The Domino Kings

Southern Missouri’s Domino Kings practically invented our region’s roadhouse loop, playing rowdy little sheds and sleepy small-town joints that didn’t even know they needed a band. In the early years, the Kings orbited the rockabilly-honky-tonk axis, but the addition of a second guitarist (or third, if you count drummer Les Gallier’s six-string interludes) and singer Stevie Newman’s radio-ready voice and songwriting have made them a little more country — traditional country. Newman’s requisite honky-tonk wordplay — as on the song “(She’s a) Pain in My Past” — plus drummer Gallier’s forays into Western swing and the whole band’s obvious love for keeping it real make this particular retro band as fresh as ever.