Eric Nadel's Birthday Benefit featuring Sammy Rae & The Friends with special guest Chuck Prophet

Haynes Boone and KXT 91.7FM Present the Eric Nadel Birthday Benefit 

      The Eric Nadel Birthday Benefit Concert celebrates its 14th  edition by featuring two of Eric’s favorite bands….Brooklyn based Sammy Rae & the Friends, and Bay Area favorite Chuck Prophet and the Cumbia Shoes.

     The benefit supports the work of the Grant Halliburton Foundation, a local non-profit that provides mental health education, training and support to teens and families. To learn more, visit GrantHalliburton.org

     Formed in 2016, Sammy Rae &  the Friends are a jazz-pop band known for their high-energy live shows. Many have likened their style to that of another New York based band, Lake Street Dive. Their latest album of “Songs We Wish We Wrote”, features innovative covers of some of their….and our….favorite songs.

     Chuck Prophet has been a mainstay on the SF Bay Area music scene for over 3 decades, with over a dozen solo albums. His recent album, “Wake the Dead,” features a band of musical all-stars performing Cumbia-influenced tunes, including “First Came the Thunder”, which was selected by KXT-FM listeners as one of the top 15 songs of 2025.

     The combination of these two bands will provide a party-like atmosphere for Eric Nadel’s 75th birthday.  The Rangers’ Hall of Fame broadcaster hosts the benefit, which includes a live and silent auction.

     Sponsor tables and suites are available through Grant Halliburton Foundation. Visit granthalliburton.org/ericnadel to learn more or to purchase a sponsorship, or email julia@granthalliburton.org. 

Sammy Rae & The Friends

The mantra of the Friends?

Go put a smile on somebody's face, go tell somebody they've got a place in this world, go tell somebody you wanna be friends with them.

For as much as Sammy Rae & The Friends may be a band, this collective of dreamers and artists considers themselves a family first. That all-for-one and one-for-all camaraderie ignites their unforgettable and can’t-miss live shows, which serve as a catharsis for both the musicians and their fervent audience. Fronted by singer/songwriter Sammy Rae and honed through years of touring, the group is capable of flourishing in any spotlight thanks to its signature blend of palpable chemistry, deft virtuosity, and vocal fireworks.

Their sound, which has attracted new fans by the thousands in the past few years, is a unique mélange of Sammy’s influences: classic rock, folk and funk and sprinkled with soul and jazz. Rae has been building toward this moment since moving to NYC from Connecticut in her early 20s. Finding herself without a built-in peer group, she simply built it herself: the literal and proverbial Friends. When she started playing shows, she made sure the audience was part of the family too. Everything that’s happened since – from EP's "The Good Life" (2018) and "Let’s Throw a Party" (2021) to sold-out shows in major markets and secondary markets alike across North American and the UK & Europe, to high-profile festival sets around the world, including Bonnaroo’s main stage, Sound on Sound, All Things Go, and more – has been based on friends telling friends.

With the release of their debut album "Something For Everybody" in 2024, Sammy Rae & The Friends have come to represent more than just a band: they are a full-on movement being adopted with refreshingly diverse clientele.  The band is currently working on their next album. 

Chuck Prophet

Chuck Prophet’s streak of more than a dozen critically acclaimed solo records stretches all the way back to 1990, when the California native first shifted focus from his tenure with pioneering neo-psych band Green on Red to working under his own name. Since then, his songs have appeared in a slew of films and television shows, and his work has been covered by Bruce Springsteen, Solomon Burke, Heart, and a host of others. Rolling Stone dubbed him a “streetwise city kid with an eye for the country,” while Uncut proclaimed him a “renaissance-rocker,” and NPR declared that “no one can turn tales from the outer limits into catchy songs quite like Prophet does.”