Ricky Stein

Ricky Stein plays a late live set at Groove in Manhattan. The bill names Stein alone, with no additional performers or special program announced, so the focus is on his own songs and the roots-minded sound described in the venue listing. Expect a set that moves through the meeting points of Americana, folk, country and blues-rock, from an Austin songwriter whose work draws deliberately on older musical forms without treating them as museum pieces.

Stein is an Austin, Texas artist, described by Music Connection Magazine as an “Austin transplant” whose love of roots music and its historical influences shapes his work. Reviewing a 2020 New York set, Ellen Woloshin called it “spirited and uplifting.” The Deli NYC heard “a refreshing, unironic throwback” to blues-rock, citing a gritty Southern sensibility and the urgency, subtlety and unexpected turns of his songwriting. The Austin Chronicle praised the company he has kept on record: Warren Hood on fiddle, Matt Hubbard on keyboards and Gary Newcomb on pedal steel. Its review found melody, storytelling detail and country songs among Austin’s best of that year, specifically naming “Heaven Is a Highway,” “Wildfire Rose” and “Buying Time.”