Recent Articles

Recent Articles By Randall Roberts

  • Rebuilt to Suit
    SLU won't say what it has in store for the Locust Business District.
  • I Want My MP3
    Digital music just gets better. See ya later, major labels.
  • Horse's Kick
    Monarch, 7401 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-644-3995.
  • Lemp Lager
    The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-727-4444.
  • Hendrick's Martini
    Lester's Sports Bar & Grill, 9906 Clayton Road, Ladue; 314-994-0055.

Recent Articles By Daniel Durchholz

Recent Articles By Roy Kasten

  • The Campbell Brothers
    8 p.m. Friday, February 15 and 11 a.m. Saturday, February 16. Edison Theatre, 6445 Forsyth Boulevard
  • Nina Nastasia
    8:30 p.m. Saturday, February 9. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Richard Thompson
    8 p.m. Monday, February 11. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard
  • Parachute Musical
    9 p.m. Friday, February 1. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Giant Bear
    9 p.m. Wednesday, February 6. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

Recent Articles By Jordan Oakes

National Features

  • Phoenix New Times
    Canine Crusaders

    That drug-sniffing dog up ahead? He may not be your best friend.

    By Ray Stern
  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times
    The Muscle Men

    Thanks to a string of Florida "anti-aging clinics," baseball's steroid scandal isn't limited to superstars.

    By Michael J. Mooney
  • Miami New Times
    Picked On

    Farm workers earn nada in America's green-bean capital.

    By Janine Zeitlin
  • Village Voice
    "Why I'm No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal"

    An election-season essay from one of America's greatest playwrights.

    By David Mamet

Martin Sexton
Tuesday, May 11; Off Broadway
Strange to say, but Martin Sexton has never played St. Louis. He's played everywhere else: churches, subway platforms, Kerrville folk festivals, bus stops, coffee shops, dives, the coveted busking space around Harvard Square. He plays alone and makes an orchestra of his voice; no singer/songwriter working today -- not Chris Whitley, not Peter Case, not Rufus Wainwright -- has such a shocking command of range and emotion, of dynamics and tones. But he's not a vocal technician: His singing drips with something disturbing and surreal. He holds notes impossibly, contorting them into a piercing falsetto or quaking, Van Morrisonesque rumbles; then he yodels or scats or croons or morphs his larynx into some piping trumpet -- and somehow the melodies of his folk/pop tunes remain fluid. Like Morrison, his vocal role models are the great soul singers of the '70s -- Gene Chandler, Solomon Burke and, especially, Eugene Record -- and, like Morrison again, his lyrical ambition draws on unpretentious mysticism, a wayward spiritualism far enough from God to remain honest to daily life. His two best songs, "Glory Bound" and "The Way I Am," both recount his travels as an itinerant singer/songwriter, and rather than trying to elicit sympathy for his elected solitude, he accepts the road's bitter bits of wisdom and transforms them with the soaring gaiety of his remarkable voice. (RK)

Contributors: Daniel Durchholz, Roy Kasten, Jordan Oakes, Randall Roberts

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