As Rock Island and Davenport both undertake the issue of rental-property inspections, it will be worth following to see how similar - and different - their programs end up being. The issue is important because rental inspections are a major way a city can help maintain and even improve its housing stock.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown will not have the blues when he performs at the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival this weekend and receives the RiverRoad Lifetime Achievement Award. There's too much music in him. He plays guitar, harmonica, violin, mandolin, viola, and drums, and he simply doesn't abide by any musical boundaries, comfortable in the Cajun music of his birthplace and the Texas blues and country styles of his youth, along with jazz and R&B and calypso and pretty much anything else he can get his hands on.

W.C. Clark is something of a legend in his native Austin, Texas, having been a key player in the integration of the blues scene, giving a boost to artists such as the fiery guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. But it wasn't until 2002 - after Clark dedicated himself to his music in a new way - that he started to get his due.

A little time off can do wonders for an artist. Before singer Reneé Austin gave up performing music in 1999, she felt in a bit of a rut, stuck performing blues material that really wasn't her. She had an album, Dancin' with Mr.