Eugene Weekly

More than four decades into her career, Marcia Ball is a living blues legend as well as a popular fixture on blues-hungry Eugene stages. But last year, Ball missed her chance to promote her latest release, The Tattooed Lady and The Alligator Man, in our valley. “We were scheduled last fall,” Ball tells EW, “and then I had a fall. I had to miss the gig — a rare occurrence,” adding in a thick Southern accent: “I didn’t get to play my songs for you so I’m coming back to do it!” Continue reading →

Listing your favorite music genres to include “everything but country” has been in vogue since country went from Hank Williams to Kenny Chesney. But honky-tonk duo The Earnest Lovers are making country cool again with their ’50s and ’60s-style serenades.  Continue reading →

Bay Area act Ensemble Mik Nawooj fuses classical, jazz and hip-hop lyricism to create a sound with the explosive intensity of orchestral post-rock. Composer and pianist Joowan Kim takes his love for Western European classical composition and — with the help of a six-piece chamber orchestra, funk-rock percussion, a lyric soprano and rappers Do D.A.T. and Sandman — he crafts modern classical the likes of which have never been heard.  Continue reading →

Familiar things are sometimes best interpreted by strangers. International musician Monk Parker knows this better than anyone. Splitting his time between the states and the U.K., Parker’s music is influenced by his English mother — an avant-garde, minimalist sculptor — and his more traditional American father.  Continue reading →