With their most recent album, 2019's Brothers, described by SoundsLikeNashville.com as a recording that showcases the duo's “talent for delivering exuberance in their music” and “positive spirits and honest chemistry,” Nashville's Locash serves as the Mississippi Valley Fair's August 4 grandstand headliners, performing from a repertoire that has found chart-topping hits in “I Know Somebody” and “One Big Country Song.”

After a 2020 program held virtually, Iowa City's beloved Soul & Blues Festival is back to enthrall live audiences on July 30 and July 31, with this year's assemblage of amazing local and regional performers including blues sensation and headliner Nora Jean Wallace, the Chicago-based artist who inspired Blues Blast magazine to rave, “Wallace is the real deal and her songs are worth repeated listens.”

Delivering a blend of local history, environmental issues, education, entertainment, and fresh air, Davenport's River Action concludes its series of 2021 outdoor presentations in the final month of the annual Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks, weekly programs that, from August 3 through September 4, will address such topics as early Civil War history, Mississippi River flood levels, the history of Campbell's Island, and iconic musicians Bix Beiderbecke and Louie Bellson.

Lauded by the Sun-Sentinel as a “well-plotted, poignant, and often sweet debut” that “stirs up a lively mixture of Filipino culture, food, and family bonds,” Mia Manansala's Arsenic & Adobo was released in May to rapturous praise, and on July 27, its author will appear in a virtual presentation hosted by the Moline Public Library to discuss her career, writing process, and book debut that BuzzFeed labeled on of the most highly anticipated mystery novels of 2021.