About Tab
⋆★ Oregonian pop artist Tab Houston has a sharp pen and a soft heart.
His deliberate approach to songcraft blends a lifelong affection for Top 40 hits with reverence for the Great American Songbook. ★⋆
Known for his appearances at The Shedd Institute (Eugene, OR), Houston's “glorious” vocals (The Register Guard) shift between a soulful croon, a flexible falsetto, and a “powerhouse” roar (Eugene Weekly). He is currently in the process of recording his debut album, How Not to Love You.
How Not to Love You is Houston's confessional exploration of first love lost, developed over the course of a decade-long battle with chronic pain and complex trauma. His bittersweet odes to queer romance will resonate with anyone who has felt the pang of a broken heart — and reckoned honestly with their own role in breaking it.
Houston's style is broadly inspired by pop, rock, R&B, jazz, and country.
Growing up, his parents’ 5-disc stereo introduced him to icons like Freddie Mercury, Sarah McLachlan, Elton John, Billy Joel, Céline Dion, and more. He spent his adolescent years aspirationally obsessed with early seasons of American Idol; from there, he continued to develop his taste in pop by listening to the likes of Sara Bareilles, Ariana Grande, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, Troye Sivan, and Beyoncé.
Another ingredient of Houston's sound is his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from The University of Michigan. His keen rhymes and piano-driven arrangements stem from an admiration for Broadway songwriters like Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Ashman & Menken, Jason Robert Brown, and Adam Guettel.
Shortly after earning his degree, Houston was a passenger in a violent car wreck, leading him to uproot a budding New York theatre career and return home to Oregon to recover from his injuries. He established a local reputation as a versatile concert singer, honed his songwriting, and taught himself how to arrange and produce his own music. It was over the course of those years that How Not to Love You began to take shape. ★⋆