If you have a yearnin’ for Cajun music, check out the N.C. Museum of Art’s Annual Louisiana Dance Party, this weekend. Guests Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys have continuously pushed the envelope of Cajun music, mixing up cultures like no other Louisiana band has done since the heyday of Clifton Chenier. Whatever they play, […]
Grant Britt
Posted inMusic
Presley, part II
Lisa Marie Presley has been in the crosshairs of the media since the day she was born. Being The King’s daughter provided fodder enough to satisfy media hounds during his lifetime, but Lisa Marie managed to stir up enough dust on her own to keep the press on her trail. The world knows probably more […]
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The return of an American idol
A little touch of fame can make a man weary. Good Morning America, MTV and a slew of other media giants have been after him to tell his side of the American Idol story, but he’s turned them all down. Richard Murphy is Clay Aiken’s high school principal, but he’s been besieged by the media […]
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Be-boppin’ and scattin’
Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval’s life was changed when he discovered legendary jazz hornman Dizzy Gillespie. Sandoval had been his study of classical music at the age of 12, but when a friend played a record of Dizzy and Charlie Parker, he switched allegiances. “That was my very first time, and I said, ‘Oh my goodness–what […]
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Jumpin’ at the Eno
For nearly a quarter of a century, Durham’s Festival for the Eno has been attracting thousands of Independence Day celebrators to its 300-acre site for a weekend of arts, crafts, food and music. More than 100 local, regional and national performers are spread out on five stages over three days for a $12 per diem […]
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Honky tonkin’ at the Barn Theater
In most theaters, the audience is warned by an announcement or a dimming of the lights when the show is about to start. Greensboro’s Barn Dinner Theater takes a more down home approach–when you see the sneeze guards being unhooked from the bottom of the stage, you know it’s show time. At the Barn, the […]
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In folk music
“I ain’t much on commercial formula craftsmanship,” says Malcolm Holcombe (pictured above), whose 1996 Geffen debut, A Hundred Lies, got a four-star Rolling Stone review and had critics equating Holcombe with Lucinda Williams and Robert Earl Keen. His music, full of stark images of hardscrabble folk getting through life as best they can, delivered like […]
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In clubs
“Playing with Bill Monroe and being so close to the searing, white hot edge of his cutting, driving music gave you the absolute diploma to develop that style, but also gave you another diploma called musical freedom,” says former Monroe guitarist and lead-singer Peter Rowan. In the 36 years since he left Monroe’s band, Rowan […]
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In free entertainment
Artsplosure, Raleigh’s annual major street festival, mixes musical genres like nothing else. This year’s schedule includes Raleigh-boy-made-good Aubrey Freed, who escaped the capitol city to tour the world as the guitarist for the Black Crowes. Freed will be playing with acoustic, prewar Delta blues specialist Alvin Youngblood Hart. Sauce Boss Bill Wharton cooks a heaping […]
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What can a poor boy do…
Becoming Mick Jagger is not a career path that most ex-Army helicopter pilots chose to pursue. But Glen Carroll’s military background is a little different than most of his peers. “My dad invented the game Battleship,” the lead singer for the Rolling Stones tribute band Sticky Fingers relates. “So it’s not like I ever had […]
