Shooter Jennings

It must be tough to be the son of the Original Outlaw. Your dad had all the right moves, sang all the right songs, pissed off all the right people. Now you’re trying to make something happen for yourself, but you don’t want to just ride the old man’s name into the ground. What to do?

If you’re Shooter Jennings, son of late country legend Waylon Jennings, you go for the big splash: You call your debut album (on the Universal South label) Put the O Back in Country. And you wear a T-shirt in your promotional photo that leaves out the “O,” just in case some folks missed the joke. And you stock the album with music that straddles the fence between Southern rock and modern country—somewhere right of Steve Earle, but way left of the Eagles. Not bad.

Shooter (real name: Waylon Albright) and his band will make a stop at Northern Lights (1208 Route 146, Clifton Park) this Friday (Nov. 11). Tickets for the 7:30 PM show are $15. For more information, call 371-0012.

 

Helen Boyd: My Husband Betty

How would you feel—straight or gay, female or male—if you discovered that your partner was a crossdresser? Helen Boyd wrote a book about it called My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life With a Crossdresser, and will speak on transgender issues on Saturday evening at the New York State Museum.

Many critics, and people “in the life,” have been generous with their praise. “As the book thoughtfully and compulsively covers every corner of its subject,” Tristan Taormino wrote in the Village Voice, “the work simultaneously transcends cross dressing altogether. It becomes a blueprint for nontraditional relationships: how to communicate honestly about needs and desires, let go of picket-fence dreams, and move beyond them to something real.”

Betty Crow, Boyd’s husband, will be on hand for the lecture; both will be signing (and selling) copies of the book after the presentation.

Helen Boyd will speak at the New York State Museum Theater (Empire State Plaza, Albany) at 7 PM, Saturday (Nov. 12). Admission in free. For more information, call 473-2936.

Albany Symphony Orchestra

David Alan Miller has tomorrow night (Friday) off, as guest conductor Stefan Sanderling takes the Palace podium when the Albany Symphony Orchestra presents Rachmaninoff in America.

The Russian-given pride of place in the program—Rachmaninoff—is represented by his Symphony No. 3. Another Russian composer, Sergei Prokofiev, is represented by his Violin Concerto No. 2. Most critics prefer Prokofiev’s first violin concerto to the second. We disagree; the second, which was written around the time of the composer’s Romeo and Juliet, is prickly, sardonic and entertaining. Young virtuoso Yura Lee (pictured) will be the soloist on the concerto.

The debut in the program will be Stephen Dankner’s Evenings With My Grandfather, which depicts “the Yiddish songs and culture his grandfather shared with him when he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn.”

The ASO will present Rachmaninoff in America tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 11) at 7:30 PM at the Palace Theatre (19 Clinton Ave., Albany). Tickets are $21-$41.25. For more information, call 465-4663.