Old Crow’s Willie Watson coming to town

The banjo will be front and center when Willie Watson, a man who has made a name for himself with the instrument, performs at Felton Music Hall Friday.

An aficionado of bluegrass since his high school days, Watson co-founded the highly prolific bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show, which became Grand Ole Opry mainstays and went on to win multiple awards, including a few Grammys and a CMT Music Award for their 2004 debut album “O.C.M.S.” That album was notable for a song called “Wagon Wheel,” which took the chorus of an unfinished Bob Dylan demo and fleshed it out into a full song that has since become a go-to bluegrass and jam band cover and even became a hit when covered by Darius Rucker in 2013.

Watson left Old Crow Medicine Show in 2011 for a solo career where he played at festivals such as SXSW, Stagecoach and the Americana Music Festival. He released his debut album “Folk Singer Vol. 1,” which Rolling Stone named as a must-listen, featuring his takes on folk standards such as “Midnight Special” and “Rock Salt and Nails.” He made his acting debut in the Coen Brothers’ 2018 Western anthology “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” In September, Watson released his self-titled third album — his first of all-original material — and worked with artists such as the Punch Brothers and Benmont Tench, the keyboardist for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Opening will be Americana singer Margo Cilker, who played at Moe’s Alley in September.

The concert is 8 p.m. Saturday at Felton Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $27 in advance and $30 the day of the show. This is a 21-and-older concert. For more information, go to FeltonMusicHall.com.

Symphony season keeps rolling with ‘Adaptations’

Following a successful kickoff of its 2024-25 season Sept. 21 and 22 with performances of compositions by Mason Bates, Johannes Brahms and local composer Martin Gaskell, the Santa Cruz Symphony will continue with its spectacular renditions of symphonic pieces with the program “Adaptations” Saturday and Sunday.The program will begin with Antonin Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 8,” the Czech composer’s 1889 composition that blends Bohemian folk music with Romantic orchestration. It will be followed by Erich Korngold’s “Violin Concerto,” featuring artist-in-residence and concertmaster Nancy Zhou on violin. Finally, the program will close with the world premiere of “Spin” by Santa Cruz musician Josef Sekon.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St. A matinee performance will also take place 2 p.m. Sunday at the Henry J. Mello Center for Performing Arts, 250 E. Beach St., Watsonville. Both shows will be preceded by pre-concert talks at 6:30 and 1 p.m. respectively. For tickets and more information, go to SantaCruzSymphony.org.

Come on and save a seat for Aimee Mann at the Rio

Aimee Mann, the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter who has dabbled in everything from folk to indie rock and has even been on the big screen a few times both in front of the camera and on the soundtrack, will be performing at the Rio Theatre Sunday.

Mann first hit it big in the ’80s with the Boston new wave band ‘Til Tuesday that had a top 10 hit with the song “Voices Carry.” In the ’90s, she began recording solo albums and had minor alternative hits with songs such as “I Should’ve Known” and “That’s Just What You Are.” Her initial solo albums garnered critical acclaim but poor album sales, but she got a major boost when she composed the soundtrack for the 1999 Paul Thomas Anderson film “Magnolia” and even received an Oscar nomination for the song “Save Me.” (Not to mention, the sequence with the entire cast singing along to “Wise Up” at different moments has become one of the movie’s most famous scenes.) Since then, she has won two Grammys, collaborated with the likes of Betty LaVette and Steve Vai and even dipped her toe, so to speak, in acting with a minor role in “The Big Lebowski” and a cameo as herself on the show “Portlandia.”

The concert is 8 p.m. Saturday at the Rio, 1205 Soquel Ave. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $35 for general admission and $50 for Gold Circle members. For more information, go to RioTheatre.com.

Black Lips sink ships at Moe’s Alley

Moe’s Alley is well known for bringing high-octane, rollicking rock and roll to its stage. Atlanta’s very own Black Lips will bring that and more when they play the venue Monday.

Black Lips released their self-titled debut album in 2003 and have been churning out fast-paced garage punk with a Southern twang ever since. Their sets at the 2007 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas — where they played 12 shows over a three-day period — earned them further attention where they had a writeup in the New York Times and even played “O Katrina” — a song that would later turn up on the “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” soundtrack — on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” later that year. Their 10th album, “Apocalypse Love,” was released in 2022.

The concert is 8 p.m. Monday at Moe’s Alley. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $26 in advance and $32 the day of the show. This is a 21-and-older concert. For more information, go to MoesAlley.com.

This week’s calendar was compiled by Nick Sestanovich.