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    Hit Parade

    At RodeoHouston, Keith Urban blurs the line between rock and country

    Michael D. Clark
    Mar 9, 2011 | 6:45 am
    • Keith Urban
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchlightGroup.com
    • Keith Urban
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchlightGroup.com
    • Keith Urban
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchlightGroup.com

    I said it six years ago when Keith Urban debuted at RodeoHouston and my conviction has only grown with time: These days the only thing that separates a country artist like Urban from a softening-with-age rocker like Bon Jovi is a mandolin and an Australian accent.

    Tuesday night, Urban returned to Reliant Stadium for the third year in a row (his fourth RodeoHouston overall) and offered the heavily female crowd a sneak preview of what the rest of the Australia and North America can expect when his Get Closer 2011 World Tour officially begins next month.

    What was offered in his 10-song, 65-minute set was an artist who is confident in his music and not worried about selling the next single. A playful showman whose comfort in his personal life with his wife, actress Nicole Kidman, and their two daughters, carries over to the stage.

    What it was not however was a country show. At least not by any definition that Hank Williams, Johnny Cash or George Jones would recognize.

    Like Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, Kenny Chesney and other neo-country contemporaries that took over country radio in the mid-90s and early 2000s, Urban is a "crossover country" artist, which means that his songs would fit on adult contemporary radio just as easy as it would with the buckle-'n-boot crowd.

    As time goes on Urban wears the paradox like a badge of pride and a tool to reach new fans. Drawing equally from his decade full of country chart-toppers, he seemed to relish the idea of moving back-'n-forth between rock and country as if to say, "No one will label me or my music."

    "Stupid Boy" was a twin electric guitar assault with a solo worthy of Van Halen, while the semi-acoustic run through his latest single "Without You" and "Making Memories of Us" were slow country two-steps built for couples to get close.

    Crowd favorite "Sweet Thing" got a crossover makeover with Urban weaving snippets of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" and "Deep In The Heart of Texas." The crowd shrieked with approval for both of the familiar sing-alongs.

    The No. 1 hit parade — "Kiss A Girl," "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me," "You Look Good In My Shirt" — was hard to argue with, but the short rodeo set omitted a few favorites (No "Days Go By"). A few more songs from the new "Get Closer" album would have also been welcome.

    But having more requests than he can manage is a sign of the growth and success Urban has had since he first started playing RodeoHouston. Besides a rich history of artists, RodeoHouston's greatest legacy is allowing Houston to check in annually with the best and brightest country stars (or semi-country stars in Urban's case) and allowing us to watch them evolve.

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    Art on the Prairie

    The roots of Lone Star art: William Reaves unearths the Texas modernistlandscape

    Steven Devadanam
    Mar 31, 2011 | 4:40 pm
    • Richard Stout, "Evenings Fall," 1967
    • David Adickes, "Three Men on a Beach," 1953
    • Jack Boynton, "Inland Lights," 1956
    • Emma Richardson Cherry, "Southern Morning," c. 1930

    This month's editorial series, True Grit: Houston Style, has sought to answer to what extent Houston embraces its Texas roots. To investigate how Houston artists have come to terms with their state's landscape, we went to William Reaves Fine Art, a gallery whose mission is to define modernism in Texas.

    "We opened the gallery to convey a story about the evolution of modernism in our state," says the gallery's owner, William Reaves. He pinpoints Houston as the "birthplace" of Texas modernism for the community's willingness to display abstract works in museums and support award-winning artists as early as the 1930s. Artist-teachers like Emma Richardson Cherry and Ella McNeil Davidson had means to travel internationally and cultivated a generation of informed local artists like Robert Preusser and Frank Dolejska in the 1920s and '30s via institutions like the Art League and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

    Reaves notes that much ink has been spilt chronicling the first half of the 20th century in Texas art, but it was not until after World War II that the region received the necessary influx of knowledgeable artists to create an enduring community. Several local artists who stayed in Europe after the war brought back global influences. Paris was briefly home to a creative Texan expat culture, inculcating such minds as Herb Meers and David Adickes, who studied under the lionized Cubist painter Fernand Léger.

    "This sort of French-looking, Texas cubist school that they created when they returned was very different from the bluebonnets people were used to seeing," says Reaves.

    As the 1950s progressed, Houston became a "hotbed" for non-representational art, led by figures like Jack Boynton and Richard Stout (whose work from the era will be on view in an exhibition opening Friday). "A lot of this stuff from the '50s is new again because it's been kind of squirreled away in closets for awhile," says Reaves. "It comes off as fresh because there's a kinship with contemporary artists."

    No doubt that international currents increasingly flowed into the local art mix, but did Houston artists ever completely turn their back on the Texas landscape?

    "My impression is that it's a blend," says the gallery owner, citing Richard Stout as an example of an artist who has studied under other masters and blended that style with an impression of the state. Explains Reaves,

     

    He paints in an expressionist style and has been informed by a lot of different artists over time. In addition, he was an art professor at UH for 25 years, so he's very aware of what's going on internationally. But Richard is also from Beaumont and his work almost always sees a landscape influence — a lot of coastal plains and rich atmosphere. Yet it is painted in a way that is informed by a lot of important artists from the New York School."

    Similarly, Boynton and McKie Trotter presented work at New York galleries, yet their respective reductive landscapes and abstract expressionist works evince a horizon line evocative of the wide skies and flatness of Texas.

    In truth, the link between Houston artists and their Texas roots is not a black-and-white issue. But to some extent, the answer is embedded in the cadre of works on view at William Reaves Fine Art. More than simply display and distribute artworks, the gallery presents curated thematic exhibitions that are accompanied by robust physical and online catalogues derived from research conducted at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Hirsch Library.

    "The gestalt of what we're trying to do," says Reaves, "is trace a history of Texas art that may have been overlooked, but at its zenith, there's this beautiful, vital modernism."

     The exhibitions Lone Star Modernism: A Celebration of Mid-Century Texas Art and Richard Stout: The Early Years open Friday, with a reception April 9, 5 - 8 p.m. A gallery talk will be held April 30 from 2 - 4 p.m. Both exhibitions are on view through May 7.

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