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Events Calendar Aug/Sept 2008

thru Aug 9
The Fantasticks by Tom Jones
Way Off Broadway Theatre
$10 in advance and $12 at the door
334.361.3029 | 334.365.8806

Aug 16
William Penn Wine Dinner Train
www.wmpenn.info
Ozan Vineyard & Wine Cellars
www.ozanwine.com | 205.668.OZAN

Aug 21, 2008 | 7:05 p.m.
Thirsty Thursday with EMERGE Montgomery and the Montgomery Biscuits
Riverwalk Stadium
It's time to take yourself out to the ballgame! Peanuts, Crackerjacks, food, and drink specials are the order of the day. Join the EMERGE Montgomery YP Network as they root for Montgomery's very own Boys of Summer. This is the last Thirsty Thursday of the season, so don't miss it!
We'll be meeting in the lawn area, so bring your friends, family, blankets and chairs. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased online at www.biscuitsbaseball.com or at the will-call box the day of the game.
EMERGE Montgomery is a young professionals group, ages 22-40.

Aug 23
Vineyard Verasion & Harvest
Ozan Vineyard & Wine Cellars
www.ozanwine.com | 205.668.OZAN

Aug 23 7pm & Aug 24 2:30pm
ClefWorks | Stay Tuned 2008
Touch the Music, Hear the Art
Alabama Shakespeare Festival
$25 adults, $15 students
Tickets at Sterling Bank, Carmichael Rd.
www.clefworks.org

Aug 26 2008 | 5:30p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Alive After Five! with EMERGE Montgomery and The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival | One Festival Drive, Montgomery, Alabama
Hosted by Carrabba's and ASF, come join EMERGE Montgomery for food, beverages and a backstage tour. See demonstrations in stage construction, set design, costuming, wig-making and other exciting components of theatre, while networking with other YPs.
Admission is $5 for paid members and $10 for non-members. If you sign up for a one-year membership at the event, your admission will be FREE!
EMERGE Montgomery is a young professionals group, ages 22-40. RSVP to swasserman@montgomerychamber.com

Sept 1
3rd Annual Jazz on the Grass
Labor Day Music Festival
Live music, food & art vendors and more.
ASF Gardens, Blount Cultural Park

Sept 7 - Sept 19
42nd Annual Montgomery Art Guild Regions Bank Art Exhibition
Regions Bank Tower Lobby
8 Commerce Street
Sept 7 | noon-3pm and weekdays during banking hours. Free.
http://montgomeryartguild.org

Sept 9 - Nov 18 | Tuesday nights
Marriage & Family Counseling Course
Eastwood Presbyterian Church
1701 E. Trinity Blvd.
This course is designed to help area pastors, elders, deacons, guidance counselors and other lay Christians be more effective in their churches, in their ministries and in their communities. The class combines personal instruction by Lou Priolo and stimulating class discussion of specific case studies.
$175 per person, $300 per couple | Call 334-386-2384 for more info.

Sept 26 - Oct 12
Three Mo’ Divas
From the creator of the smash hit Three Mo’ Tenors comes the new hit musical.
Alabama Shakespeare Festival
www.asf.net | 334.271.5353

Sept 27
Titus Bluegrass Festival
Entertainment, arts and crafts, children’s activities, barbeque, and lots of bluegrass music
Titus Community Center | 10am-6pm
$5.00 adults | Children under 12 free

ClefWorks is preparing two late summer performances for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Octagon stage as part of its second season, Stay Tuned 2008. The weekend of August 23, ClefWorks patrons will once again touch the music and hear the art as Artistic Director and violinist Benjamin Sung builds a program around Horn Trios by JohannesBrahms and 20th-Century composer György Ligeti – the latter trio conceived as an homage to Brahms. Featuring an unusual surprise opener and an exciting partnership with ASF, this program continues ClefWorks’ unique mission to bring world-class chamber music combined with local arts to people of all ages. Tickets at Sterling Bank on Carmichael Road. $25 for adults and $15 for students. www.clefworks.org

Capital Heights Centennial Homecoming Celebration

Heritage & History
A display of interviews with current and former residents of Capitol Heights

Spotlight on History
A tour of historically or architecturally significant homes and churches

Parade of the Decades
Featuring vintage automobiles, residents in period costumes, a marching band and more. The parade will start at Capitol Heights UMC on Winona Avenue and end on S. Capitol Parkway, where the cars will be displayed.

