Willie Nelson, X and Rob Zombie veteran Jesse Dayton will rock the Casbah on Friday

San Diego Union-Tribune

May 19, 2018 1:45 PM PT

Jesse Dayton can take more than a few bows. The red-hot Texas guitarist and singer’s credits range from Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings to Rob Zombie, The Supersuckers and pioneering Los Angeles punk-and-beyond band X (with whom Dayton performed here at the 2015 KAABOO Del Mar festival). His 1995 debut solo album, the aptly titled “Rasin’ Cain,” teamed him with such Tex-Mex music greats as Flaco Jimenez and Doug Sahm. Dayton has made at least eight more albums since then. His command of rockabilly, country music and other rootsy styles is readily apparent. So is his songwriting prowess on such gems as “Country Soul Brother,” “Daddy Was a Badass” and “Heartbreak California,” which he co-wrote with former San Diego troubadour Rosie Flores.

Jesse Dayton, with The Johnny Deadly Trio: 9:30 p.m. Friday. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Middletown. $12-$15 (must be 21 or older to attend). (619) 232-4355. casbahmusic.com.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

Music

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”