The weekend's upon us, and this weekend, music dominates. First off, did you grow up listening to Motown music? Motown: The Musicalis playing at the Majestic and it details the music out of Detroit in the 1960s. Its young Michael Jackson sound and look-a-like Leon Outlaw, often brings down the house.
"Yeah, thank you. It feels great. I love doing this."
The charismatic 14 year-old was one of those kids who clearly was born to be a performer.
"They didn't force me to, but I didn't have no choice but to do it cause it just ran through the family."
His mother and grandmother sang, and his dad was a drummer. He didn't even pause when I asked him for a song. To hear him, hit "listen" above. He says if you grew up listening to Motown you will love it. Outlaw says you might have a hard time just sitting there.
"If you come see the show you'll be dancing in your seats!"
I don't doubt that. Then on Sunday afternoon, an entirely different kind of music.
"The Accordion was brought here by German immigrants. But as soon as it got here, there was a lot of folks that liked the sound."
The Institute for Texan Culture's Greg Garrett. And once those folks liked the sound, they started making it their own.
"Whether it was Czech, Polish, Tejanos--all of them found a way to incorporate this instrument into becoming an important part of their musical culture."
So now the ITC is bringing all those musical elements together in one place.
"We're going to have Tejano, Conjunto, German, Czech, Polish--they're all going to show and play their types of music and give a little talk about their types of music."
And then they'll jam. There's also a short accordion documentary that will be shown. Can you afford it? Jarrett answers: "It is free!"
Find More on Motown: The Musical here.
Find more on Accordions Across Culture here.