Musical Entertainment
Featuring Capitol Heights’ own Rob Thornhill & Sons and The Shouting Stones

...and much more!
Arts and crafts show/sale, refreshments, trolley rides, horse-drawn carriage rides, and a centennial scavenger hunt

Have items to donate to the Heritage & History Display? If so, contact CHCA via their website at www.capitolheightsmontgomery.org. All memorabilia and photographs donated to CHCA will be given to the Alabama Department of Archives and History after the Centennial Celebration.

Montgomery Performing Arts Centre

Aug 4th | 7pm
Byron Cage
Praise & worship leader for New Birth in Atlanta, Byron Cage is one of Gospel music’s most dynamic and popular artists. For the past two years, Byron Cage has won Stellar Awards for “Song of the Year,” a testament to the magnetic appeal of his breakout hits such as “The Presence of the Lord;” “I Will Bless The Lord,” and “Broken But I’m Healed.”

Recorded live in New York City at the famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem on April 26, 2007, The Proclamation is a dream come true for the recording artist. “...Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan and so many people have come through there. I had performed on the stage of The Apollo before, but for me to be the first one to record a live Gospel CD at The Apollo is historic.” A packed crowd of fans and Gospel music luminaries welcomed Cage with open arms and unbridled enthusiasm during the incredible night of praise to God.

August 31, 2:30pm
MPAC “ Sunday Lunch Bunch” Presents: Palmetto State Quartet | “A Living Legacy”
Cost: $20.00 - Lunch buffet and concert (lunch from 11-2) | $12.50 - Concert only (2:30 pm)

The Palmetto State Quartet is known by the rich blend of classic voices that define it as a living legacy. Over the past six decades, their rich sound has propelled them to the forefront. This quartet appreciates the value of Christian entertainment but realizes their primary focus is of a divine nature. The group believes that with God’s anointing, one word or one song might change a life forever, and they are humbled and honored to share in that calling.

September 5 | 7:30pm
The Capitol Steps
The Capitol Steps began as a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that employed them. In the years that followed, many of the Steps ignored conventional wisdom (“Don’t quit your day job!”) and although not all of the current members of the Steps are former Capitol Hill staffers, taken together, the performers have worked in a total of eighteen Congressional offices and represent 62 years of collective House and Senate staff experience. Since they began, The Capitol Steps have recorded 27 albums, including their latest: Springtime for Liberals. They have been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS. www.capsteps.com.

September 6 | 7:30pm
The United States Navy Band
Since its official designation in 1925, the Navy Band has grown into a diverse organization of multiple performing units. The Band is currently composed of 172 enlisted musicians and 4 officers, under the direction of Capt. George N. Thompson.

September 12 | 8:00pm
Bill Engvall in Concert
Born in Galveston, Texas, Bill Engvall began his career as a disc jockey in Dallas. He has toured with Jeff Foxworthy, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy for the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour,” which was later turned into a successful movie and cable television show. Currently Engvall has a sitcom on TBS called “The Bill Engvall Show” and “The Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again” will be premiering on Comedy Central later this year. Cost: $45-55.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Young Professional Nights

The first ASF YP event was called “A Night at the Tavern” and included dinner and networking at The Montgomery Brew Pub with a special YP discount on tickets to that evening’s performance of Over the Tavern, ASF’s new comedy playing through April 6.

Mark Your Calendars for these upcoming YP Events!

Wednesday August 6, 2008
West Side Story
Jazz it up with a Bowling Night at Brunswick Woodmere Lanes.

All events will include the opportunity to purchase dinner and our special YP Event ticket price of $26.00. Call the Box Office to reserve tickets. (800) 841-4273 Visit ww.shakeituptimes.blogspot.com or the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Facebook group for more information.

