The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Outdoor music events planned for spring
As we move towards warmer weather, outside activities are popping up. Let’s hope the air will be filled with the blues.
FTC notes what a difference a year can make. Sometimes an image speaks louder than words. It’s hard to comprehend what a sold-out show during a pandemic really looks like until you see it. As you can imagine, there’s an obvious struggle to make the economics work at a limited capacity. But, they’re trying.
FTC is a venue that belongs to the whole community. It’s a communal space, supported by the community it serves. One of its main goals is to make sure people living in Fairfield County and statewide have a place to experience great live entertainment. Right now, they’re trying to position FTC to come out of this pandemic strong enough to do just that. Your support today will help make that happen.
The CT Grateful Dead All-Stars will be at The Warehouse for three shows, March 5-7. They are limited capacity shows.
The Grateful Dead are the great American band. No other group united so many strains of American music from rock to blues to country to jazz to psychedelia so comprehensively, so singularly, and for so long. Luckily, connecting with the Dead’s music has never been easier. Join us for a Grateful Weekend when these musicians come together for a threenight run celebrating the music of the Grateful Dead.
The band includes Matt Helm (MHE), Barry Blumenfeld and Rob Fried (Bone Dry), Dan O’Connor (Brothers of the Road), Don DeStefano (Creamery Station), Steve Bernstein (Spadtastics), and Eric Hyland (Shakedown). Special Guests Include: Steve Liesman and Bill Bonocci (Stella Blues Band).
The Charlie Keating Band with the Rhythm Regulators are celebrating 14 years together. The band features one of New England’s premier slide guitar player Keating playing that “Boston Boogie.” The band delivers a unique combination of blues and boogie. He has been mentioned as of the same cloth as Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy.
Members are Keating on guitar and vocals with the Rhythm Regulators Lenny Turnquist on bass and Tim Sweeney on drums. He has a brilliant slide guitar style that channels Johnny Winter, Duane Allman and Elmore James. Many have compared his playing to early Stevie Ray Vaughan, due to his ability to combine lead and rhythm guitar simultaneously. The band is well-known for its big sound and driving rhythm section and are equally comfortable playing unique versions of covers or originals.
The Swing University. (Lincoln Center) course, “Bessie Smith and Blues Queens of the 1920s,” taught by Camille Thurman, will take place March 8, 11, and 18. Registration is open. With the recording of “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith in 1920, America entered a blues craze. We see in this decade an explosion of Blues recordings and the of “Blues Queens,”singers like Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, or Mamie Smith. We’ll look at their music, ultimately settling on the Empress of the Blues: Bessie Smith.
It started at the end of February as part of B.B. King Museum’s “Tune Into Black History Month Series: Past, Present, Future African American Women Leaders,” you can now watch and enjoy special performances by the B.B. King Museum AllStars on the museum’s website.
This year’s “Tune In To Black History” presented by the B.B. King Museum (BBKM) was offered virtually due to Covid19. The series is focused and centered around African American Mississippi Delta women who were and are pioneers in making a positive impact and moving their communities forward. The series concludes with this special performance from the B.B. King Museum Allstars. Enjoy their performance here as well as the entire February 2021 series, via these videos on the BBKM web “Event” page at bbkingmuseum.org/
The Allstars performance is aligned with the series theme of Past, Present, and Future African American Women Leaders. They are performing music selections of African American Women artists that have not only made an impact within their industries, but also in the fight for racial social justice.
The Allstars is a program designed to identify boys and girls from grades 6-12 who display exceptional or potential musical talent. Participants focus is on musicianship, showmanship, pride of accomplishment, spirit and citizenship. Students train during the school year with accomplished music educators and travel during the summer recess as official representatives of the B.B. King Museum. Since COVID-19, participants have met and training virtually.
Because we are all eager for the music business to awaken from a year of hibernation, now is the perfect time to bring yourself up to speed on the industry’s best practices. That’s why Berklee Online is offering Introduction to the Music Business, a free four-week course experience: so you can emerge from quarantine with your plan in place. Full of material pulled directly from Berklee Online’s 12-week course, this abridged curriculum is a great way to grow and enhance your business savvy.
Introduction to the Music Business is a series of video lectures, exercises, and quizzes, taught by John P. Kellogg, Esq., a noted entertainment attorney and the former Chair of the Music Business/Management department at Berklee College of Music.
March is Women’s History Month. It actually started as Women’s History Week, an event which was organized by the school district of Sonoma, California, and was first observed in 1978.