Tag Archives: Oxford American

Fret & Worry tonight at South on Main’s Local Live concert series

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llsom fretTonight at 7:30 is this week’s installment of the South on Main Local Live concert series.  This week features Fret & Worry!

Presented by the Oxford American magazine, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent and is always free and open to the public. Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservations and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Ben and Jane Hunt Meade.

Fret & Worry (Uncle Joe Meazle on guitar and RJ Looney on harmonica) sing songs that celebrate Arkansas and cover the subjects of trains, ladies of the evening, wrongful deaths, and moonshine.

Local Live tonight at South on Main featuring Rodney Block & The Love Supreme

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llsom rblockTonight at 7:30pm, this week’s installment of the South on Main Local Live concert series features Rodney Block & The Love Supreme!

Presented by the Oxford American magazine, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent and is always free and open to the public. Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservations and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Ben and Jane Hunt Meade.

Rodney Block is a native of Dumas, Arkansas, where he began studying trumpet in the school band at a young age. Block has shared the stage with such artists as Earth, Wind, & Fire, Joe, Algebra, Whodini, Johnny Gill, Dwele, Johnathon Butler, Dave Hollister, Wynton Marsalis, and Eric Roberson. He has backed for artists such as Liv Warfield, Conya Doss, Dwele, Sy Smith, Carol Riddick, and Anthony David.

Student Showcase tonight at South on Main highlighting UALR visual and performing arts students

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UALR Coopt artistsStudents in the visual and performing arts at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will present their work at South on Main from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight (May 7)

The event is free and open to the public. Seating at the bar is open, but reservations must be made for table service. Reservations can be made at 501.244.9660 or at opentable.com.

For the third consecutive semester, visual artists will display their work for the viewing public at the event known as Co-opt.

“Twenty students will have the chance to hone, and share, their craft with a public audience at an established location and promote the arts at UALR,” said Taimur Cleary, UALR Artist in Residence and instructor of the course that inspires the event.

UALR’s Department of Art and Department of Theatre Arts and Dance are teaming up with Oxford American magazine and South on Main to host the semi annual event in order to promote these emerging artists.

Cleary and his students will speak briefly at 7 p.m. during the show. Following their talk, students from the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will share a selection of four plays all written, directed, and performed by the students.

This will be the first time performing artists from both music and theatre will be included in the show.

In addition to the live presentations, artwork will remain on display in Oxford American’s Annex Gallery from Thursday, May 7 through Saturday, May 9.

According to Cleary, the title Co-opt carries a number of meanings, namely to cause someone to become a part of your movement. It also refers to cooperative learning strategies that the class uses.

In Cleary’s class, Learning Co-Op, students representing almost every department on campus create works of art through printmaking, painting, ceramics, and sculpture.

Cleary is a painter and teaches full-time at UALR. His artistic direction is informed and fueled by evolving interests in art history, perception, meteorology, memory, abstraction, and photography.

Local Live Tonight at South on Main – Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu

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pic_cindy_woolf_(1).jpg.190x140_q60_cropTonight at 7:30 PM—Join the Oxford American magazine for this week’s Local Live concert at South on Main, starring Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu! As always, Local Live is free and open to the public. To guarantee a table/seat for this popular series, call ahead at (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Cosmic Cowboy Music.

Guitarist Mark Bilyeu and banjoist Cindy Woolf have been playing together for the better part of ten years, performing on the Americana/Folk and singer-songwriter circuit. They are a full-time duo in music and in life, having wed in 2013. Spring of 2015 finds them in the studio recording an album of traditional Ozarks’ songs, culled from the folksong collections of Max Hunter (from Springfield, Missouri, Mark’s home town) and John Quincy Wolf (from Batesville, Cindy’s home town); thus the title Wolf Hunter. This will be the first album from these two as a duo; Cindy has three CDs under her own name; Mark has one solo title plus the back catalogue from his previous work in Big Smith.