About the show: The Alabama Shakespeare Festival brings the stellar Broadway hit West Side Story to the Festival Stage July 18 – August 24. Bringing her talent and expertise to the piece is director and choreographer, Karen Azenberg. While this will mark her twelfth production of West Side Story, in nine different states with casts of all shapes and sizes, Ms. Azenberg says, “It is a great thrill to be coming to ASF…the theatre is terrific!”

What better way to end ASF’s “Season of Romance” than with West Side Story, the musical re-telling of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet are re-created in star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria, who fall for each other as rival gangs clash on the rough streets of 1950’s New York City. When Tony accidentally kills Maria’s brother while breaking up a rumble, more violence erupts. This popular Broadway musical features fast paced choreography and classic songs such as “Something’s Coming,” “Maria,” “America,” “Somewhere,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty” and “Cool.”

Speaking about her interpretation of Jerome Robbins’ original choreography, Ms. Azenberg states, “The story itself is brilliant and wonderfully told… I utilize the skills of dancers, especially male dancers, in the 21st century, with their technique, talent and athleticism, just like Mr. Robbins would have done.”

Welcome to Balthrop Alabama

Your Big Plans, Our Little Town

by Kevin Nutt
appearing in the June/July 2008 issue of FUTURE Montgomery

When I was living in New York City back in the early 1990s, my periodic homesickness manifested itself in strange ways. I was often startled to see a fellow Alabamian I had not seen in years standing on a street corner, appearing suddenly behind a checkout counter or wandering into my classroom at Hunter College only to realize in the next instant the certain person was not who I thought it was. My head was continually filled with fleeting memories and images of Alabama. Eventually I had to return and moved out of New York City.

The musical collective Balthrop, Alabama has solved this problem by creating their own Alabama town of the mind in Brooklyn, New York and peopled it with like-minded townsfolk musicians. Brother and sister Pascal and Lauren Balthrop, originally from Mobile, have produced a winning and instantly likable collection of songs on their debut release Your Big Plans & Our Little Town. It's almost as if the players in a superb and quirky production of Winesburg, Ohio or Thornton Wilder's Our Town eschewed speaking lines and instead passed around a guitar and took turns singing songs from the heart.

The slightly raw (which is good) acoustic guitar driven songs on Your Big Plans & Our Little Town roam from the wistfully weird to the bright eyed matter of fact-ness of “Explode.” Even the more somber songs like “Georgiana Starlington” and “Down on Us” are never overwhelmed by pessimism. There is a thread of some kind of quiet enduring hope running through these songs and it bursts to the surface in the record’s best song. Sung by Lauren Balthrop, “Explode” leaves you with the feeling that Balthrop’s response to the world’s destruction is just, “Well, c’mon. Let’s pick it up and keep goin’.” And, obviously, they might as well have a good time on their journey. There’s an absolutely charming video of “Explode” on YouTube that you must see featuring all the Balthrop denizens. Filmed in a herky-jerky stop time, the Balthrop congregation wander in and out of the frame, dance wildly and chant to the football-like final chorus. Balthrop posses an astonishing sense of instantly likable unprepossessingness, and a rare lack of apparent self consciousness that always seems to signal a new musical trend or direction, and it is evident in this video performance.

There are background ambient sounds running beneath many of the songs on the record and whether intended or not the quiet sea shore sounds of the final tune, “Song for a Little Girl I Saw at the Beach”, segues perfectly with the opening track’s bird chirps, creating a kind of hermetic circular seal to the whole production.

What I think Balthrop, Alabama is trying to do is to figure out a way to create unsentimental optimistic art in a milieu that often values the existential and the pessimistic. If they succeed, Your Big Plans & Our Little Town will be just a beginning; an understatement to what lies artistically ahead for them.

I keep going back to the YouTube video of “Explode” and now that I think about it, some of the folk in the video are beginning to look strangely familiar, like some of my old classmates or long lost Alabama friends. It is almost like being homesick. Maybe after a few listens to Your Big Plans & Our Little Town the good people of Balthrop, Alabama might start looking a little familiar to you.

by Jennifer L. Solt
appearing in FUTURE Montgomery Sept/Oct 2007 issue

A collector of vintage gospel music, Kevin Nutt is a dj for New York’s WFMU radio station, where he spins the vinyl every Monday evening from 6 to 7pm. The cool part is that he does it every week from his home in downtown Montgomery.

