Tag Archives: Oxford American

The Oxford American Local Live tonight at South on Main celebrates Tulsa Music Showcase with Horton Records

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llsom hortonTonight at 7:30 PM join the Oxford American magazine for this week’s Local Live concert at South on Main. On tap for November 4 is a special Tulsa Music Showcase with Horton Records! 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.

This showcase is presented by Horton Records, a non-profit 501c-3 organization based in Tulsa, Oklahoma that is dedicated to the cultivation and development of Tulsa area artists and building on the area’s great tradition, while fostering and strengthening community through musical endeavors. Featuring:

Paul BenjamanPAUL BENJAMAN – Paul Benjaman builds his style from Tulsa Sound hero J.J. Cale and expands the form to include most genres of American music. Signature guitar licks are at the forefront of his groove-based songs, playing a wide vocabulary that also scored him a spot as touring sideman for The Secret Sisters and an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Stellar musicianship and mature song craft makes for a red-hot live show that fits equally well on a large festival stage or smoky dive bar.

Jacob TovarJACOB TOVAR – Jacob Tovar, leader of The Saddle Tramps, is a man from a different era, a different time. With a gentleman’s handshake, booming voice, contagious smile, and quick wit, this performer effortlessly connects with all walks of life through his sincere songs of country, western, and old-fashioned honky tonk. His live performances are immediately engaging and a real hoot for any audience.

Beau RobersonBEAU ROBERSON – Beau Roberson, leader of the band Pilgrim, is a powerhouse vocalist with great range and a rhythmic style of playing that always gets the crowd moving. Down-home lyrics join with swampy grooves to create a gritty soul sound that makes you want to kick off your shoes and grab a drink. Just as powerful are the slower moments, when introspective lyrics reach deep down and stir your spirit.

Kyle ReidKYLE REID – Kyle Reid, leader of The Low Swinging Chariots, serves up a mixed drink of Americana with New Orleans flavor and a twist of Gypsy Swing.  Reid’s original tunes sound at once familiar yet new and exciting, blending elements of these classic American forms with contemporary attitude. It’s a rambunctious romp that drags one through the mire of everyday drudgery into a tent revival of glorious swinging sound that is guaranteed to get toes tapping and tail feathers shaking.

Tonight’s Local Live at South on Main showcases Sounds So Good

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llsom ssgTonight at 7:30 PM, the weekly Oxford American Local Live concert series features Sounds So Good!

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.

 

Pianist Curtis JJ Adams began playing in the metro Little Rock area in 1966 with his Latin / Eastern style jazz group, the Jamaica Jive Trio, whose style was heavily influenced by the Rochester, New York jazz scene of that era. Adams started the jazz group Sounds So Good in 2013, and with its east coast flavor, yet decidedly down-home feel, SSG is quickly becoming a local favorite.

The group is rounded out by saxophonist Timothy Woods, a 2011 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Monticello who was awarded the Outstanding Soloist award at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival in Elmhurst, IL in both Big Band and combo divisions, and vocalist Tamisha “Sonnie” Cheatham, who has performed in opera and musical theatre productions and the jazz ensemble at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Eliza Borné named new editor of Oxford American

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Eliza BorneEliza Borné is the new editor of the Oxford American, succeeding Roger D. Hodge, who left the magazine in June. Borné joined the magazine in 2013 as associate editor and was promoted to managing editor in 2014. Since June 2015, she has served as interim editor.
“This is wonderful news,” said Hodge, who recruited Borné in 2013. “Eliza is a brilliant editor and wonderful person—the Oxford American could not have made a better choice. I look forward to reading her magazine for many years.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we have done under Roger’s leadership for the past three years,” said Borné. “We have published great stories that transcend genre and give our readers new perspectives on the South. With every issue, I am astounded again by the brilliance of our amazing writers, artists, and contributors. I am honored to have the opportunity to lead our talented editorial staff as we continue creating this vital and spirited magazine that I have loved since I was a teenager.”
Under Borné’s direction, the OA has maintained its high standard of excellence, publishing work as rich and varied as a 12-page poem by Nikky Finney; fiction by Catherine Lacey and Jamie Quatro; and a deep profile of a transgender drug counselor from the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2013, she has worked with such acclaimed writers as Lauren Groff, Harrison Scott Key, Beth Ann Fennelly, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Sarah Menkedick, and many others. Pieces Borné edited have been recognized in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing.
“Eliza is a member of the next generation of readers,” said Vincent LoVoi, OA board member and publisher of This Land Press. “Her keen insights and long-view will enable the OA to continue to grow in the new media environment. She has a timeless talent that will serve us well.”
Borné is the third editor of the Oxford American. Hodge led the magazine from September 2012 through June 2015, when he became the national editor of the Intercept. Hodge remains on the masthead as editor-at-large. Marc Smirnoff founded the Oxford American in 1992.
A native of Little Rock, Borné, 29, previously worked as an editor at BookPage, a book review publication based in Nashville. She graduated from Wellesley College and she lives in Little Rock with her husband, John C. Williams, an assistant federal public defender (whom she met when they were both Oxford American interns in 2006).
The Oxford American also welcomes longtime contributor Jay Jennings to the masthead as senior editor. Jennings brings decades of industry experience as a former editor with Sports Illustrated, Time Out New York, Artforum, and other magazines. He is the author of Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City and he edited Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany.

