With a John Denver grin and mind full of Alabama attitude, Adam Hood knows the beautiful mess of blue-collar love and everyone on Music Row wants in.

A burgeoning star, Amy LaVere is becoming renowned worldwide for her songwriting, bass playing, and vocals. 

She sings with a sweet, haunting voice that can turn on a dime from innocent to lusty (“Norah Jones with an added Cyndi Lauper element” — Mojo Magazine; “Spookiness suits her” — New York Times).

Whether playing as a duo with her husband Will Sexton or with retro-country sensation Motel Mirrors, she’s an inventive, thoughtful singer-songwriter who has crowds throughout the US and Europe smitten.

“The challenge of the song is to not scare America. I’m changing ‘Amazing Grace,’ everybody. Fair warning.”

So said Team Kelly’s 16-year-old blues ingenue, Sarah Grace, on Monday’s top 10 episode of The Voice. Religious songs usually are popular on The Voice — last week, when Kymberli Joye did Tasha Cobbs’s “Break Every Chain,” she was the top-charting contestant on iTunes — but most contestants don’t take as many creative liberties as Sarah did this week. Besides playing “dirty” trumpet, Sarah also sang the traditional hymn with the “House of the Rising Sun” production under it — basically, she did a skronky, Blind Boys of Alabama-inspired “Amazing Grace”/”Rising Sun” mashup.

“This idea is the coolest idea that anyone I ever worked with on The Voice has ever come to the table with,” said Sarah’s coach, Kelly Clarkson. 

“This is an insanely cool version of ‘Amazing Grace.’ It’s my favorite I’ve ever heard.

Sarah Grace & The Soul is a band comprised of sisters Sarah Grace (Vocals, Keys), Reagan (Drums), and Daniel (Bass), and Erich (Guitar).  They hail from Houston, TX where they have grown up and flourished in the rich Blues, Rock and Soul scene. 

Drawing from many influences, they combine powerful vocals and rootsy musicianship to create their own original sound. Already veterans of the local and regional scene they have been recognized as one of the “Top Ten Bands Under 21” in Houston as well as multiple representatives of Houston in the International Blues Challenge, Youth Showcase in Memphis, TN. 2018, finds them hard at work in the Studio recording their debut CD featuring all original music. 

Mike Stinson can write songs in his sleep....no really, check out Walking Home In The Rain from his fourth and most recent album Hell And Half Of Georgia. "Well that only happened once but yeah it's true. I woke up with that song fully formed playing in my head. No idea where it came from." General consensus is that Mike's blue collar songwriting ethic earned him that freebie. That kind of 'luck' comes from putting in the time. Here's a glimpse at what that time has looked like. Raised in Virginia, schooled in DC, Mike moved to Los Angeles where eighteen years made him a veteran of what he calls "the trenches of bar band warfare." The last six years have found him based in Houston and barnstorming the roadhouses of Texas week in and week out.

Along the way he has written his very own version of the American songbook and developed an expansive live show that "has taken country and rock and boiled them down to their essence before injecting everything with the kind of ju-ju that Gram Parsons died for." (Bill Bentley, The Morton Report) Critical acclaim has followed. Los Angeles Magazine named him Best Country Artist (2004), The Houston Press awarded him Song Of The Year (2010), Texas Music Magazine named him one of their Artists of The Year (2012) and one of their Records of The Year (2013), and The Houston Press named him Best Country Artist in each of the last two years (2014, 2015). But perhaps the more significant mark of Mike's creative success is the respect and admiration he's earned from a large songwriting community. His songs have been released on albums by Dwight Yoakum, Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Gilkyson, Jesse Dayton, Brian Whelan, Folk Uke (featuring Willie Nelson), Austin Hanks and Larry Bagby.

Few, if any walk, away from a Mike Stinson show unaffected by his particular slant. His songs are the thrills, chills and spills of life, filled with razor sharp word play, charm, depth, poignance and musical muscle. “Mike Stinson is dangerous, the kind of songwriter who can upend the way you see the world with a single line, and whose lean, mean rock and roll machine of a band usually starts at a Chuck Berry gallop and goes from there. They can crank it so hard, in fact, it’s entirely possible to miss all the diamond-tipped rejoinders, double entendres, aphorisms and the occasional outright burn that litter Stinson’s songs, and make him one of the wickedest lyricists around today.”

No cover charge.

This little gem might be a bit easily overlooked in Houston’s typical bar scene, but that’s because it’s an entirely different kind of place. McGonigel’s Mucky Ducky is an Irish pub that features a very popular open mic night every Monday at 7 p.m. (sign up by 6:30 p.m.) You’ll hear plenty of folk, country and acoustic renditions by performers that spent their afternoon in classes at Rice or a long day at the office. Not only does the pub feature an impressive array of live music almost every night, but the Mucky Duck has been listed by Billboard Magazine as one of the 20 best acoustic venues in the country. - CBS HOUSTON

 

The Duck stage is open for you to present your original compositions or a favorite song made famous by someone else. 

Comedians, poets, jugglers and mimes also welcome.

Don't be shy. Come on out ~ It's your turn to be a Mucky Duck Open Mic Star.

Each performer has 3 songs or 15 minutes for their performance. 

It was 1998 in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter when Cathy Guthrie and Amy Nelson met at a bar…where they both worked. One was a tramp and one was devastatingly pure. With a ukulele and an acoustic guitar, they formed a band for the same reason kids join gangs— just to survive, but also to unleash the brilliance that was poking them from within. 

Don't believe the rumors. Folk Uke is not totally amazing. They're just kind of amazing. If you find yourself at a Folk Uke show, you are in for a treat— but maybe not the kind of treat that you like the taste of.  Come to a show and see for yourself. Better yet, buy their albums first and you may save yourself the trouble. And if you make it to a live Folk Uke show, do your best to enjoy it…and then give them two more chances.  They are hit and miss, but so are you most likely, and that is their charm. We live to inspire and we're tired of writing in third person.

Love, Cathy & Amy