Voted best radio station by Rolling Stone magazine four years in a row, WFMU is a listener-supported, free-form station with experimental, progressive programming. As a WFMU dj, Kevin has the opportunity to pull from their library of music as well as his own collection, which is constantly expanding as he trades and acquires music from other collectors. In fact, he rarely ever plays a song twice, and all of his programs from the last 6 years are available on wfmu.org, where you can

download free podcasts. “It all started when I was in a punk band. At least that’s what I tell people,” Kevin says. Really, let’s be honest, it all started when he was a kid – a Baptist preacher’s kid.

Kevin has always been a collector of music from gospel’s Golden Age, (primarily black gospel from the 1920’s to the mid-1960’s), and in the past 6 years he has put together the largest online archive of vintage gospel music, all recorded from his weekly radio show, “Sinner’s Crossroads”. His shows include preaching, recordings from live gospel shows, snippets of Bible teaching and some commentary from the man himself. (Kevin, that is.) “People ask me if I’m a proselytizing Christian,” says Kevin, “but I’m not...…well, maybe I am.”

Passionate about the music he collects and distributes over the airwaves, Kevin explains his appreciation for the genre: “It’s this huge body of music, as big as rock and roll, doo-wop and soul combined, but there’s no access to it. It doesn’t get reissued; it often doesn’t even get recorded. It’s the single-most influential body of music in the 20th century, and the people who create this music are not interested in doing it for money. They do it to praise God. They do it to worship.”

Kevin was a collector long before he began jockeying for WFMU. Realizing that there were few forums for people to listen to vintage gospel, he began talking to other collectors and got the idea to get it out there himself. He had always wanted to have a show on WFMU, and in 2001 they picked him up. “It’s interesting to non-believers – to an eclectic, bohemian crowd,” says Kevin, “which is exactly the kind of listener that WFMU attracts.”

In 2003, Kevin started his own record label, CaseQuarter, and began releasing artists like the Reverend Charlie Jackson, who was a major influence for alternative rockabilly legend, The Cramps. The Rev. Jackson was a popular performer at revivals, tent meetings, and the like from the late 1950’s to the 1970’s in the Deep South. He even recorded a few 45’s to give away and sell at his programs, but they were never massproduced. In fact, there were less than 20 ever recorded, and for collectors and musicians alike the Reverend Jackson is kind of a cult legend. When CaseQuarter released a disc of The Rev. Jackson’s recordings from 1970-1978, the cd began selling fast and getting some attention. A review by The New York Times read “...These songs rock without taking even a small vacation.”

CaseQuarter’s second release was a cd called “You Without Sin Cast the First Stone”, by Isaiah Owens. A member of the gospel quartet, The Flying Clouds of Montgomery, Alabama for forty years, Owens went solo in the early 1990’s, appearing on local AM gospel radio broadcasts. That’s where Kevin discovered him, and he knew he had to get Owens’ music out to the world.

A self-taught musician and passionate singer, Owen’s songs grab the listener in a way that you have to experience to understand. During a recent stint in a Brooklyn nightclub called Barbes, Owens played for a crowd that couldn’t get enough of him. In that audience were thelikes of Jim Jarmusch, director of A Stranger in Paradise, and Lou Reed’s guitar player, and according to Kevin, they loved him.

CaseQuarter’s most recent release, “Singing Songs of Praise”, by the Spiritualaires of Hurtsboro, Alabama, came out this year, and also gained positive reviews by The New York Times and Playboy magazine, and has been played on Andy Kershaw’s blues program on the BBC’s Radio 3.

Kevin’s enthusiasm for the music he collects and releases is so contagious that you may find yourself eager to log on to the radio station to hear the slow, rhythmic power of the music that Kevin describes simply as “thumping” and “killer”. Listening to his favorite Jewel Jubilee Singers from 1948-1952, and the male harmony quartet, The Southern Tones, singing “Blessed Jesus, Hold My Hand”, you too will find yourself going back again and again to hear more of this lively “soul music”.