From fire departments TO

Justin Phillip Brooks has told stories onstage the majority of his life.

His father was a church music director who sang at several churches, often bringing his family onstage with him. As a seventh-grader, Brooks performed with a 60-year-old church organist named Miss Betty in the Beaumont’s fire department’s band. She loaded a drum set into her car for the mini concerts.

Music and faith have always been intertwined in Brooks’ life. “It’s the lens by which we look at everything,” says his wife, Tiffany, who also is a singer.

The Lake Highlands neighbors joined Liturgical Folk, a group that sets retired Anglican priest Nelson Koscheski’s poems to music. Now he and Tiffany — along with her brother Morgan Taylor — formed a folk trio under Brooks’ name.

“It’s almost like when you hear those instruments, you hear the ghosts of those stories and those people who passed music down from generation to generation,” Brooks says.

Coffee Shops

This is their first time performing as a trio, and they can’t quite figure out why it took so long to collaborate.

“For me, it was, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?’ ” Brooks says.

“It just kind of came together for us to do it,” Tiffany adds. “We’re doing what we love with the people we love.”

Tiffany and Morgan’s parents aren’t musical, although the two grew up singing and creating songs. Their grandparents, though, owned an antique accordion, harmonica and dulcimer, instruments sometimes highlighted in their songs. Family stories are a part of the lyrics, too. The song “Candle on the Shore” is about Brooks’ great-great grandfather, who ran the Bolivar Lighthouse near Galveston and sheltered people from hurricanes in the early 20th century.

“I wrote the story from the perspective of a survivor,” he says.

The trio are staples at Opening Bell Coffee and completed a Sofar Sounds sessions, where people buy tickets before knowing the location of the show, whether that be the back of a restaurant or someone’s living room.

“People are there strictly for the music,” Brooks says. “It’s really the environment we love.”

Like Brooks, his children, Taylor and Grayson, tag along with to watch their parents perform. Whether they think it’s cool, though, has yet to be determined.

“I was thinking about that the other day,” he says. “Do Bono’s kids think he’s cool? Do Frank Sinatra’s?”

Four lawyers and three retirees walk into a bar.

Instead of immediately grabbing beers — that happens later — they carry four guitars, a bass, keyboard and drums to a small stage at Lone Star Roadhouse. They check their mics.

Then, around 7 p.m., the Catdaddies launch into renditions of their favorite classic rock tunes, the ones that bandmates revered in high school and have performed the past 20 years.

“It’s more like a party when we play,” guitarist and singer Kent Hofmeister says.

The Catdaddies is Lake Highlands’ homage to the 1960s and ’70s classic rock. The band celebrated its 20th anniversary in mid-September. A line formed at the entry, former members joined for their favorite songs and wacky moves graced the dancefloor.

When the band formed in 1998, its members’ only goal was unrelated to success, longevity or money. Then members of the Dad’s Club at Lake Highlands Elementary, they were asked to perform in their children’s talent show.

The five-piece outfit chose a few favorites to play, including Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The competition was so fun that they kept practicing, says Mark Sales, the only remaining original member. The then five-piece outfit coerced their children into being roadies and trekked their gear to the school gym to practice.