Willy Turner, everyone was relieved to learn last week, is still alive. After the news spread, some folks even started gathering music and boomboxes to give to the man known around 14th Street NW as Black Cat Bill.
Amid all the excitement, however, comes some bad news. Last Friday, Turner was moved from Deanwood Rehabilitation and Wellness [...]
Since posting an item yesterday on the very-much-still-alive Willy Turner—aka Black Cat Bill—I've received a lot of questions about what to do with tapes and boomboxes. (Turner, who's living in a nursing home in Deanwood, told me he'd be grateful for a boombox and some tunes.) Local writer and activist Andy Bowen says he's organizing [...]
Unlike many West Coast denizens, architect James Brown isn't sneering at yesterday's 5.8 temblor. "That was a real West Coast earthquake," he says.
Brown works at the Vancouver firm Bing Thom Architects, and supervised the construction of Arena Stage's new Mead Center for American Theater, which opened to great fanfare last fall. If you were at [...]
The struggle began long before James Brown claimed it's a man's (man's man's) world, and the push for equality ain't over yet. For the women who get paid less than their male counterparts and for the girls who feel subjugated to the desires of the other gender, it gets frustrating, damn it. Punk rock made [...]
Steve Reid, a New York-based drummer who moved through several forms of African-American music while rarely straying from the cutting edge, died this morning in New York at 66 years old. The cause of death has not been reported.
Reid's professional career began at 16 as the house drummer of Harlem's Apollo Theater, with his [...]
A Friday item, in which we feature a playlist suggested by one of our critics—or by a friendly guest.
Christian McBride has laid down records with so many jazz icons that to list them here would be sort of obnoxious. (It would also require us to discuss the latter-day work of Sting.) Suffice it to say [...]
Dear Arts Desk readers,
As approximately 62 of you know, I've been spinning a Friday Soul mix via the old Twitter account. Man is it groovy! I'm even linking to videos. The playlist so far:
Otis Redding, "Shake" (live at Monterey Pop, 1967)
Raphael Saadiq, "Let's Take a Walk"
Laura Nyro, "And When I Die"
James Brown, "Super Bad"
Buddy Guy, [...]
I saw Original P with openers Ken Staton and his James Brown Revue for free at Fort Dupont Park in Anacostia Saturday night July 18. I was not intending to write it up, but it was such an exciting and interesting event that I gotta share. Yes, it was just an oldies tribute show, but [...]
Oh, it's time to get out your X-Mas LPs. Two nights ago, Mingering Mike was having me track down "White Christmas" by the Drifters and a sweet James Brown yuletide favorite. Thank G-d for iTunes as the Drifters track was AWOL on Amazon. And thank G-d for Red Onion, the record shop just got in [...]
