Baton Rouge Temperature: 92°
Thursday, August 7, 2008

MUSIC

 
A baritone and tenor sax, trumpet, bass, drums, guitar, and keyboard all make up one heck of a blues band. Black Joe Lewis started as a new band in April 2007 and has been making music, touring across country, and just living the dream. While some musicians start strumming as soon as they leave the womb, Lewis picked up the guitar much later in life, and that’s where he discovered the blues.

For every teenager, music becomes a big part of daily life and provides an outlet to express inner turmoil for acne-scarred, hormone-crazed adolescents. Many teens hide in their rooms while playing air guitar to Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog,” some dump a large portion of their allowances and summer wages into their CD collections, and many more persuade their parents to buy that glorious first electric guitar.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Lynyrd Skynyrd may have dozens of albums after three decades of rocking, but guitarist Gary Rossington knows fans love to relive the band's heyday, dancing to "Sweet Home Alabama" or firing up their lighters for "Free Bird."

Being a teenager is not easy. Youth everywhere cling to the hope of someday growing up and speeding by the agony and angst of the adolescent years. But for Karina Pasian, her teens has brought with them a blossoming and successful music career. Pasian recently celebrated her 17th birthday on a sweltering Friday in Los Angeles.

New Orleans sizzles with more than summer heat in August. The music scene is as hot as ever, especially during the annual Satchmo SummerFest taking place today through Sunday, Aug. 3.

A quick glance at the summer concert schedules of touring music stars reveals open-air amphitheaters to be frequent stops in much of the United States. The nation’s better-known amphitheaters include the scenic Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver, Wolf Trap near Washington, D.C., Chicago’s Ravinia and Southern California’s famous Hollywood Bowl.

Once upon a time, CDs in clear-plastic jewel cases were packaged in what were called long boxes.

Live jazz returns to the Ballroom in downtown Lafayette when the Rachael Price Quartet takes the stage on Friday Sept. 12, at 8 p.m.

C.J., Cody and Mack Solar, the three teen brothers collectively known as the Solar Heat, likely will perform for the biggest audience of their lives Saturday at the Blue Bayou/Dixie Landin’ water park.

Before the Hold Steady’s five increasingly successful years as a band, before the band’s four CDs and the many great reviews awarded to the newly released Stay Positive, guitarist Tad Kubler and singer Craig Finn started their new rock band with small expectations.

Grammy winners and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees record the music of Lafayette songwriter David Egan.

How would you feel if superstar Shania Twain called and invited you to sing a duet? Rising country singer Billy Currington could hardly believe it when that amazing moment happened to him.

On a lazy sunny afternoon, I drove to Highland Road Coffee to meet with local experimental rock duo the Chi Chi’s to chat about the band and their upcoming show at North Gate Tavern on Wednesday, July 30.

When you think of Baton Rouge, music, poetry and the arts are probably not the first things that come to mind. This is the motivation behind the growing movement to create a more predominant and recognizable arts scene in Baton Rouge. One of the people on the forefront of this movement is Chancelier “Xero” Skidmore.
 The Scene for July 25

On one side of the coin he’s Billy Bob Thornton, star of the movie hits Friday Night Lights, Monster’s Ball, Armageddon and the Oscar-winning Sling Blade. And on the flip side he’s W.R. “Bud” Thornton, eclectic singer, songwriter and drummer.

The debut CD from Boys Like Girls opens with the pop-rock band’s earnest, uplifting hit, “The Great Escape.” The lyrics are about that eternal, universal yearning to make the most out of life. Another Boys Like Girls hit, “Hero/Heroine,” works on a more personal level, but the song is just as grand in emotional sweep as “The Great Escape.” Before the band’s national tours, explosive Internet popularity and a major-label deal with Columbia Records, the Massachusetts foursome paid dues.

When he’s hitting the road especially hard, million-selling singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw spends about as much money for gas a month as his prison-guard dad earned a year in Upstate New York during the 1990s. In tandem with the price of fuel, the cost of touring is skyrocketing. Even so, DeGraw, whose hits include “I Don’t Want To Be,” “Follow Through,” “Chariot” and “In Love With A Girl,” prefers the touring life.

Wolf Parade is a major part of the Montreal music scene that includes Arcade Fire, Tegan and Sara, Islands and the Besnard Lakes. Sub Pop, the legendary Seattle-based record label, released Wolf Parade’s second Sub Pop disc, At Mount Zoomer, in June.

