Click image to view larger
or right-click to download.
Suitable for website: 453 x 700 px
Promotional Material: Click Below for High Quality Full Size Images
VALLEY SO STEEP 1,443 x 1,418 px
Photo by Dustin Downing
2,848 x 4,256 px
For Immediate Release
Aug. 30, 2006
Contact:
McGuckin Entertainment PR
Heidi Labensart, 512.478.0578 office; heidi@mcguckinpr.com
The Texas Sapphires
9:30 p.m. Friday, September 22
Continental Club, 3700 Main St., Houston
Cover: $5
Information: 713.529.9899
www.thetexassapphires.com
THE TEXAS SAPPHIRES PLAY HOUSTON
AS BAND CONTINUES TOUR
BEHIND LATEST RELEASE, VALLEY SO STEEP
AUSTIN, Texas — Alt-country-hillbilly-bluegrass band The Texas Sapphires returns to its home state after a triumphant jaunt through New Mexico and Colorado this month behind its April release, VALLEY SO STEEP, and stops to play Houston.
The band will play at 9:30 p.m. Friday, September 22, at Continental Club, 3700 Main St. in Houston. Cover is $5; information: 713.529.9899.
From Santa Fe to Aspen, the band drew crowds. After its gig in Albuquerque, The Journal wrote: “The Texas Sapphires just sound like fun. They’re what happens when a bunch of punk rockers decide to play country music. It’s loud, proud and in-charge — just the shot in the arm the Nashville boys need to wake up. But, ha! We get them first.”
Since the release of VALLEY SO STEEP (Stag Records; produced by and featuring Grammy winner Lloyd Maines), it has amassed praise, with its “sprightly gumption and a Western spirit that transports listeners forward — into the past,” wrote Houston Press. “The fact that these youngsters can drop a stone-cold honky-tonker like ‘Driftin’ In’ while avoiding the swerve into shtick speaks volumes about their musical comprehension.”
Other tracks such as “The Emerald Outlaw,” “LadyFest,” “Break This Fool” and “Barstow Barstool” make up the collection of 12 tunes on the album: 11 of them written by band front man Billy Brent Malkus plus a cover of “Las Vegas” by the legendary Gram Parsons.
Besides Malkus (guitar, Dobro and piano) and co-lead vocalist Rebecca Lucille Cannon, whose voices, says Country Standard Times, “have a hard-worn quality — like the wood of dance-hall floors — that especially suits this kind of bluegrass-influenced, retro-country music” — The Texas Sapphires are Jim “Haystack” Novak on pedal steel and Dobro, Troy Wilson on bass guitar, and Craig Bagby on drums.
The Texas Sapphires upcoming shows – at clubs and festivals across the Lone Star State and Louisiana – include:
Friday, September 1, Jovita’s, Austin
Sunday, September 3, The Continental Club, Austin
Friday, September 8, Gruene Hall, New Braunfels, Texas
Friday, September 22, Continental Club, Houston
Wednesday, September 27, Antone’s, Austin
Thursday-Friday, September 28-29, Railroad Blues, Alpine, Texas
Thursday, October 6, Luz de Estrella Winery-Arts Festival, Marfa, Texas,
Saturday, October 8, Red River Revel Arts Festival, Shreveport, La.
Interview times are available as well as press kits and review CDs.
To listen to MP3s and to download hi-res images, album art and more, visit http://mcguckinpr.com/mcguckin/thesapphires/sapphires.htm.
Also see www.thetexassapphires.com.
