Midtopia, apparently, is a place on Earth. It’s somewhere around Wichita, Kansas, the place that gave us Rudy Love Jr., the offspring of the late Rudy Love Sr., who wrote “Good Morning Little School Girl” and worked with the likes of Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles.

The younger Love was in a band with his dad, but now leads the Encore, a party-starting pop outfit that blends world rhythms with joyous horns (“Good Time”), while being fully capable of busting out a slow jam, too (“Grey”).

Tampa pop-rock crooner Nate Mosley opens the show along with local rock band Hibiscus and multi-decade cover band The Banned.

Tickets to see Rudy Love and The Encore play Crowbar in Ybor City on Tuesday, Feb. 13 are still available for $12-$15.

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This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2024.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...