Whitney Rose, 'Heartbreaker of the Year,' headed to House of Blues

July 31, 2017 12:04 PM PT

In the case of rising Canadian singer-songwriter Whitney Rose, “fake news” is country music’s gain.

Now based in Austin, Rose gave up her college journalism studies for a very good reason.

“They’re interested in facts, and I like making things up,” she recently told an interviewer.

Her imagination serves her well on such songs as “The Devil Borrowed My Boots,” “My First Rodeo” and “Heartbreaker of the Year,” which is the title of her 2015 album (produced by Raul Malo of The Mavericks, who also play on the album).

At times sounding like a cross between Kitty Wells and Rosanne Cash, by way of Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris, Rose is growing increasingly more assured with her music.

On Friday, she’ll open at House of Blues for Wheeler Walker, Jr., the X-rated country music alter-ego of comedian Ben Hofmann.

Wheeler Walker, Jr., and Whitney Rose: 7:30 p.m. Friday. House of Blues Voodoo Room, 1055 Fifth Ave., downtown. $18. (800) 745-3000 or houseofblues.com/sandiego

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 San Diego Press Club awards and a first prize-winner at the 2022 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.”