Carol Elliott

Carol Elliott (Port Aransas, TX) played the Port Aran-

sas Community Theatre on February 21st. Elliott moved to Port A eight years ago from Nashville where she worked as a songwriter, performer and A&R rep. She has taken a long hiatus from music and only recently stepped back in with this performance at the PACT and some happy hour gigs at the Tarpon Ice House. Elliot has the voice of an angel and her songs are quite moving. She sings of cowboys and pioneers, of buffalo herds and life’s quirky moments...and she sings of love.

Elliott’s voice is nothing short of amazing and her charming stage demeanor makes you feel like you just made a new friend. The standing room only audience at the show was a smattering of locals and a boat load of ap-preciative Winter Texans who interacted with Elliott and sang along on some of the cover songs she performed (Roger Miller, Steve Goodman, Hank Williams, etc). This gal is a pro and we can only hope she’ll keep shar-ing her talents with us on the island. She is delightfully engaging and a real class act. Carol will be playing more happy hour shows at the Ice House on Fridays through out March.

DO NOT MISS LISTMiss Neesie & the Earfood Orchestra/ Tin Can Trio

Let the good times roll!! Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s time to put on your beads, dance to some zydeco and eat some mud bugs. Miss Neesie and the Ear Food Or-chestra (San Antonio, TX) will perform at the Barefoot Mardi Gras Party at the Briscoe King Pavilion on N. Pa-dre on Saturday, March 5th. Also, the scaled down ver-sion of Ear Food, Miss Neesie and the Tin Can Trio, will perform at the Tarpon Ice House on Friday, March 4th. There are only 250 tickets available for the party on Padre so you need to get on it. You can get ticket info in the related story in this issue. I went to this bash last year when Ear Food played and had a ball. Those guys on Pa-dre take their Mardi Gras seriously and so does Ear Food.

The Ear Food Orchestra is an 8 piece rockin’ roots and zydeco band which WILL get your booty shaking. If you don’t groove to Ear Food, you must be dead. The band has been together for over 20 years with few personnel changes and is fronted by Miss Neesie Beal (aka the Small Ax) , a little lady with one giant, booming voice. Imagine Big Momma Thornton in the body of a skinny white girl and you get the picture.

The band leader and founder is Jim Beal, Jr. on bass and banter. Beal has been a music columnist for the San Antonio Express-News for 25 years and has a radio show on KSYM-90.5 Third Coast Network. This man knows his music...he writes about it, performs it and plays it

Island Moon January 26, 2011B 8

By Ronnie Narmour

ronnienarmour@gmail.com

Three Chords and the Truth

Bon Ton Roulet, yall, and HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!! This is my favorite holiday of the year. As I write this, Janet Planet is in New Orleans on her annual “bead buying” pilgrimage to supply the islands with beads to throw from the parade floats this year. That’s always the first sign of Spring on the island when Janet takes off to New Orleans for beads. We have the Barefoot Mar-di Gras Parade and Party on N. Padre on the 5th and the 15th Annual Port A Mardi Gras Parade on Fat Tues-day, March 8th. Yahoo! Big fun! And with Spring Break creeping up, not to mention the Back Porch re-opening for the season on March 10...whew, this place is heating up! I have a lot to tell you about. Let’s roll...

Cody Canada and the Departed

Cody Canada blazed into the Brewster Street Ice House on February 17th with his new band, The De-parted. Canada was the front man for the popular “Red Dirt” band Cross Canadian Ragweed for the past 15 years. His new band, The Departed, consists of fellow Ragweed bassist, Jeremy Plato, guitarist Seth James (Seth James Band, Ray Wylie Hubbard), keyboardist Steve Littleton (Stoney LaRue, Medicine Show) and drummer David Bowen (Stoney LaRue, Bleu Edmon-

son, Dale Watson). This line-up made for an impres-sive ensemble as all of these guys have been running in the same circles and their strong chemistry was obvious. This is a group of well seasoned road dogs and the ar-rangements are tight and rocking. They played just enough country to hold the Ragweed fans but basically this is one kick ass rock band with a super dynamic front man.

Canada is one of the Stillwater, Oklahoma guys that pioneered the “Red Dirt” genre along with Jimmy La-Fave, The Red Dirt Rangers and Reckless Kelly. Rag-weed released 7 studio recordings and 3 live albums in the decade and a half they were together, many of which charted well on Billboard. The way Canada tells it, life on the road with Ragweed got stale. Though the band generated legions of fans in their tenure and sold out big venues wherever they went, the shows were all the same and they seldom practiced. His new project with The Departed has got his creative juices flowing again with one recording under the belt and another on the way. Ironically, the first CD that Canada and the Departed re-corded, This Is Indian Land, was a tribute to Oklahoma artists such as Kevin Welch, Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, etc and is all covers. This a project that Canada had on the back burner for a long time and was inspired to com-plete with his new band.

