Though Guy Davis was raised in New York City, the son of the well-known actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, he grew up hearing accounts of life in the rural South from his parents and grandparents. He used those tales for his own songs and stories.
In the booklet for Shaffer Street’s debut album is a gauzy picture of the band’s leader, Chris Shaffer, that suggests Rob Zombie about to do some damage – long hair, beard, made-up eyes, and a sly look of malevolence.
• Beating the bootleggers to the punch, this Tuesday Pearl Jam unrolls the first batch of concert CDs from the band's recently completed North American tour. This continuation of band-controlled "domestic bootlegs" promises to cover 47 U.
· Solo projects abound in the coming weeks as individual members of past-and-present successfully busy bands take a sidestep, releasing new side-project CDs. One of the tastier offerings: Limp Bizkit's Wes Borland tries on the mask of his new alter ego as Big Dumb Face and the Duke Lion Fights the Terror set on the Geffen-distributed Flawless/Flip imprint on March 6.
Panama-bred jazz pianist, composer, and educator opened himself up to some scrutiny after he announced during Saturday’s concert that this was his jazz trio’s first public performance. But although the players weren’t always on the same page, it was an impressive debut.
It's a shame that most of the Quad Cities will see only one side of Danilo Perez during his week-long visit here as part of Quad City Arts' award-winning Visiting Artist series. When he performs on February 10 at Augustana College's Centennial Hall, you'll have the opportunity to see the focused jazz master infusing the most American of music forms with folk music and the musical history of his native Latin America.
Danilo Perez was born in Panama in 1966. His father, also called Danilo, was a singer. At the age of three, Danilo would play bongos when attending his father's rehearsals. He took up the guitar at the age of five and by the time he was 10, he was studying piano at the National Conservatory in Panama.
Enchanted with the ideals of the French Revolution, Beethoven originally dedicated his third symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte. But when Napoleon declared himself emperor, Beethoven tore up the title page and renamed the symphony the “Heroic symphony, to celebrate the memory of great man.
Further proof of our ever-growing litigious society: The original West Coast social-political anarchists, the Dead Kennedys, have stepped into the brown shoes of "the man," as the former members have just succeeded in a long legal attack against founder and new-media icon Jello Biafra for shared ownership of the group's vast archives.
After a couple decades as a band, some developments are largely inevitable: You’ll have reached a certain comfort level with your music and your fellow musicians, you’ll have achieved a degree of technical prowess, and you’ll run out of album titles.
You'll get a run down of What's Happenin' along with your keys to the Quad Cities' culture.
Submit your event listings to calendar@rcreader.com
