Miller, a musician who’s yet to turn 30 years old but is turning heads from his native Manhattan to South Florida and beyond. Improvisational sparks are sure to fly when this quartet plays on the stage at the tropical Terra Fermata, an increasingly popular outdoor venue for rising touring artists located a stone’s throw from the inimitable Confusion Corner in downtown Stuart. 7 p.m. Jan. 20 at Terra Fermata, 26 SE 6th St., Stuart (772-286-5252, $20 + up).
Vocal group the 5th Dimension may only have one original member in Florence LaRue since its 1966 formation, but its influence reaches far and wide. Bill Bruford, original drummer for progressive rock titans Yes, was asked what sound the band was looking for in addition to its classical and jazz elements when it formed in 1968. His response regarding the vocal tapestry of Yes singer Jon Anderson and bassist/vocalist Chris Squire was that it was inspired by the 5th Dimension. LaRue actually founded the group as The Versatiles in Los Angeles in 1965, with fellow vocalists Lamonte McLemore, Ronald Townson, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., before changing its name the following year. And between 1967 and 1973, the quintet rained down recognizable hits like “Up, Up and Away,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “One Less Bell To Answer,” “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All,” “Never My Love,” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” from the musical Hair. That medley won 1970 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group. All will likely be performed by the current lineup that also includes Patrice Morris, Floyd Smith, Leonard Tucker and Sidney Jacobs. 7 p.m. March 21, Lyric Theatre ($55).