Friday, Feb. 25thCarol Elliott (5-7) @ Tarpon Ice House

Stuart Burns & 4 Min. Ride (7-10) @ Tarpon Ice House

Corpus Got Talent @ House of Rock

Flashback @ Executive Surf Club

Brian Winfrey @ Island Italian

Justin Estes @ Scuttlebutt’s

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Ray T and the City Crew @ The Flats

Saturday, Feb. 26thMr. Mo & the Famous Unknowns @ Tarpon Ice House

Adam Carroll & Michael O’Connor/ Neal Edwards @ House of Rock

Kiss It/ Cat House @ Executive Surf Club

Lisa Morales @ Third Coast Studio

Ruben Limas @ Island Italian

Rick Cates @ Scuttlebutt’s

Emily @ Hooks B-B-Q

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Sunday, Feb. 27thCollin Roche @ Scuttlebutt’s

Monday, Feb. 28thBobby Carter @ Blackbeard’s

Nathan Strubhart @ Scuttlebutt’s

Antone Perez @ Dr. Rockit’s

Thursday, March 3rdGary Kyle @ Executive Surf Club

Bart Crow @ Brewster Street

Friday, March 4thMiss Neesie & Tin Can Trio @ Tarpon Ice House

Dave “Bottlehead” Miller @ Hooks B-B-Q

Carol Elliott (5-7) @ Tarpon Ice House

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Ray T and the City Crew @ The Flats

Saturday, March 5thMiss Neesie & Ear Food @ Barefoot Mardi Gras

Judah Jam @ Executive Surf Club

Bruce Robison @ Third Coast Studio

Reckless Kelly @ Brewster Street

Dave “Bottlehead” Miller @ Hooks B-B-Q

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Ray T and the City Crew @ The Sand Bar

Tuesday, March 8thPort A Mardi Gras Parade!!!

Rude Mood @ The Gaff

Cody Angel (7-10) @ Tarpon Ice House

Mike Williams @ Lovett’s

Thursday, March 10thBACK PORCH REOPENS!!!

Statesboro Revue @ Executive Surf Club

Friday, March 11th

Richard Lockhart Band @ Hooks B-B-Q

Duke E. Brown @ Executive Surf Club

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Saturday, March 12thMike Milligan and the Altar Boys @ Back Porch

Scarecrow People @ Executive Surf Club

Two Rivers Trio @ Hooks B-B-Q

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Sunday, March 13thTin Can Phone @ Executive Surf Club

Two Rivers Trio @ Hooks B-B-Q

Thursday, March 17thEmory Quinn @ Back Porch

PA Rockers @ Hooks B-B-Q

Friday, March 18thScarecrow People @ Back Porch

Randy Rogers/ Eli Young @ Concrete Street

Richard Lockhart Band @ Hooks B-B-Q

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

Saturday, March 19thStatesboro Revue @ Back Porch

Max Stalling/ Dirty River Boys @ Executive Surf Club

Richard Lockhart Band @ Hooks B-B-Q

Mike Williams @ Bancock Star

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Miss Neesie & Tin Can Tio

March 3 (8-12)over the air. The band easily has 200 songs in their rep-ertoire, all designed to get you on the dance floor. They pass around rattles for ev-eryone to shake and the horn section is bound to take off marching at any time with legions of dancers in tow. Trust me, this is going to be one world class party.

On Friday night before the Mardi Gras party on Padre, Miss Neesie and the Tin Can Trio will play at the Tarpon Ice House in Port A. This is Jim and Neesie with their super-guitarist, Allen Elsasser playing acoustic blues and roots. They déb-uted this off-shoot of their big band at the Dave “Bottle-head” Miller benefit at the Ice House in January and it was great. Elsasser on slide guitar is a sight to behold. This show will be a great kick-off for Mardi Gras.

Port A Mardi Gras Parade

Now it’s Port A’s turn. On Fat Tuesday, March 8th, the 15th Annual Port A Mardi Gras Parade will take to the streets. This is always the island’s favorite party when dozens of locals decorate their “floats” and parade through the streets of Port A, throwing out candy and beads. The parade is organized by PALS (Port A Lei-sure Society), an organization founded by Janet “Plan-et” Calvert a decade and a half ago. Calvert tells me that last year’s parade was the biggest ever and she expects this year’s to be even bigger.

The parade will depart from The Gaff at 5:00 PM going west on Beach Street to Allister, turn north on Allister to Cotter, jog around the Flats area on Trout Street and back out to Cotter going east to Station, then south back down to Beach. There will be raging merriment at all the bars

before and after the parade, all in the name of overindul-gence before Lint. Playing at the Gaff (ground zero for

the parade) is the band, Rude Mood, with the amazing gui-tarist, Derrick Wayne. I saw him sit in with Mike Milli-gan last year at the Back Porch and was real-ly impressed. And, over at the Tarpon Ice House Cody Angel will be

performing at 7:00. Cody will be bringing in

his boys from Corpus for this gig and it will be a party. The gumbo will be steaming and so will the music. Eh toi, yall!

Back Porch Re-Opening March 10th

Susan Powell, owner of the Back Porch has announced noon, March 10th as the date she will reopen for the 2011 season. This is great news for us music fans who have had to endure another hard winter on the island without our beloved Porch. The musical lineup starts out with Mike Milligan and the Altar Boys on March 12 and will feature Scarecrow People, Statesboro Revue, Em-ory Quinn (on St. Patty’s Day), Cody Angel and Cruise Control in the following two weeks. In the coming months, look for such acts as Larry Joe Taylor, Gary P. Nunn, Joe King Carrasco, Two Tons of Steel, Mingo Fishtrap, W.C. Clark, Ear Food, 6 Market Blvd. and W.C. Clark. to grace the stage. Welcome back Susan and all the Back Porch crew...we’ve missed you!

MARDI GRAS Celebration w/ Cody Angel March 8

Live Music Tonight

Miss Neesie & Ear Food will play the Barefoot Mardi Gras on March 5th.

Carol Elliott played the PACT on Feb 21st.

Cody Canada and the Departed played Brews-ter Street on Feb.17th.

Live Music Every Friday

Happy Hour w/ Carol Elliott Feb. 25 & March 4 Stuart Burns

Feb. 25 (7-10) Mr. Mo

Feb. 26 (8-12)

opens@ noonTHURS. MARCH 10

The