From cowboy Americana to Pink, Kentucky music scene is rockin’

Regina Carter and Xavier Davis

7:30 p.m. May 3 at First Presbyterian Church, 171 Market St. Free. 859-252-1919. originsjazz.org.

Regina Carter is closing out the Origins Jazz Series’ second season this weekend by kind of moonlighting for a second concert project. The performance doubles as part of First Presbyterian Church’s Music for Mission series, which gives the presentation a true community feel.

As with each of the latter series’ performances, Friday’s duo concert by the Grammy nominated violinist and her longtime pianist Xavier Davis is free – to a degree. Music for Mission solicits donations at each performance to benefit a different locally/regionally based mission organization. Donations collected at the Carter/Davis concert will benefit the Central Music Academy, a non-profit organization providing free music lessons to children from financially disadvantaged families.

For more on Carter’s extraordinary career, please give a read to my interview profile with her on kentucky.com. Here is an insightful remark from Carter on the global musical breadth of the violin that didn’t make it into the piece:

“I remember listening once to some Arabic music and hearing these violins in a string section. It was really beautiful, especially the notes they were using that weren’t in the Western scale. I started to realize how there is an instrument in every culture just about that the violin is related to. I find that fascinating. I try to think of the instrument not in terms of ‘This is a violin. This is what it does.’ It more about what can it do.”

Willie Watson

3 p.m. May 5 as part of the On the Rail Roots Festival at The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd. $30. theburlky.com.

You can read in detail about the three night On the Rail Roots Festival on Kentucky.com, but we felt obliged to give a little extra notice to Willie Watson.

The New York native has been a Lexington favorite ever since he performed here with the revivalist string band Old Crow Medicine Show some 15 years ago at the long-since-demolished W. Main location of The Dame. Following his departure from the group in 2011, Watson was a frequent visitor to numerous regional stages. He played solo for WoodSongs and the defunct Natasha’s Bistro, as part of a double bill with songstress Aoife O’Donovan at the Norton Center for the Arts in Danville and as a member of the Dave Rawlings Machine in Louisville. In each instance, he favored the role of an almost antique flavored song stylist, echoing the rustic roots inspirations of his two volume “Folk Singer” albums.

But late last fall, Watson headed to Hollywood and strapped on a pistol to become “The Kid,” the unlikely opponent of the lead character (played by Tim Blake Nelson) in the Coen Brothers’ film collage of dark Western vignettes “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” It’s Watson who sings the Oscar-nominated Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings song “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wing” with Nelson in the movie.

So keep that cosmic cowboy tune in mind when you go off the rails at On the Rails this weekend.

Tool

8 p.m. May 8 at the KFC Yum! Center, 1 Arena Plaza in Louisville. $59.50-$124.50. 502-690-9000. kfcyumcenter.com.

If you find a Tool booking in Louisville next week to be a little odd, you’re not alone. The very arty progressive metal outfit has largely been out of the limelight since the release of its fourth studio album, “10,000 Days” in 2006. Not that its members have been idle since then. Tool’s mercurial frontman/vocalist Maynard James Keenan played Rupp Arena as recently as last fall with his other prog-flavored ensemble A Perfect Circle.

But the lack of a new Tool record - initially promised for the spring, but with no definite release date set – isn’t keeping Keenan and the rest of the band – guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and drummer Danny Carey – off the road.

A new tour, very likely with new music but no new record (at least, not yet)? Sounds like the typical workings of an act where nothing is ever typical.

Pink/Julia Michaels

7:30 p.m. May 9 at Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine. $32.45-$298. 859-233-3535. rupparena.com.

Well, it’s finally happening. One year and one day from the time tickets went on sale, the long-promised Rupp Arena concert by Pink is happening. The globally popular and often acrobatic megastar singer will perform there on Thursday.

We will detail the performance in Sunday’s Living section. But expect much of the program to be devoted to her eighth album “Hurts 2B Human,” which was released last week. Guest collaborators on the record includes Kentucky’s own Chris Stapleton.

This story was originally published May 1, 2019 at 10:24 AM.