@JimBessman

Johnny Nicholas (Photo: Audrey Billups) Since 2006, Eunice, Louisiana-based Valcour Records has carved a respected niche as a boutique label presenting the exciting music of French Louisiana’s Acadiana region. With Friday’s (Aug. 28) digital release of Johnny Nicholas’s new album Mistaken Identity, Valcour has now expanded its catalog to include its first non-Louisiana-based artist. A Texas Hill Country-based blues and roots music singer-songwriter, Nicholas has spent a lot of time in Louisiana, Acadiana in particular. “This album is a homecoming, bringing me back to the place where I cut my teeth and grew up musically on the prairies and bayou country of Southwest Louisiana in the ’70s,” sa

The Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love" Indie music publishing/marketing company Mojo Music & Media has secured a stake in the legendary country music duo Louvin Brothers’ historic catalog, via acquisition of a co-publishing interest in Kathy Louvin’s Movin Louvin Music. The deal spans the group’s entire catalog, including such country classics as “When I Stop Dreaming,” “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” “Cash on the Barrel Head,” “I’ll Take the Chance” and “The Knoxville Girl,” and much-recorded religious songs including “Family Who Prays,” “I Like the Christian Life,” “The Angels Rejoiced Last Night” and “Let Us Travel, Travel On.” Kathy Louvin is the daughter of Ira Louvin, wh

In the time of COVID-19 and its devastating effect on the music and touring industries, Stereo Dinner looks to evolve the traditional artist “meet-and-greet” event into a “meet-greet-and-eat.” “I was at a booking agent/talent buyers meeting where this question was asked: Is the traditional artist meet-and-greet dead?” recalls Stereo Dinner founder/talent buyer Jon Weiss. “The short answer, unfortunately, seems to be yes. The traditional meet-and-greet as we know it is ‘off the table’ for at least the time being. But new, innovative and COVID-regulated ways to do business are in the works, and I believe Stereo Dinner is one of them.” Stereo Dinner, Weiss says, is an “intimate, immersive and e

Ken Waldman performs his "Trump Sonnets" prior to his 2019 appearances at the PortFringe festival in Portland, Maine. The coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on Ken Waldman’s peripatetic performance tour schedule, but the Appalachian-style string-band music fiddler/entrepreneur, whose From Manhattan to Moose Pass roots music variety showcase at Midtown Manhattan cabaret Don’t Tell Mama is always a big hit at the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) annual trade conference in January, luckily has a second creative outlet to fall back on. The Alaska-based Waldman is known affectionately as “Alaska’s fiddling poet,” and at this year’s APAP presented a second showcase at Don’t T

"If I Had a Hammer" He made the Top 10 only once, yet Trini Lopez’s hitmaking career, which peaked in 1963 with the No. 3 single “If I Had a Hammer,” was so significant that when he died Tuesday from complications of COVID-19, he was the subject of a nearly-finished memoir and documentary. In fact, none other than Dave Grohl posted a surprising tribute via the Foo Fighters Instagram. “Today the world sadly lost yet another legend, Trini Lopez,” posted Grohl. “Trini not only left a beautiful musical legacy of his own, but also unknowingly helped shape the sound of the Foo Fighters from day one. Every album we have ever made, from the first to the latest, was recorded with my red 1967 Trini Lo

Miss Tee doing what she loved--serving people Usually Manhattan’s Upper West Side home of joyous musical celebration, Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar observed a sad occurrence Thursday night (Aug. 6) at the start of its world-famous weekly Open Mic event, one that is currently programmed virtually via Facebook Live due to the coronavirus pandemic. Altamese Alston had passed away the day before at 82—but it’s a safe bet that if anyone knew her first name, no one ever used it. For everyone knew her as Tee Alston, “Miss Tee,” really, or just—lovingly—Tee. For she had been Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson’s assistant throughout their landmark career, even extending back before Ashford & Simpson. “

Bleacher Creatures' Dr. Fauci “He’s fought HIV, AIDS, SARS, MERS and Ebola. Now Anthony Fauci is facing his fiercest foe yet...COVID MISINFORMATION.” So excitedly states the video for pop culture plush doll company Bleacher Creatures’ new Kickstarter campaign on behalf of America’s latest superhero, Dr. Anthony Fauci. The good doctor, the clip adds, is courageously “saving science from fiction.” And now (reiterates a press release—not to mention the daily news headlines), “Dr. Fauci is facing the battle of his life: the battle against Covid-19 misinformation. For the past five months, Dr. Fauci has stood alone in his willingness to question authority and stand up to a barrage of contradictor

Wilford Brimley performs "Fraulein" with Riders in the Sky Following word of his death Saturday at 85, the twitterverse quickly filled with submissions by Wilford Brimley fans of favorite movies like Coccoon, The Firm, The Natural and Absence of Malice, not to mention his TV work in such series as The Waltons and Our House, and of course, his immortal “It’s the right thing to do” Quaker oatmeal TV spots. Obituary writers understandably settled on adjectives like “gruff” and “curmudgeonly” in typifying Brimley’s screen portrayals, though in real life, said his manager Lynda Bensky in a statement, “he had a tough exterior and a tender heart.” “Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust,” said B