Joey DeFrancesco

Punxsutawney Phil may have spotted his shadow yesterday, but if it means more 60-plus-degree days, we’ll take it.

And as the winter blazes on (with the threat of heavy storms today, even!), things will be hot inside Legacy Blues tonight, too.

Considered by many to be the best jazz organist in the world, Joey DeFrancesco and his Hammond B3 organ will roll into Fayetteville for a show tonight (Feb. 3) at the blues club. The longtime frontman and one-time member of Miles Davis’ band has released more than 25 studio recordings. The concert takes place from 7-9 p.m. Admission is $30 or $25 for North Arkansas Jazz Society members. The show is sold out, but you can call 587-8981 to be placed on a waiting list.

What else?

The husband-and-wife songwriting team of Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart will return to GoodFolk Productions tonight. Admission to that show is $15 and it begins at 7:30. Reservations should be made by calling 521-1812.

Saturday (2/4) brings another installment of the Mudstomp Records festival, which includes artists such as Mountain Sprout, Ben Miller Band and more. That event takes place at George’s Majestic Lounge.

And on Sunday (2/5), pre-Super Bowl, of course, Emily Kaitz performs at Terra Studios in Durham. That show takes place from 1-4 p.m.

What’s on your agenda?

Perpetual Groove plays a “Sweet Oblivious Antidote.” What kind of poison/malady they are saving people from, I’m not sure.

If you’re looking to preview one of the artists performing at this summer’s Wakarusa festival, tonight (Feb. 2) is a good opportunity. Georgia jam act/electronica group Perpetual Groove will perform at George’s Majestic Lounge.

The group has released several studio albums and hosts their own summer music festival, Amberland, each Memorial Day weekend.

Admission to the 10 p.m. show is $15. Tickets can be reserved online.

Kentucky Knife Fight

Kentucky Knife Fight — a quintet from St. Louis, and not Kentucky — make a sound combining elements of punk, blues and rockabilly. The band, according to its website, “create(s) songs about desperate people doing desperate things in places they shouldn’t be.” The group returns to Fayetteville for a 9 p.m. show at the Smoke & Barrel Tavern on Thursday (Feb. 2) evening. Admission is free.

Northwest Arkansas Media photo by ANDY SHUPE

Negotiations continue to keep the Arkansas Music Pavilion at the Northwest Arkansas Mall in future years, but for 2012, the venue will be elsewhere.

AMP owner Walton Arts Center announced Monday afternoon that because lease negotiations between mall management and the arts center have stalled, the outdoor, tent-style venue will be located at the Washington County Fairgrounds for the 2012 season. It had been located at the mall every year since 2005.

Northwest Arkansas Times reporter Joel Walsh analyzes the situation and chats with AMP officials about the impact of the move and the status of the $4 million worth of renovations that were slated for the venue in 2012.

Also announced in the process was the first concert act of the season. That honor goes to Big Gigantic, a Colorado-based electronic duo. Tickets for the April 21 show are expected to go on sale early next week, and another act is expected to be announced soon.

Bonus: Here’s Big Gigantic performing “Sky High”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In addition to being a really good percussionist, Mickey Hart is a drum scholar who has studied rhythms all over the world. Above is one of those stories.

Wakarusa created a little bit of a buzz when it announced that Bob Weir, formerly of the band The Grateful Dead, was among the many performers playing at the early summer festival.

That gig will take place sometime between May 31 and June 3.

So, what if I told you there’s no need to wait that long to see a Dead member live in concert?

George’s Majestic Lounge announce late last week that Mickey Hart, percussionist for the Dead, will come to the venue on April 23, a Monday evening. He will be joined by Dave Schools, a Widespread Panic member.

Tickets (no price announced) will go on sale on Feb. 7.

Art for "The Hills Have Amps," a metal compilation being released tonight at Smoke & Barrel.

Art Amiss has released several compilation albums that chronicle the various genres in Northwest Arkansas. This one stands to be the heaviest of them all, and for several reasons.

The newest compilation “The Hills Have Amps” will be released tonight (Jan. 27) at Smoke & Barrel Tavern. The new recording will first be available as a 12-inch vinyl album, meaning it will physically be heavier than the CDs the group normally hands out.

But it will be heavy musically, too. The album features songs from several Northwest Arkansas metal bands. One of the bands featured on the recording is VORE, who have been performing for nearly 20 years. Page Townsley, vocalist and guitarist for VORE, chatted with me about the state of metal in Northwest Arkansas, his band’s contribution to the compilation album and more.

Vore

Read the story here [Note: Subscriber content] or see the band live tonight at Smoke & Barrel Tavern, where the group will perform during a launch party for the new record.

Admission to tonight’s show is $10, but that price includes a vinyl copy of the album (which further includes a download card for electronic copies of the songs, too). Speaking of electronic copies, we understand the album will make its way to the Art Amiss Bandcamp page.

The show begins at 9 p.m. Also performing are Potions and Lightbulb Detective Agency.

Take a whiff. A good deep one… What’s that wafting in? Hopefully, breakfast, with coffee… but there’s something else, too…. it’s…. the weekend.

Which means you should enjoy it, which further means you should watch some live music. Where, you ask?

