CENTRAL TEXAS EVENTS
A benefit concert of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man will be at the Paramount on June 24. The performance features the Tony-nominated star of Broadway’s Music Man Rebecca Luker and her Broadway co-star Jim Walton.
There’s not a more powerful, more engaging gospel group performing today than the Jones Family Singers, who’ve been likened to a Pentecostal Staple Singers. They return to Austin June 4 as part of a Holy Ghost Party! that’ll turn the Paramount Theatre into a revival tent. Also on the bill are Ruthie Foster playing a full gospel set, Houston’s Endurance Quartet, red-hot Country singer James Hand performing strictly spirituals for the first time, and the St. James Baptist Church Choir. Longtime Austin gospel deejay Bill “The Mailman” Martin will be master of ceremonies. The show will be filmed by Music & Entertainment Television on Austin’s Time Warner Channel 15, with the footage launching a new Sunday-morning gospel show.
UT-Austin’s Performing Arts Center (512/471-1444) brings you these performances at Bass Concert Hall: David Copperfield’s An Evening of Grand Illusion, May 21; Train, May 23; Sin Bandera, June 3; Sheryl Crow, June 22; and Lewis Black, June 25. David Copperfield’s goal in Grand Illusion is to take your dreams (and maybe a few nightmares) and make them come true using his state-of-the-art wizardry. The release of My Private Nation in 2003 gave Train fans the Grammy-nominated radio smash Calling All Angels. Alive at Last, the group’s acclaimed live concert album was released in 2004. Sin Bandera recently received four 2005 Premio lo Nuestro Awards, as well as two Latin Grammy Awards, a Billboard Award, and a MTV Latin America Video Music Award. Celebrated as one of the last true rock stars, multi-Grammy winner Sheryl Crow returns to Austin for a highly anticipated rescheduled concert with special guest Jack Ingram. Lewis Black, playwright, stand-up comic, actor, is also America’s foremost commentator on everything on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Texas Music Museum (512/472-8891) presents Texas Music History exhibit Texas Legends of Rock and Roll (and Early Popular Music) on May 21-26. The exhibit celebrates the lives and music of many of our legendary Rock and Roll heroes, presenting their photographs, biographies, rare artifacts, and video performances. The exhibit also explores the lives of some of the early Popular or “Pop Music” stars who predate the advent of Rock and Roll in Texas. Opening-day reception features free admission for live music with Eve Monsees & The Exiles and The LeRoi Brothers and a special presentation honoring the music of Texas rock legend Jesse “Guitar” Taylor, early Texas pop star Jim Valentine, and Texas Rock/Pop label Domino Records.
One World Theatre (512/329-6753, Austin) presents The Funk Brothers, recently portrayed in the film Standing in the Shadows of Motown, on May 26; a unique Acoustic Alchemy Trio show, paying tribute to the original band and their signature guitar instrumentals, on June 2; Corbin Dance’s original and innovative choreography which draws from tap, ballet, club, and modern dancing on June 4; extraordinary Brazilian singer/guitarist/percussionist Badi Assad on June 23; sacred dance of India, American folk music, gypsy rhythms, pop vocals, American Sign Language, and multimedia collide across artistic and cultural boundaries in Sacred Journey: Crossing Cultural Boundaries on June 25; and the Rendezvous All Stars with their combination of melodic contemporary jazz with the improvisational spirit of traditional jazz on June 30.