09
May
2007
A
country-music performer's decision to move to Nashville is
typically the product of a dream. For Suzy Bogguss, it was eminently
practical.
In the early 1980s, the Aledo native and Illinois State University graduate was knocking around the country, doing gigs at coffeehouses and ski resorts. She lived in the Quad Cities, Kewanee, Peoria.
She didn't envision a future as a respected and popular country singer. She didn't aspire to the gold and platinum records she would eventually earn.
"It just never really occurred to me that that's what my goal was going to be," she said in a phone interview last week, in advance of her May 12 performance with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at the Adler Theatre. "It was just fun."
The
concept of record-label samplers is to introduce a listener to the sound
and artists that a label offers. But too often, these compilations
are nothing more than a hodge-podge of material tied together by a
company name: Either everything sounds the same, making it difficult
to tell one artist from the next, or the compilation is so disparate
that it's impossible to settle in and sit through all of the songs.
Returning
with its most pop-friendly album to date, The Marlboro Chorus knocks
out nine rock-and-roll numbers on American
Dreamers. Drawing influence
from Buddy Holly, Pink Floyd, and Bill Haley, American
Dreamers sees The Marlboro
Chorus putting aside art rock in favor of a straightforward album
complete with guitar solos, magnificently simple lyrics, and a raw
sound. From the black-and-white cover to the title of the record
itself, American Dreamers
feels so easy, but it was a long time coming.
Singer-songwriter
Carrie Newcomer tells about a friend who leads a group of people who
knit for the local food bank. They'll set up somewhere and knit
with a sign that reads, "Knitting for the Food Bank."
It's
apparent both in its publicity materials and in its recordings that
the Chicago-based band Tenki aspires to the epic.
Most
people think of bluegrass as music for old people, and Alex Kirt of
the Woodbox Gang doesn't disagree. He calls it "timeless," but
as a performer that has one big advantage.
When
soprano Janinah Burnett takes the stage with the Quad City Symphony
Orchestra this weekend, she will sing the role of Violetta, a part
she first performed five years ago. But it has taken those five years
for her to really develop this leading role in La
Traviata - one of opera's
most famous works.
The
fills.
Few
people in the United States have heard of it, but the Eurovision Song
Contest might be likened to an American
Idol for songs (rather than
singers) on a multinational scale. The contest
(
