City Of Austin Celebrates Marcia Ball With Star-Studded Concert
Austin, Texas To Salute Roots And Blues Pianist, Songwriter And Vocalist Marcia Ball With Star-Studded Concert
Legendary Texas Musician and HOME (Housing Opportunities For Musicians And Entertainers) Founder Marcia Ball To Be Honored Following Ball's Announced Retirement From Performing.......►►►
Legendary Texas Musician and HOME (Housing Opportunities For Musicians And Entertainers) Founder Marcia Ball To Be Honored Following Ball's Announced Retirement From Performing.......►►►
On Thursday, January 29, 2026, the city of Austin, Texas will come together to celebrate the life and music of the legendary, five-time GRAMMY-nominated, Austin-based musician, Marcia Ball. Back in October, Ball announced her retirement from touring and performing due to a recent diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Ball will be on hand for the show alongside some very special guests, but will not perform.
The program, entitled HOME With The Armadillo: An Evening Celebrating Marcia Ball, will take place at Austin's Paramount Theatre, with proceeds benefiting HOME (Housing Opportunities For Musicians And Entertainers), the musician assistance program Ball founded with friends and fellow musicians in 2012. Tickets, which are expected to sell out quickly, are available here.
The concert event will bring together the artists, collaborators, and friends who shaped Ball’s musical journey. The evening will celebrate Ball's sound, generosity, and leadership -- all which helped define Austin music -- and whose impact lives far beyond the stage.
The program will be presented as a four-chapter musical celebration. The tribute concert will feature four bands representing the four most iconic chapters of Marcia’s career:
1. Freda & the Firedogs
A seminal Austin band that helped bridge country, blues, and progressive sounds in the early 1970s. Featured artists include: Bobby Earl Smith, Eric Michael Smith, Floyd Domino, Freddy Fletcher, John X Reed, and more.
2. The HOME Band & Friends
Honoring Marcia’s work offstage as a founder and champion for Austin musicians. Featured artists include: Carolyn Wonderland, Cindy Cashdollar, Emily Gimble, Eve Monsees, Ruthie Foster, Sarah Brown, Shelley King, Akina Adderley, and more.
3. The Marcia Ball Band
Ball's touring family for decades, bringing her joyful, high-octane shows to audiences worldwide. Featured artists and guests include: Derek O’Brien, Tracy Nelson, Eric Bernhardt, Johnny Moeller, Kaz Kazanoff, Michael Archer, Mo Roberts, Red Young, Sonny Landreth, Terrance Simien, Sue Foley and more.
4. Pianorama
A tradition Marcia helped shape: pianists trading licks, stories, and fire. Featured artists include: Chip Dolan, Floyd Domino, Johnny Nicholas, Nick Connolly, and Red Young. This lineup represents not only Marcia’s collaborators, but the musical family that helped shape Austin’s sound for more than 50 years.
About HOME
HOME has served hundreds of aging musicians in Central Texas, keeping them housed, keeping their utilities on, and keeping them connected to the community they built. Ball has served as the organization’s founding board leader and guiding soul, ensuring that no musician who devoted their life to Austin’s sound is left behind. Ball's retirement marks the end of an era in performance - but her impact on Austin’s cultural safety net will continue for generations.
Donations to HOME can be made here.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. Seeing an Irma Thomas performance in 1962 and falling under the spell of Professor Longhair's piano playing convinced Ball to seek out a career in music. She led a couple of early psychedelic country rock bands before pursuing her solo career from her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas.
After her 1978 Capitol Records debut, Circuit Queen, and a series of successful albums on Rounder Records, Ball joined Alligator Records in 2001. Altogether she's won eleven Blues Music Awards, sixteen Living Blues Awards, and received five GRAMMY Award nominations. She has been inducted into the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame, the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame and the Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. As her hometown Austin Chronicle says, “What’s not to like about Marcia Ball?”
Ball's albums are filled with fresh, original songs, as she easily draws her listeners deep into her music with instantly memorable melodies and imaginative imagery. Her songs paint vibrant musical pictures richly detailed with recognizable characters, regional flavors, universal themes and colorful scenes, both real and imagined. Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.”
The Boston Globe calls Ball “a compelling storyteller” who plays “an irresistible, celebratory blend of rollicking New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp rock and smoldering Texas blues.” The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” The Houston Chronicle says simply, “She’s as perfect as an artist can be.”
Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. Seeing an Irma Thomas performance in 1962 and falling under the spell of Professor Longhair's piano playing convinced Ball to seek out a career in music. She led a couple of early psychedelic country rock bands before pursuing her solo career from her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas.
After her 1978 Capitol Records debut, Circuit Queen, and a series of successful albums on Rounder Records, Ball joined Alligator Records in 2001. Altogether she's won eleven Blues Music Awards, sixteen Living Blues Awards, and received five GRAMMY Award nominations. She has been inducted into the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame, the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame and the Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. As her hometown Austin Chronicle says, “What’s not to like about Marcia Ball?”
Ball's albums are filled with fresh, original songs, as she easily draws her listeners deep into her music with instantly memorable melodies and imaginative imagery. Her songs paint vibrant musical pictures richly detailed with recognizable characters, regional flavors, universal themes and colorful scenes, both real and imagined. Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.”
The Boston Globe calls Ball “a compelling storyteller” who plays “an irresistible, celebratory blend of rollicking New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp rock and smoldering Texas blues.” The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” The Houston Chronicle says simply, “She’s as perfect as an artist can be.”
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten