The Grays had a great time Saturday at Steel Valley Woofstock at Tiffany Banquet Center in Brookfield.

As regular readers know all too well, we seldom miss a nearby Red Wanting Blue show, and Saturday didn’t disappoint. The show started with a deep dive into the new album “Light It Up,” playing all of side one and the interlude and “Fine & Dandy” that starts off side two. It also included a real setlist rarity — “The Air I Breathe” — which was played for a newly married couple who scrapped their wedding reception in order to attend the event, which benefits animal charities.

As the owner of a rescue dog, we affectionately refer to as 114 pounds of chaos, the cause as well as the music was an incentive to attend.

Saturday also was a chance to see the Steel Valley All-Stars, led by local music vet Rajma McKenzie and featuring Warren native Dennis Drummond, now based in Nashville. Watching McKenzie and Drummond trade guitar licks throughout the All Stars’ hour-plus set was a joy.

Hoss Jarman joined the band on stage for Stevie Wonders’ “Superstition” and the Joe Cocker arrangement of “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

“I look forward to that show every year,” McKenzie said Monday. “And when you get Hoss Jarman in the mix and we get up there and are able to get up there and do three-part harmony for ‘Get By with a Little Help from My Friends,’ I got a little emotional playing that. It just strikes a chord with me.”

In addition to covers of songs by Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mellencamp and others, McKenzie used the occasion to play a few songs from his new CD, “Rockin’ Man.” The CD officially was released Friday, but he’s been releasing individual tracks every few months since 2022 for streaming.

“Rockin’ Man” features 10 originals by a man primarily known for singing covers for 35 years in the Mahoning Valley with such bands as Graphic Pink and Triple Threat. His father’s death two years ago inspired him to start writing.

“I just started reflecting back, because he was a musician as well, and I just thought, you know, I’ve had all these amazing experiences, but I don’t really have any of my own material,” McKenzie said. “I just started writing some songs and decided I was going to record a couple of them, just for me. I wasn’t planning on putting out any music, and I recorded the first song. I let my friends and my wife hear it, and they were basically like, ‘You really need to release this stuff, just get it out there.’

“So I released the first song and got some amazing feedback and just decided to keep going. … It’s been a little over two years since I started that process and I decided when I got to 10 songs, that would be the magic number, to put everything together as an album.”

The track listing keeps the songs in the order in which they were written and recorded. “Rockin’ Man” became the title track because of its biographical nature.

“I wanted to write a song about myself and how I started playing music,” McKenzie said. “If you read the lyrics, I tried to create a song around the lyrics of other famous songs. Some of my influences are in the lyrics. That’s why I decided to name it ‘Rockin’ Man,’ because it’s a little bit of a biography.”

McKenzie will be selling “Rockin’ Man,” available on CD and flash drive, at his shows, and it will be available starting next week on his website,

raj.ma.

One of those upcoming gigs will be a Graphic Pink reunion Aug. 24 at Quaker Steak & Lube in Sharon, Pa. Graphic Pink was one of the area’s most popular bands in the ’90s, playing several nights a week.

“I was sitting around with some friends around Christmastime, and we were all just kind of reminiscing about the old days with Graphic Pink and some of the places we used to play,” McKenzie said. “On a whim, I picked up the phone and texted all the guys in the band. All I texted was, ‘Graphic Pink reunion show 2024. Who’s in?’ and within two hours everyone had texted me back and said ‘Absolutely.’ ”

McKenzie, guitar and lead vocals; Bryan Patrick, guitar and vocals; and Mark Tirabassi, drums, have been rehearsing for the last three months. Dave Markasky, bass and vocals, now lives in South Carolina and will come up a couple of days early to prepare for the show, which will be part of Quaker Steak’s 50th anniversary celebration.

“One of the first places we played was 3 by the River (the restaurant complex Quaker Steak was a part of) way back in the day, so it kind of made sense to have it there,” McKenzie said. “They’re going to have a lot of activities out in the parking lot, starting at 4 o’clock and then the band will go on and we’ll play from 8-11 that night.”

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.