Rosie Flores at City Vineyard

Rosie Flores was born in San Antonio, Texas, and lived there until age 12, when her family moved to San Diego, California. She began singing as a child, and her brother taught her to play rhythm guitar when she was a teenager. She formed her first band, the bluesy Penelope’s Children, while still in high school, played the San Diego club circuit with an alt country band she led called Rosie & the Screamers in the 1970s, and was in the all-female cow-punk Screamin' Sirens in the 1980s. After one album, Screamin' Sirens split in 1987, and Flores embarked on a solo career. Her 12th studio album, Simple Case of the Blues, will be released on February 23, 2018. Flores currently resides in Austin, Texas, where the city council honored her by proclaiming a Rosie Flores Day in 2006 and in 2017.

Rosie Flores is best known as a rockabilly and alt-country music artist, but her catalog has included honky tonk, jazz, western swing, Tex-Mex, and rock and roll. Her forthcoming album is a collection of blues originals and covers, however, so at City Vineyard tonight her focus was on her interpretation of the blues. Brooklyn native Earl Slick, perhaps best known for his collaborations with David Bowie and John Lennon, accompanied Flores on stage playing acoustic and electric guitars. The set was loose, in that Slick seemed to be improvising through most of the performance and contributed fewer leads than one might have expected. Flores was a fine guitarist, however, and her picking and strumming complemented her torchy, heartfelt vocals. The set included only two country songs, and perhaps these were her most splendid moments. While her many blues numbers were enjoyable, a decision to showcase her upcoming blues album meant this was not the occasion for her wider range of music.

Visit Rosie Flores at www.rosieflores.com.