Sebastian Bach wants you to know that Skid Row was 20 years ago and he has moved on. While the singer still proudly plays the band's hits like "I Remember You" and "18 and Life," Bach is not stuck in the past, so don't look for a Skid Row reunion. "I have a great solo CD out called ‘Angel Down.’” Bach said. “We've sold about 100,000 copies worldwide, which in 2008 is a great number but compared to my sales of Skid Row, I got a lot of promotion to do, because you know, we sold over 22 million copies."

DECATUR, Georgia (AP) _ Police say Atlanta rapper Lil Scrappy is out of jail after being arrested following a fight with his sister's boyfriend. The 24-year-old rapper, whose name is Darryl Richardson, was released on $1,500 bond from the DeKalb County jail in Georgia on Sunday.

Dreamy, synthesizer-driven songs are the sort of thing usually identified with Nashville, Tenn. Yet Paper Route, a Music City quartet that recently signed with Universal Music Group’s Motown Records, melds ambient, electronics-filled arrangements with solid, traditional songwriting.

Guitarist, singer and composer Muriel Anderson’s All-Star Guitar Nights often take place at the music trade shows and conventions that are natural gathering places for guitarists from throughout the world.

The widely talented Jools Holland wears many hats. He’s the genial, laid-back host of Later … With Jools Holland, a BBC music program that’s actually about music. He’s a radio host, too, as well as, what brought him to the party in the first place, a terrific pianist and songwriter.

Singer-guitarist Thom Bresh grew up surrounded by music and film. His stepfather was a set photographer for Hollywood movie studios. And his biological father, Merle Travis, was a major country music songwriter and performer who invented the influential Travis picking style of guitar playing.

It’s a blend of many things including Cajun, New Orleans-style R&B and country-western music that bubbled up from the Louisiana swampland in the late 1950s and it will be celebrated today and tomorrow during the Deep South Crane And Rigging Swamp Pop Music Festival at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales.

The independent music scene has really exploded in recent years, and Baton Rouge has reaped some of the benefits. More and more bands are taking it upon themselves to bring their tours our way.

West Coast pop/rock band Miggs knows a lot about music business setbacks. In 2005, front man Don Miggs watched the band's single "Perfect" start to climb the singles chart, only to have their old music label file for bankruptcy. As tough as that was, he isn't complaining.

If you take pop music and add a little rock, a dash of hip hop and top it off with ska, you begin to get a small taste of Suburban Legend’s sound. Based in Orange County, California, these six guys -- Vince Walker (vocals), Brian Klemm (guitar), Brian Robertson (trombone), Derek Lee Rock (drums), Mike Hachey (bass) and Luis Beza (trumpet) -- created what they like to call good time music.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Terence Vine, a former New Orleans rapper known as "Sporty T," was shot and killed in his bed early Tuesday when his FEMA trailer was riddled by gunfire, police said.

As Cities Burn is an edgy pop metal Baton Rouge band that takes a very personal approach to fans, bassist Colin Kimball said. "I just call them friends -- fans are what Aerosmith has, not what As Cities Burns has," he said.

The Raveonettes don’t have a monopoly on moody, noisy songs dripping with atmosphere. Bobby Hecksher, enigmatic leader of the Los Angeles-based Warlocks, also writes songs from the depths.

Smokey Joe’s Café, a musical revue featuring dozens of rock ’n’ roll classics composed by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, ran for five years on Broadway, received five Tony nominations and won a Grammy award for its original-cast soundtrack.

The lavish box-set edition of 1977’s The Stranger, Billy Joel’s creative and commercial breakthrough, is a Cadillac among box sets. Columbia Records’ Legacy imprint pours on the extras, adding a second CD of Joel in concert at Carnegie Hall, a 90-minute DVD and much more.

It’s nearly quitting time and every lady in the place is gazing into every available reflecting surface. The girls are applying makeup, combing hair and otherwise preparing themselves for the annual office Christmas party.

When it comes to fruit, we are turning to locally grown tomatoes these days. When it comes to music, we may look past the local in search of finding tunes that add more spice, more variety. The up-and-coming band Trevelyan, however, meets both characteristics in this little music recipe. The members are local, and their music has variety.

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