One of the top-selling electronic acts of all time, the Las Vegas duo The Crystal Method will visit George’s Majestic Lounge for a show tonight (Jan. 27). The Crystal Method’s music has been featured on the radio, in television and in many films. Admission to the 10 p.m. show is $20. Tickets are available at the club or through its ticketing website.

George’s has another show worth checking out this weekend, too.

The only constant of The Lemonheads, which formed in the early 1990s, is one man, Evan Dando, once named one of People magazine’s most beautiful people. After a self-imposed musical exile, Dando and The Lemonheads have returned with new members and a new album “Varshons,” a collection of mostly obscure cover tunes. Currently on tour, the group will perform Sunday (Jan. 29) evening at George’s. Admission is $15; the show begins at 9 p.m.

Elsewhere this weekend, Glory Bones have a show tonight at The Lightbulb Club. Well, Well, Well will join them.

Also, Art Amiss will release a new compilation of Arkansas-made metal tonight at Smoke & Barrel Tavern. Our suggestion is to visit back later today for more about that vinyl album. (That’s a hint: We’ll be posting about it later this afternoon.)

Something we’re missing? Let us know.

The Keb' Mo' Band. All photos by KEVIN KINDER, NWA Media.

Legend tells us Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play the blues.

Keb’ Mo’ never went through such a process, but he proved to a crowd of about 1,000 on a Wednesday night at the Walton Arts Center he’s a capable and even emphatic when he plugs in and plays with abandon.

So, the question becomes this: If people would go to such lengths to play (even if the Robert Johnson story is just a blues rock fairy tale), why wouldn’t you use your power all time?

Keb’ Mo’ — and to a lesser degree, his opening act, Anders Osborne — provided no definitive answer. Keb’ Mo’, real name Kevin Moore, is a three-time Grammy winner for contemporary blues albums. And while he colors all his music with that shade, the first 45 minutes of his set was rather subdued. Included in the first part of the evening were ballads (“Life is Beautiful”) and a slow, folk-tempered song (“We Don’t Need It”) from Keb’ Mo’s newest album, “The Reflection.” The latter, a song about struggling through the recession, never resonated despite how topical it remains.

Two years ago, when Keb’ Mo’ was last in the same venue, he played with sparse accompaniment and a purposely subdued approach. We were promised that context then.

This time around, with a full band behind him, the evening started in much the same way and left me wanting a little more oomph. It would become, eventually, a much different kind of concert.

Chalk up the first half to Keb’ Mo’ and his able backing band needing to warm up for the evening, or for the crowd needing a moment to let their drinks settle and warm them up a bit, but the difference after the hour mark of the concert was dramatic. Even early on, catcalls from the crowd gave Keb’ Mo’ suggestions for songs. When he got into one of those audience suggestions later — “She Just Wants To Dance” — the crowd was already on its feet and dancing, something it did for the bulk of the three-song encore, which found Keb’ Mo’ playing slide guitar blues and playing them well. Meanwhile, everyone in the mostly full venue showed their appreciation.

It was, after all, what they’d came to see.

A note about the opener: Anders Osborne, from New Orleans, faced the formidable challenge of opening for a largely unfamiliar crowd and using only his guitar and voice to do so. As someone said to me during the break between Osborne and the headliner’s sets, “Well, he tried hard.” Osborne set a tone for the evening, although it’s unlikely he or anyone in the crowd knew it at the time. After the fourth of the six songs he would play Wednesday night, Osborne pondered aloud that the evening was a blues night and he should play a blues song. As soon as he started into a slide guitar solo, the crowd collectively hollered in approval. Osborne too was best when he was at his bluesiest.

Keb’ Mo’ set list: 1) didn’t catch this title; 2) Change; 3) Life is Beautiful; 4) Government Cheese; 5) Perpetual Blues Machine; 6) I See Love; 7) We Don’t Need It; 8) More Than One Way Home; 9) Walk Back In; 10) The Whole Enchilada; 11) Shave Yo’ Legs; 12) Soon As I Get Paid; 13) Dangerous Mood; 14) I believe the song was Just Lookin’; 15) The Door;

Encore: 16) Am I Wrong?; 17) She Just Wants To Dance; 18) A Better Man

The Kansas outfit Carrie Nation & The Speakeasy, named after the famous temperance crusader, will return to Fayetteville for a show Thursday (Jan. 26) at Smoke & Barrel Tavern. The group mixes bluegrass and brass instruments for a sound the band says blends punk, bluegrass, Dixieland and circus tunes. The show begins at 10 p.m. Admission is free.

Keb' Mo'

Life is good for musician Keb’ Mo’.

He has a family. He has three Grammy Awards. And yet, he plays the blues.

“I love the blues, but I don’t have the blues,” he tells Northwest Arkansas Media features editor Becca Bacon Martin in a recent interview.

In a story that we published Friday, the artist — real name Kevin Moore — chats about his family life, his desire to be unconventional and his tour, which will bring him to Fayetteville for a performance Wednesday (Jan. 25) at the Walton Arts Center.

You can read our story with Keb’ Mo’ online [although you'll have to be a subscriber to do so].

The Wednesday-night show at the Walton Arts Center begins at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $29-$49 and are available through the venue’s website or by calling 443-5600.

We’ll see you at the show.