Your Houston Concert Guide: A Would-Be Austin Legend, an Alt-Country Saint and a Prince

Houston’s concert scene brings plenty of action, but do you know the under-the-radar shows as well as the monster acts? In this regular series, PaperCity’s music man Matthew Ramirez cuts through the noise to find the best things to do around town. Let’s get to this weekend’s top options.

The Little Prince, starts Friday, December 4, 7 PM, through December 20 @ Wortham Theater Center
Based on the perennially popular children’s fable, Houston Grand Opera’s second presentation of The Little Prince is now something of a new holiday tradition. Co-produced by Skylight Opera Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, and The Wang Center, The Little Prince, based on the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, tells the story of a pilot forced to land his plane in the Sahara who is befriended by an enigmatic prince. The Little Prince will run for three weekends.

Ian Moore, Friday, December 4, 7 & 9:30 PM @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Austin-based songwriter Ian Moore briefly flirted with major-label success in the ’90s before returning to his stature as a Texas- and southwest-based elder statesman. Firmly entrenched in act two of his long career, the heady Moore flirts with a style that’s part power-pop and part adult-contemporary, a far cry from when he was rumored to be in the running as the next Stevie Ray Vaughn. (He was interested in pushing more buttons than that.)

Dwight Yoakam, Friday, December 4, @ Arena Theatre
Something like the patron saint of alt-country, Yoakam has successfully carved a niche for himself as an off-the-beaten-path idol in at least two genres (country and rock), as well as a regional legend, like if Springsteen was from the south. Yoakam has true-blue country roots and at least one canonical song (“Guitars, Cadillacs”), plus a cache of other hits appealing to a more idiosyncratic crowd (he’s also an actor, sometimes).

Alejandro Escovedo, Saturday, December 5, 7 & 9:30 PM @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Hailing from San Antonio, Escovedo is a Mexican-American songwriter who gained a younger following within the past 15 years when he was hyped as a Mexican Ryan Adams. While awfully reductive, the comparison makes sense in an odd way: both are rootsy, country-indebted songwriters who follow their muse across the landscape of pop, rock, folk — even blues — with a dogged kind of everyman romanticism.