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Cole Swindell’s Down Home Tour will be stopping at DFW’s Billy Bob’s Texas on Nov. 26. I can assure you that this is going to be a show you don’t want to miss and here are five reasons why!

1. It’s Bigger & Better. This will be Swindell’s 3rd Down Home Tour and after spending the summer on Florida-Georgia Line’s Dig Your Roots Tour, this Georgia boy has sharpened his performance abilities and is ready to have you rocking and singing along all night. If you saw him at Choctaw Casino’s Grand Theater earlier this year, or at the CMA fest, Toyota Stadium, or on the CMA awards show just recently — you know what I’m talking about and will want to catch him again. If not, you need to catch him at Billy Bob’s.
2. Jon Langston. This rising country star is going to bring it. There’s a lot of chatter
   

   Photo by Mary Jane Farmer

   around his talent with many calling him the next big star. And there is no doubt he will be on his way after opening up for Cole. If you aren’t already a fan, you will be after you see him open the show. It’s a twofer-the-price-of-one concert.

3. Intimate Fan Experience. For an artist like Cole, there is nothing like playing to a sold-out arena of fans who are singing every word on your songs, but it doesn’t exactly leave the fans feeling like they got much – if any – meaningful interaction with the artist. That’s why it’s important to Cole to perform in more intimate venues. Instead of feeling like you are one of tens of thousands, you will get the real fan experience at Billy Bob’s
4. New Music. Cole just released his Down Home EP. He released his sophomore
   

   Photo by Mary Jane Farmer

   album, You Should Be Here, in May, so it’s rare that an artist releases more new music so soon after. But, Cole is a songwriter at heart and his desire to give fans more of his artistry is evident. Chances are you will be treated to a few songs from the EP.

5. You Should Be Here. Literally! If you’ve never experienced Cole sing his career-defining hit “You Should Be Here” live, you are truly missing out. It’s one thing to hear it on the radio, but it will transcend you to another moment when you hear him pour his heart into his song. He is sure to tug at your heartstrings.

Catch Cole Swindell on his Down Home Tour at Billy Bob’s Texas on Nov. 26. Grab

Photo by Mary Jane Farmer

your tickets here:  Billy Bob’s Texas tickets

In case it’ll be your first time at Billy Bob’s Texas, the address for your GPS is 2520 Rodeo Plaza in Fort Worth.

Photos by Mary Jane Farmer — Click on the link below for more photos

Neal McCoy and his fabulous band played Thursday night, (Sept. 22, 2016) at the Four Rivers Outreach fundraising banquet, held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Sherman/Denison. Now, there’s many performers who bring a powerful and perfect concert every time they play, but few who also bring tasteful and deep-rooted humor and fun along with it. Neal McCoy did just that.

Neal has a way of including his audience in his concerts, especially private parties like this particular event was… open to anyone, but banquet ticket required. He brought one lady in who knew the title of his most recent CD You Don’t Know Me. Now, she was in the way back of the room, but he spotted her instantly when she raised her hand. And he teased and high-fived another person in the crowd, challenging that she knew the lyrics to all his songs. She pretty well did… maybe missed one of the newer ones. And this writer/photographer (there at the request of Four Rivers Outreach, and so working) got the brunt of his humor when I got up from the front table to go to the back of room and get those pix with the crowd in front of stage… “Why are you leaving… you haven’t even heard the next song yet?”  Then, he posed for my camera, and that comic picture is probably easy to find here.

The crowd cracked up. The crowd cracked up a lot, even at his cornball jokes (lovingly calling them ‘cornball’ because they were crazy, but funny) that he ended by spinning around several times on stage.

But he got serious, too. He was actually crying himself when he sang a song he recorded many years ago, which was written to his wife. I wanted to ask him why the tears, but after the show, the fans (old and new) surrounded him and he stuck with every one of them until every last fan had a photo of them together, or an autograph, or just kind nice words, hugs and handshakes.

One of those spectators, who remained completely unmentioned and quiet, probably at his own request, was Rory Feek, half of the Nashville duo of Joey+Rory who played the same Four Rivers Outreach in a year past. Joey passed away earlier this year.

Just a suggestion — but maybe start saving those pennies and quarters now, to buy a ticket to the 2017 Four Rivers Outreach fundraiser, which is already scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 28.

Just another suggestion — catch a Neal McCoy concert anywhere and everywhere you can. Click on that link for his full schedule, and we’ll try to keep up with it here on Scene In Town’s Live Music Calendar.

For more photos, click here

P.S. I didn’t post any of the crowd pix here, other than Rory’s, because those (and these, too) all go to Four Rivers Outreach.

