Vincent Neil Emerson, wearing a denim shirt and jeans, sits on a wooden chair and plays an acoustic guitar. He is in a cozy room with dark green bookshelves flanking a fireplace, a patterned black and white wall, and a large black and white checkered rug. A pinkish-orange velvet couch is visible on the right.
Vincent Neil Emerson Credit: Thomas Crabtree

Folk-country protagonist Vincent Neil Emerson is taking his Red Horse Band on the road next year, and he’s stopping in Tampa along the way.

If you feel that outlaw country music is on life support, you’ll gain a little bit of hope upon listening to the 33-year-old hidden gem. The Texan arrives with less-than-twangy tracks about adversities like living in his car and losing his father to suicide at the age of nine, and reminiscing about the brutal history of his Choctaw ancestors. His last set in town was an opening gig for Dallas Green’s City and Colour at The Ritz Ybor (just four blocks down from where the old Orpheum once stood), and it saw him confess how Green was the reason he picked up a guitar in the first place, and how his father was a truck driver, serving as the main reason why that commonly-used-in-modern-country theme squeezed its way into his set.

Tickets to see Vincent Neil Emerson play Tampa’s Orpheum on Thursday, Feb. 12 are still available and cost $35.06.

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This article appears in Dec. 04 – 10, 2025.

Josh Bradley is Creative Loafing Tampa's resident live music freak. He started freelancing with the paper in 2020 at the age of 18, and has since covered, announced, and previewed numerous live shows in...