Two years ago Mike Parker walked into the trailer office of Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard with $2,000 and a wide grin on his face. The previous weekend he had organized a benefit concert for Hospice. The money was his gift to the organization that had supported his family when his father was dying of liver cancer while Mr. Parker was still in high school.
It’s fair to say millions, possibly even billions, more people have heard Arnold McCuller than have heard of Arnold McCuller.
If you’ve heard the music of Phil Collins, or Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Bette Midler, Beck — the list goes on and on — you’ve heard Mr. McCuller.
This Thursday night at 7 p.m., under the summer tent at Featherstone Center for the Arts, fans of poetry, music, nay fans of feeling deeply the joy that art brings, are in for a treat. There is a double bill featuring poet Robert Pinsky and musician Stan Strickland.
Space rock conjures up many images, most of which involve laser light shows and music as transport ships headed straight to Orion’s Belt or the nether regions of the Big Dipper. Pink Floyd took you there. So did Jim Hendrix, the Beatles (occasionally with songs like Flying which wandered far afield from just holding your hand), David Bowie and the Rolling Stones with 2000 Light Years from Home. But those are big name brands we’re talking about.
On Saturday, August 6, the Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) will present a program of dance entitled Footprints from My Head’s Rhythm, at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs. The dance troupe was founded in 2004 with the purpose of fusing various traditional African dance styles with contemporary movement and music. If you have ever seen JJDC then you know what you will be doing on August 6 at 8 p.m. And if you haven’t, well, now is the time to mend your dance deficient ways.
Waban Park last Saturday was reminiscent of days when folk music swept the nation and outdoor concerts became legendary events representing a social movement of peace, love and community.
People lay in the grass, kids ran around and blew bubbles, and many local bands played short sets, including Willy Mason, Nina Violet, and the duo Jemima James and Dan Waters.
The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society summer program this year has strayed from some of the more traditional offerings.
“The whole business of going to a chamber music concert — well, we’ve really given that a shake-up,” declared Nora Nevin, the society’s director of publicity.
When David Gans was sent to Jamaica in 1982 by his employer, Record Magazine, he never suspected he would be setting in motion the rest of his career. While in Jamaica, Mr. Gans met photographer Peter Simon, with whom he would later coauthor his first book, Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of The Grateful Dead.
This weekend KCT Concerts gets going again with a show featuring Richie Stearns and special guests Willie Watson from Old Crow Medicine Show and Rosie Newton of the The Pearly Drops and the Evil City String Band. Now there’s a cool name for a band.
Eleven-year-old Sophie Donohue doesn’t have far to travel for the Community Sing each week. During the summer she lives with her family in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. Sophie’s Vineyard experience could be described as a time to swim, sail and, of course, sing.
On Wednesday, July 20, at the third Community Sing of the summer, Sophie mingled with the crowd. “I’m waiting for my friends,” she explained. “We come every week to sing together.”
