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It’s not bytes, but grooves, as in grooving to the music
Last Christmas I got a gadget that cleverly combined the new technology with the old. It’s a turntable that converts tracks off those big ol’ vinyl records into newfangled digital tunes that can hang out on your computer.

07/11/2009

Classical musicians look distorted in Hollywood’s lens
Popular culture and classical music have had different sorts of relationships over the years. Old-timers conjure up a time when radio stations supported great orchestras, television networks commissioned opera and Leopold Stokowski could shake hands with Mickey in Fantasia and then go home to Garbo.

When Casey Kasem counted for a lot
You can divide the world into two kinds of people: Those whose hearts cracked a little bit last weekend at the news that Casey Kasem was doing his final radio countdown of the hits, and those who said, “Casey who?” For those of us who grew up listening to Kasem play the top 40 records in America every weekend, the only thing sadder than his departure is that he outlived his own medium. When it comes to music, radio is a desiccated shell of its old self.

07/10/2009

HOT TICKETS: Brian Wilson at Lupo’s
www.etix.com.

07/08/2009

CareFusion signs on to sponsor August jazz festival in Newport
The festival has been without a titular sponsor since JVC decided not to renew its contract in March.

07/09/2009

Music Scene by Rick Massimo: Claudia Acuna adds a little Latin to her jazz
On her latest disc, En Este Momento, the Chilean jazz singer Claudia Acuna blends jazz and Latin music in a way that accentuates the best of both. Instead of sambas and bossas with long solos over them, lush jazz forms get a Latin accent from Acuna’s singing, the acoustic guitar of Juancho Herrera and the gentle rhythm section of Omer Avital and Clarence Penn.

07/04/2009

Share your Newport Folk Festival memories with The Journal
The first folk festival in Newport was 50 years ago this summer, and we’re looking for stories from longtime attendees for possible inclusion in a series of stories on the history of the event.

07/05/2009

Newport Music Festival plans 57 programs, 17 days of music in July
Things are tough at the Newport Music Festival, the classical chamber music bash held each July in the city’s storied mansions. The economic slump has hit the 41-year-old event hard.

Electrical and evangelical: These churches are rockin’
Move over Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend.

07/02/2009

Concert Review: Los Lobos endures with its Latino-accented rock
NEWPORT — For more than 30 years, Los Lobos has been one of the greatest rock bands in America, mixing roots-rock bona fides with a Latino accent, and an experimental streak with a sense of songcraft that hasn’t let them down yet.

Gospel choir gets SoundSession off to a spirited start
The week-long SoundSession festival is the best party Providence throws, and it starts in downtown Providence on Sunday with a gospel brunch featuring the RPM Voices, a choir led by Brown University Africana Studies professor Clarice Thompson and showcasing singers from the city and the area.

06/28/2009

Rick Massimo: “You could marvel at Jackson; you could wonder at him; later in life, people made jokes about him.”
When James Brown died, I wrote that the bad things that he did in his life shouldn’t be forgotten or swept under the rug, but that once someone is gone, the best thing for the rest of us to do is look at a life and take what lessons, and what inspiration, we can out of it to help us with the life we have left.

06/27/2009

Jackson fans cleaning out music bins in R.I.
PROVIDENCE — When Alexis Marshall, 29, of Providence, heard that a reporter had come in to the Newbury Comics record store at the Providence Place mall to talk to customers and employees about Michael Jackson, he exclaimed unbidden, “I don’t care about Michael Jackson!”

06/26/2009

R.I. Jackson ‘fans’ cleaning out music bins
PROVIDENCE — When Alexis Marshall, 29, of Providence, heard that a reporter had come in to the Newbury Comics record store at the Providence Place mall to talk to customers and employees about Michael Jackson, he exclaimed unbidden, “I don’t care about Michael Jackson!”

06/28/2009

The Wizard of Odd, yes, but in black America, Michael was a pioneer
In 1972, when the movie Ben premiered and sent that falsetto voice of little Michael Jackson soaring across movie screens, the joy inside black America was palpable. It wasn’t just that the song raced to No. 1 on the charts, it was that it flowed from the magic of film. And black America, long kept away from mainstream movies, kept a close eye on — and had a keen interest in — the world of Tinseltown.

06/27/2009

Upcoming Philharmonic season looks quite promising
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the return of percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie are among the highlights of the upcoming Rhode Island Philharmonic season. The orchestra will also be welcoming back the brilliant Russian-born, German-based pianist Lilya Zilberstein, who will open the season in late September, and the fabulous German cellist Alban Gerhardt for a performance of the Elgar concerto.

06/25/2009

Los Lobos content to tour — new disc next year, maybe
Summertime is touring time for Los Lobos, and from his home in Oregon, saxophonist Steve Berlin says that the Los Angeles band, which has been combining roots rock, studio experimentalism and Latino traditional music for more than 30 years, is gearing up for “sojourning about the world,” an annual ritual that lasts from May through October.

Pop music briefs
Cheryl Wheeler and Bill Harley are two of the region’s best singer-songwriters, and Rick Brooks from the ACLU says they’ve never shared a stage before, which frankly is a little hard to believe, but it actually doesn’t matter — this is a rare opportunity either way you slice it. The program is called “An Evening of Dangerous Songs,” and you know those two are capable of them — Harley, from Seekonk, is obviously best known as a children’s performer, but his First Bird Call album for adults from earlier this year hit hard, and he slips a little something in with the funny even when he’s playing for kids. Meanwhile, Cheryl Wheeler is Cheryl Wheeler, and that should be enough, as the Swansea resident can break your heart with a tribute to a father or split your sides with a riff on porta-johns. Don’t miss this.

06/23/2009

Correction/clarification
Tickets for the Fat Joe concert to be held Friday, July 10, in Kennedy Plaza as part of Providence SoundSession ’09 are $25. Also, Sunny and Her Joy Boys, featuring Duke Robillard, will perform at Tazza, on Westminster Street in Providence, on Tuesday, July 7, as part of the same festival. The Fat Joe ticket price was incorrect and Sunny and Her Joy Boys were omitted from the Tazza bill in a story in Sunday Arts announcing the festival.

06/21/2009

6th season of SoundSession will be bigger than ever
Lynne McCormack, the director of art, culture and tourism for the City of Providence, says that she and the other producers of SoundSession “were having some really serious discussion about whether we should move forward, just like any arts organization is having about their seasons, and having to make some really difficult decisions.”

Huey Lewis and the News keep on delivering
Huey Lewis, the man who sings about the virtues of a “Couple Days Off,” says that it’s important to get just that every once in a while.

06/20/2009

Rock the Ink to return to the R.I. Convention Center in Providence in August
Rock the Ink, the three-day extravaganza that celebrated the mix of loud music and tattooing last October, is returning to Providence this summer.

06/19/2009

Concert Review: Slightly weary Aerosmith rocks, Dropkicks dazzle at Comcast Center
MANSFIELD, MASS. — More than 40 years ago, Pete Townshend wrote “Hope I die before I get old.” More than 30 years ago, Steven Tyler wrote “All these lines in my face getting clearer.” Probably, neither one thought much about what the lyric would mean this far down the road, but, well, here we all are.