Robert Baird

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Robert Baird

The Nuge Goes Legit

Robert Baird First Published: May 18, 2011 0 comments
Thirty six years ago, Ted Nugent just played guitar...


To write intelligibly about the experience of seeing Ted Nugent sitting in with the Les Paul Trio—let me repeat that—Ted Nugent sitting in with the Les Paul Trio at The Iridium Jazz Club on Broadway and 51st Street just off Times Square on Monday May 16, I need to first explain two bits of context.

Robert Baird

Big Star's Third

Robert Baird First Published: Apr 01, 2011 0 comments
In the chronicles of the now absurdly revered Memphis alt rock originators, Big Star, the third record called appropriately enough, Third (or sometimes Sister Lovers) is perhaps the band’s best record. That’s only true of course if slow, often gossamer thin melodies pitched too high so that Alex Chilton’s voice couldn’t help sounding anguished and lyrics that fit under the term of “Fragile” or “Twisted,” and a pervasive feeling of doom (with several outbursts of partly cloudy pop rock) are your thing.
Robert Baird

Pinetop Perkins

Robert Baird First Published: Mar 22, 2011 0 comments
Pinetop Perkins at SXSW 2011


Many years ago, when all of the South by Southwest seminars and panels were located inside the Hyatt Hotel across Town Lake from downtown Austin, I tottered in from a long night of music and revelry, and stood waiting for one of the glass elevators that ran up and down one side of the hotel’s giant atrium. When the car arrived the doors swung open to reveal Mississippi blues piano player Pinetop Perkins who according to my math had to be in his early Eighties then, and who, with a mixture of teeth and gold in his mouth, was flanked by two beautiful and much younger white women luxuriously dressed in fur coats. Far be it from me to cast aspirations but these looked to me like working girls. The dapper Pinetop shot me the most mischievous grin you can imagine while slipping his arms around each woman’s waist.

Robert Baird

SXSW 2011, Day 1

Robert Baird First Published: Mar 17, 2011 0 comments
Robert Baird reports from South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin, Texas.


I couldn’t resist. It was a sunny Monday afternoon and after a cruise on Austin’s famous drag, (otherwise known as Guadalupe), past the old (real) Antone's club, which is now a dry cleaners, I parked the rental car and slid into a nearly deserted Hole-in-the-Wall, for a shot of Patron Silver and to soak in a little classic Austin atmosphere.

Robert Baird

Tony JO

Robert Baird First Published: Nov 05, 2010 0 comments

By convenient circumstance, I recently caught Tony Jo White on a Sunday night at the Thunderbird Caf in Lawrenceville, a rapidly changing for the better part of Pittsburgh, Pa. In a small but sweet back room, White put on a low key show that shows both his voice and his ability to get in a groove and jam are still potent. His methods are easily understood, he comes out, looking vaguely like a long and lean version of Charlie Rich, when the Sliver Fox wore a similar kind of hat, and plays either spooky ballads or a bluesy, rumbling groove that runs for many verses and becomes a long jam. His hits (or “best known songs” if you prefer) , “Polk Salad Annie” which is probably most famous because of Elvis’ version (Tom Jones actually slays it as well) came off with the needed amount of snap to the choruses. And then there’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” a tune I always forget TJ wrote until he starts singing it or someone puts a Tony Jo record on. It’s a sweeping slow number whose chorus changes are really gorgeously bittersweet. The man has soul, there’s no doubt. And rock gigs like the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival gave him serious rock chops for awhile as well.


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