Clockwise from top left: Melissa Etheridge returns to the Count Basie stage on her ME tour, with fellow Grammy winners Keb’ Mo’ and Norah Jones cued up for nights to come.
While much of the big-name concert action may have moved outdoors and/or closer to the shore this time of year, Red Bank’s climate-controlled Count Basie Theatre continues to stay competitive with the arts centers and temporary summer stages of the region, offering a dependably eclectic shuffle in the seven-day interval ahead – and little to no chance of t-storms, gnats or heat waves to harsh one’s musical mellow.
It’s a mix that keynotes with the return of Melissa Etheridge to the venerable venue Wednesday night, followed in short order by other favorites of the summer tour circuit.
Newly reconfigured as a quartet, Raul Malo and the Mavericks have issued a Dance Alert cautionary for their Red Bank stop on Tuesday, June 23.
This time out for Etheridge, it’s all about ME, as the dynamic singer-songwriter with the whiskey-gargle pipes and the take-no-prisoners strumming style goes it alone on her This Is M.E. Solo Tour – a stripped-down setting that finds the Grammy and Oscar winner performing sharing some of her most beloved songs, a collection that’s sure to include hits like “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window. Tickets to the 8 pm show ($75 – $110) are still available here.
With a repertoire that’s deeply rooted in the Mississippi mud of the most American of sounds – and the confident skills to take that purebred musical worldview to intriguing new levels of collaboration – Keb’ Mo’ never goes out of style. The multiple Grammy winning blues master heads down once more to the crossroads (of Monmouth and Maple, basically) in a Thursday, June 18 concert that finds the guitarist not with a hellhound chasing his tail, but with a tour itinerary that has him chasing a pair of recent releases. Expect to hear cuts from his 12th studio album BLUESAmericana; fervent fans can also find him featured (along with Keith Richards, Sara Bareilles and many mo’) on Songs Around the World, the just-released third all-star effort from the nonprofit Playing for Change. Tickets to Thursday’s 8 pm show ($35 – $50) can be reserved right here.
Another serial Grammy winner – a nine-timer, if you’re keeping score at home – Norah Jones made a tremendous splash with her 2002 debut release, and rather than just rest on those laurels across a series of solo followups (most recently 2009’s Little Broken Hearts), the vocal phenom (and multi-instrumentalist daughter of the late sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar) has branched out in the current decade on two albums with her country-flavored side project the Little Willies, as well as a string of guest shots and duets (with everyone from Danger Mouse to Willie Nelson) collected on the comp Featuring Norah Jones. The artist will be performing her hits (“Don’t Know Why,” “Sunrise”) and then some on a Saturday night Basie bill with opening act the Candles, an event in the Count Basie Theatre’s 2015 Gala Week, if you’re wondering about that top ticket price. Reservations for the 8 pm affair ($50 – $250) can be made here.
They may have just recently fired charter member Robert Reynolds over a reported addiction issue, but the alt-country institution known as the Mavericks has regrouped as a four-piece force of nature under the leadership of Raul Malo. When the Florida-spawned fricassee of country, cowpunk and classic bar-boogie returns to the Basie stage on Tuesday, June 23, it’ll be as an institution re-energized. Carrying that Grammy-winner theme into the earliest days of summer, Malo and company work their newest release MONO on a “Mono Mundo Tour” stop for which a Dance Alert has been issued – in other words, “audience members will be standing and dancing for much if not all the show,” we are advised. “Please keep this in mind when purchasing tickets.” Take it here to reserve your no-doubt standup seating ($35 to $59.50).
