Just when I think they can’t get any better, Trent Wagler and The Steel Wheels scrape me off the ceiling, to use their wording, with an astonishing outing. Songs that paste your pulse to your rib cage, throbbing, and heighten […]
Ron Wray lives in Norfolk, VA. A writer most of his life, he is recipient of the Illinois Poet Laureate Award presented by Gwendolyn Brooks, the Washington, D.C. Arts and Humanities Commission Literature Fellowship, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, and Special Project Grants from the Washington, D.C. Commission and the Illinois Arts Council. He is the author of three books and over 300 publications in journals and anthologies. He has performed his work widely across the country with dancers, actors, and musicians collaborating with him. He currently teaches 6th grade English, but spent much of his working life as an arts administrator, including being executive director/director of the Ragdale Foundation artists retreat, the National Institute of Arts and Disabilities, and the International Writers Center of Old Dominion University/Associated Writing Programs/George Mason University. He loves to play guitar, sing, and write songs, and is an avid listener/follower of music and his favorite musicians.
Just when I think they can’t get any better, Trent Wagler and The Steel Wheels scrape me off the ceiling, to use their wording, with an astonishing outing. Songs that paste your pulse to your rib cage, throbbing, and heighten […]
Jason Isbell took no prisoners tonight in Portsmouth. The Oreo cake must have done him good that he talked so happily about. He said a number of times about how cool a space it was at the Portsmouth Pavilion, how […]
An Episodic Day in the Life of an Up-and-Coming Band’s Tour, Number Who-Knows-What Setting the Stage This is a “day-in-the-life” feature from this writer/fan trying to bring a band’s tour to life in a range beyond those shining, culminating moments […]
An Episodic Day in the Life of an Up-and-Coming Band’s Tour, Number Who-Knows-What Setting the Stage, Getting the House in Order, while Flock of Birds Alight This is a “day-in-the-life” feature from this writer/fan trying to bring a band’s tour […]
The Colorado band, Taarka, taking its name from Indian spices, lost everything a few years back. When their Lyons home was completely overwhelmed by flood waters, the young couple with small son had to start all over. At the core […]
“To have a song mean something for somebody is the epitome of the best possible thing you want as an artist,” says Dan Lotti, lead singer-guitarist in the rangy, laid-back, then swept-up-high band Dangermuffin. They are as hard to label […]
Australia’s many-talented Daniel Champagne is coming and going in Hampton Roads, VA, having performed recently in Virginia Beach in an intimate January 28 concert that will hopefully lead to greater area awareness and a hoped-for return visit in the fall. […]
One young Nashville singer is taking a big step toward distinguishing herself in the enormous pool of talent living and making music there. Ali Sperry, a modest young singer/songwriter with a personality that comes over with sweet earnestness in such […]
Many of us have been waiting eagerly for over a year for Carrie Elkin’s new album, The Penny Collector. I’d heard some songs from The Penny Collector at last year’s Folk Alliance International (FAI) Conference in Kansas City. Carrie shared […]
The 2017 Folk Alliance International Conference, with its many facets and some public access, occurred from February 15 to 19 in Kansas City. Part One Prelude – The Impressionist Merge of Folky World-ness in KC There is music and there […]