Tonight at South on Main – Hurray for the Riff Raff

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hrraff_website.jpg.190x140_q60_cropThe Oxford American magazine is excited to welcome Hurray for the Riff Raff to the South on Main stage!

The music starts at 7:30pm, but doors open at 5:30pm, with dinner and drinks available for purchase at that time. This concert is made possible in part by the generosity of Landes FIAT of Benton.

Seating at tables is limited and available on a first-come, first-seated basis beginning at 5:30 PM when the doors open. No reservations are being taken ahead of time. To ensure the best possible seat, plan to arrive when the doors open.

Hurray For The Riff Raff is Alynda Lee Segarra, but in many ways it’s much more than that: it’s a young woman leaving her indelible stamp on the American folk tradition. If you’re listening to her new album, Small Town Heroes, odds are you’re part of the riff raff, and these songs are for you.

“It’s grown into this bigger idea of feeling like we really associate with the underdog,” says Segarra, who came to international attention in 2012 with Look Out Mama. The album earned her raves from NPR and the New York Times to Mojo and Paste, along with a breakout performance at the 2013 Newport Folk Festival, which left American Songwriter “awestruck” and solidified her place at the forefront of a new generation of young musicians celebrating and reimagining American roots music. “We really feel at home with a lot of worlds of people that don’t really seem to fit together,” she continues, “and we find a way to make them all hang out with our music. Whether it’s the queer community or some freight train-riding kids or some older guys who love classic country, a lot of folks feel like mainstream culture isn’t directed at them. We’re for those people.”

Segarra, a 26-year-old of Puerto Rican descent, whose slight frame belies her commanding voice, grew up in the Bronx where she developed an early appreciation for doo-wop and Motown from the neighborhood’s longtime residents. It was downtown, though, that she first felt like she found her people, traveling to the Lower East side every Saturday for punk matinees at ABC No Rio. “Those riot grrrl shows were a place where young girls could just hang out and not have to worry about feeling weird, like they didn’t belong,” Segarra says of the inclusive atmosphere fostered by the musicians and outsider artists who populated the space. “It had such a good effect on me to go to those shows as a kid and feel like somebody in a band was looking out for me and wanted me to feel inspired and good about myself.”

NPR has said that Hurray for the Riff Raff’s music “sweeps across eras and genres with grace and grit,” and that’s never been more true than on Small Town Heroes. These songs belong to no particular time or place, but rather to all of us. These songs are for the riff raff.

Local Live tonight at South on Main – Tonya Leeks Band

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som leeksThis week’s installment of the free Local Live concert series features the Tonya Leeks Band!  It starts at 7:30pm.

Presented by the Oxford American, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent. Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservation and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Cosmic Cowboy Music.

Tonya Leeks is a flautist, saxophonist, and vocalist from Arkansas. She was a featured saxophone soloist with Grammy nominee Gladys McFadden and the Loveing Sisters. Leeks has performed all across the U.S. as a leader and accompanist.

Leeks describes herself as a contemporary inspirational musician seeking to uplift, encourage, and entertain others while sharing the enjoyment and appreciation for the gift of music.

Tonight at South on Main – UCA Arts Night

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som uca percussionUCA Arts Night takes the stage at South on Main tonight at 7:30.  The evening is spsonored by the Oxford American in partnership with the UCA School of Fine Art and Communications.

This semester’s concert features Blake Tyson and the UCA Percussion Group performing a selection of original compositions and innovative arrangements. The event is free and open to the public, but call ahead at (501) 244-9660 to ensure a reservation at a table.

Blake Tyson is recognized as one of the finest percussionists of his generation, and his compositions are performed in concert halls around the world. His own performances have taken him to five continents and almost forty states, but he is proud to call Arkansas home. Blake will take the stage at South on Main to perform his own works, as well as works by some of his favorite composers. In addition to solo pieces, he’ll perform chamber music with a selection of his fantastic graduate students from the University of Central Arkansas Percussion Studio,