LR exhibit mite buggy for crowds
PEST REMOVAL: Those now visiting the William J. Clinton Presidential Center have missed a chance to get a photo like this one, with an extra-large pest lurking on the library’s lawn. So what was bugging the building? An oversized sculpture of a giant roach placed under the name on Clinton’s library. The roach has since been moved to the other side of the building. The insect display is part of a new exhibit, “Xtreme Bugs,” featuring animatronic insects, that opened this weekend and runs through July 23.
SON! Jerry Reed, the late country musician, who this fall will be inducted into the Country Music Association’s Country Music Hall of Fame, had a few Arkansas connections. He played guitar on several recordings of the Browns, who hailed from Sparkman, in the 1960s and worked closely with Delight native and Hall of Famer Glen Campbell in the early 1970s.
Ron Robinson, then vice president of public relations for Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods in Little Rock, recalls meeting Reed. Campbell, then a big star with several radio hits and a CBS TV show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, visited Little Rock that October 1970 to headline two sold-out shows at the Arkansas State Fair at Barton Coliseum. Robinson, in charge of hosting Campbell and his group for three days, met their private plane at the airport with state police.
“Glen Campbell got into the first state police car,” recalls Robinson, who was to take the group to a hotel, the now-gone Coachman’s Inn on East Capitol Avenue. “I was in the second one, and this guy I didn’t know gets into the back seat. He had on a sports shirt and khaki pains and said: ‘Hello, I’m Jerry Reed. I’m performing with Glen and I’m going to be the opening act.’
“I remember he said he’d never been to Arkansas before,” Robinson says of the Atlanta native. “He was a really fine country and rock musician. We became friends, and we talked a lot. I don’t think in three days he was here he changed his clothes but one time, but he was a great guy and kind of a comedian.”
Reed would become more widely known the next year when he released his biggest hit, “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.”
SWAN SONG: Jacquez “Quizz” Swanigan, 13, of Little Rock was eliminated from The Voice on Tuesday night. The judges liked his performance of the Temptations’ Motown hit “My Girl,” but he didn’t advance to the top 12.
ONE MAN’S LOSS … A mere three months ago, Fox News political commentator Tucker Carlson and his show moved into prime time, in the spot vacated by Megyn Kelly. Last week, the former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial writer received another unexpected promotion, into the spot hosted by Bill O’Reilly, with whom the network severed ties.