Willis Alan Ramsey

The Read

The self-titled album is a genuine cult object — loose, funny, beautifully written Texas songwriting that other artists have been mining ever since. His most famous line about the follow-up is a question: what’s wrong with the first one. The joke has aged into something closer to a philosophy, and it has kept the record from ever feeling like a period piece. Seeing him live is therefore a slightly unusual proposition. There is no new material to sell and no career arc to service, just a songwriter and a catalog that has been fixed in place for half a century. Chief’s puts him in a proper Broadway room rather than a listening-room curiosity slot. Seven o’clock, and the whole appeal is that it is not a nostalgia show — it is the only show.

The Room

Chief's

200 Broadway

Eric Church's six-story bar on the corner of 2nd and Broadway — 'Chief' is his nickname. A ticketed concert hall, a Rodney Scott barbecue floor, and a rooftop, stacked inside the old Leslie Warner Building.