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Aaron Einhouse will be playing at the Barbay at Marina del Rey, Kingston, Okla., on Friday, Sept. 2, and there’s no cover charge.

Story by Mary Jane Farmer, Courtesy photos

It Ain’t Pretty is not just a CD title, it’s also the title of one of the 10 songs on this May release from Austin artist Aaron Einhouse. But, it’s not a description, at all, of the CD, which has some unbelievably striking musicianship throughout the project.

Hal Ketchum co-wrote this title cut, and Johnny Chops helped pen “That’s What You Get,” a fun song about the negative results of negative actions. The other eight Einhouse wrote solo.

His first release, “On & On” which even in late May he said he thought was too early to have made any charts, hit ‘The Next 15’ portion of the Texas Regional Radio Report, missing moving into the Top 100 by only two radio spins. Then, a month later, it was setting pretty smack-dab in the middle of the chart.

Einhouse said he hopes this CD “takes him to the moon and back. I really think it will take us to bigger places and it will spread region-wide. If the public likes it as much as the critics like it, it will bring a lot of new fans on board for us, in the long run. We’ve had great feedback, so far.”

The Austin-based musician and father of two said, when asked what his own personal favorite on the CD was, “That’s kinda like picking a favorite child. I can’t do that. But, I do love performing ‘My Susannah,’ and so from that standpoint, I love what I did on that one. It’s such a fun song idea. It’s a song that starts out with a guy peeling the top off a bottle; flashes back a week to where you find out he happened upon his love, cheating with another guy. At the end you realize he’s standing in front of the house while telling this tale, and deciding whether or not to go in.” The lyrics are in the line of a Johnny Cash song about someone who dies. “In effect, he (Cash) wrote about way more shocking things. What is so cool about music — you can tell these stories and create the emotions with an element of truth in there, too.

“In music, not other mediums, you have the chorus and the structure of the song match what is going on, and you can promote that,” Einhouse explained further. “It’s the best material I’ve done to date — from the recording and songwriting standpoints.”

Einhouse and his band are out touring Texas. “Touring the land,” he

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smiled. “Radio and venues, we’re being received with nothing but great reviews. It’s so cool. You hear from your promotions people, and they think it’s (the CD) good; but they are paid to promote it, so when the fans like it, it’s so cool.”

Aaron said this is the first time he’s embarked on any real publicity campaign, and he realizes he’s on “the lower end of their artist list, as far as notoriety goes; but they like the record so much, they agreed to work with it.”

Einhouse stayed loyal to his roots on this CD, which was tracked at the Panhandle House in Denton, putting a country touch alongside a rock n roll edge into it. “I started my career in country, and now find myself with a bluesy element and put that and a little soul on the record, too”

Aaron had a promising career in banking as a commercial real estate analyst, he said, when he and his wife decided in 2010 that it would just make sense to quit that and put his all into the music. “So I did, and I haven’t looked back.”

His “very real good band” consists of Lucas (Honky Tonk Red) Copeland on bass — “He’s been with me more than two years” — Nick Santa Maria, who is the newest member, on guitar; and Jonathan Bautista on drums. His former guitarist, Tony Brown, played on the CD, but “Nick has picked those parts up really well. We play enough where we can all really bring it. Our shows are very energetic, way out there.”

Another accomplishment Einhouse can claim, is that he books the band himself, and keeps them moving up and down the highways; and uses his time on the road as his office time.

For more info, go to AaronEinhouse.com

Click here for more photos

Dustin Perkins, Chase Sanford, and Jared Mitchell, longtime friends both on stage and off, shared the stage at the new Barbay venue at Marina Del Rey (Lake Texoma), in/near Kingston, Okla., Saturday night, Aug. 27.

Dustin has been sitting low in the music business for the past three years, and this was his official coming-out-of-retirement (though temporary, just for the one night), event. But as his songs showed, he hasn’t been idle in the songwriting department. Lots of new songs offered up, along with his tried-and-true originals from previous recordings and shows.

Chase, too, has been on a short hiatus, but has come out on several times on previous Saturday nights, song-swapping with other area songwriters as he did with Dustin and Jared.

And Jared — well, he fronts the Jared Mitchell Band, which just played the weekend before at Gilley’s, Choctaw/Durant. His band is made up of everyone in the Spur 503 band, including its former lead singer, Chance Cody.

This venue is a temporary one, with the new Marina Del Ray owner building a new one during the winter to be opened when the lake season begins again in earnest. Scene In Town will keep you up to date as we get updates ourselves.

Meanwhile, this next weekend, Labor Day Weekend, will see the end of the music season at Barbay, with Aaron Einhouse playing Friday night, JB & The Moonshine Band playing Saturday night, and Pat Green playing Sunday. And there’s no cover charge for those shows.