The Texas Rubies are the great Chicago alt-country phenomenon that wasn’t. Lead vocalist Jane Baxter Miller and guitarist and harmony singer Kelly Kessler were Kentucky transplants who met in Chicago in the early 90s and started writing hard-hitting retro-country songs in the tradition of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. They released one album,on Monsterdisc in 1993 and contributed songs to a couple of Bloodshot compilations.
The Texas Rubies’ lack of commercial success is evidence that meritocracy is a myth. Their music is uniformly excellent. “Someone I Used to Love” is a devastating mid-tempo weeper with serrated high-lonesome harmonies designed to cut your heart out, and their a cappella cover of Jean Ritchie’s “Blue Diamond Mines” somehow manages to be even more chilling than the original.
Kessler hosted an alt-country series called the Honky Tonk Living Room at the Hideout from the late 90s through the early 2000s, which makes this Texas Rubies reunion show something of a homecoming. You can expect to feel a lot of well-deserved love for the Texas Rubies in the room as the audience enjoys some of the best country tunes created in Chicago, Kentucky, or anywhere else.
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