“Don't you worry about what we've got in Texas – worry about how much of it we've got,” the late, great Ernest Tubb used to say, and country-rock seditionary Billy Eli brings bales of that stylish, Lone Star braggadocio. The Austin, Texas, honky-tonk swashbuckler is capable of hard-rocking derring-do, ribald, just-for-the-hell-of-it revelry and penetrating, profoundly touching balladry. Critical case in point is Eli's “People Like Us,” a song inspired by his autistic son, which is magnificently bittersweet yet fraught with hope and tenderness (“We don't live like the rest of the world does/But the world wasn't built for people like us”). Eli's ability to span such a range so effortlessly is a rare and beautiful thing, and he manages it with a brilliantly rowdy, relaxed manner.

Thu., May 22, 9:30 p.m., 2014
(Expired: 05/22/14)

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