We’d like to give a BIG thanks to the Star Tribune: Big Gig’s this week. Check out all of the great acts featured, and then get in touch with our Box Office at 612-332-5299 or www.dakotacooks.com to get your tickets!
Tex Pistols Big Ass Band
TONIGHT! – NOVEMBER 29: For their third annual Thanksgiving Extravaganza, rockin’ urban country combo the Tex Pistols have corraled Kenni Holmen, Steve Strand and Michael Nelson of the Horn Heads (re-christened the Longhorns), backup singers Aimee Lee and Pamela McNeill and two special guests: singer Mary Jane Alm and keyboardist Billy Barber, veteran of a slew of pop, folk and jazz recordings. (8 p.m. Fri., Dakota Jazz Club, $15.) Tom Surowicz
Joe Henry
DECEMBER 3: Joe Henry has been so busy as a producer, working with everyone from Bettye LaVette and Bonnie Raitt to Billy Bragg and Mose Allison, that his solo career has lost momentum. His last record, 2011’s “Reverie,” was an ambitious collection refl
ecting on the various meanings of time. This year, Henry worked on the all-star, two-CD “Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War” and the book “Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him” (co-written with his brother David). Now he is squeezing in four rare solo acoustic gigs, including a stop in Minneapolis. Henry has a fondness for the Twin Cities — the Jayhawks backed him on tour and on two of his 1990s solo albums, and he contributed a track to this fall’s “Songs for Slim” benefit project. Read an interview in Sunday’s Variety section. (7 p.m. Tue., Dakota Jazz Club, $27.) Bream
Ronnie Spector
DECEMBER 4 & 5: Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector was featured on one of the greatest holiday albums of all time — 1963’s “A Christmas Gift to You From Phil Spector” — so 25 years ago she decided to stage her own musical yule party in her hometown of New York. For several years, the self-proclaimed bad girl of rock has taken the show on tour to sing her classic renditions of “Sleigh Ride,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” which still rank among the most-played holiday recordings every year. She’ll also perform some of the hits (“Be My Baby,” “Walking in the Rain”) that landed the Ronettes in the Rock Hall of Fame. (7 p.m. Wed.-Thu., Dakota Jazz Club, $45-$65.) Bream