Leo “Bud” Welch with Jimbo Mathus at South on Main tonight

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Leo Bud Welch with Guest Jimbo Mathus [Archetypes & Troubadours Series]Tonight at 7:30 PM, the Oxford American magazine brings Leo Bud Welch to the South on Main stage as part of the Archetypes & Troubadours Series. Welch is welcomed by the Esse Pure Museum. Doors open at 5:30 PM, with dinner and drinks available for purchase at that time. This series is made possible in part by the generosity of The Summer Foundation. Single tickets are still available, but going fast.

Welch is joined tonight by Jimbo Mathus.

Leo “Bud” Welch was born in Sabougla, Mississippi in 1932, and he picked up a guitar for the first time in 1945. By 1947 at age fifteen, Bud could play well enough to perform publically and garnered the blessing of many elder guitar players. He was offered an audition by B.B. King but could not afford the trip to Memphis. Bud played the blues continuously until 1975, when he converted to playing mostly gospel with the Sabougla Voices, which consisted of his sister and a sister-in-law. He also played with the Skuna Valley Male Chorus. Bud earned his living by carrying a chain saw up and down the hills and hollows of North Mississippi, logging for thirty-five years.

Leo Bud Welch does not believe that blues is the Devil’s music, but rather they’re a way of expressing the highs and lows of one’s life through song. He has played his guitar for close family and friends for the past sixty-five years and has remained under the radar, undetected by the vast majority of Blues Aficionados. Welch’s debut album, Sabougla Voices, was released January 7, 2014, just two months before his 82nd birthday.

Jimbo Mathus was born and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he often spent time listening to blues music in the Mississippi Delta. “I break down walls and stereotypes with my music,” says Mathus, “I confuse people. I use Mississippi Music, which is renegade music at heart, as my inspiration and motivation…” He excels as a songwriter, a producer, a recording artist, and at spreading the gospel of Mississippi Music in concert. “I like to let the shows be the test and keep the boogie going thirty minutes if needs be,” Mathus says. “If everybody is grooving on something why bother and stop it?”

Mathus can regularly be found performing at the world-famous Ground Zero Blues Club, which is co-owned by fellow Clarksdale resident Morgan Freeman, who co-produced Mathus’ 2004 live album Jimbo & Friends at Ground Zero Blues Club. Mathus is a continuation of the storied music history of Clarksdale and of Mississippi, when all is said and done. His current band, The Tri-State Coalition, features solid talent cut from the same Delta cloth: Tri-State bassist Justin Showah and keyboardist Eric Carlton are also from Mississippi. Guitarist Matt Pierce hails from Arkansas. Missouri native and drummer Austin Marshall rounds out the group, whose sound, Mathus describes as “inner-planetary honky-tonk. Basically I’m using a lot more of white country, folk, and southern rock influences. It’s a great Southern band that is versatile to the extreme.”

Local Live tonight at South on Main features Opera in the Rock

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OperaInTheRock_logo-singleskylineTonight at 7:30 PM, join the Oxford American magazine for this week’s Local Live concert at South on Main.  This week, the series features a return of Opera in the Rock!

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.

Join Opera in The Rock at South on Main for mid-week of “October Opera Days” with five great Opera In The Rock  artists.  In a program titled “Opera in a Bar” arranged by OITR Artistic Director, Arlene Biebesheimer, these artists will sing opera standards with some musical theater thrown in to keep you entertained. The OITR ensemble for Local Live includes Stephanie Smittle, LaSheena Gordon, Claire Wilkinson, Chase Burns, Micheal Lowe with Kristin Harwell at the piano.

Creative Class of 2015: Jay Jennings

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jennings_jayAuthor, raconteur, and music aficionado Jay Jennings contributes to Little Rock’s cultural life in a variety of ways as a participant and promoter. He may well know more about author Charles Portis, than the author himself.  When not traveling to discuss or create good literature, he is often found at various Little Rock music venues.

Jennings is a freelance writer whose journalism, book reviews and humor have appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Oxford American, and Travel & Leisure. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the San Francisco Chronicle, and is a past chair of the Arkansas Literary Festival.

He began his writing career as a reporter at Sports Illustrated, where he covered college football and basketball, followed by four years as the features editor at Tennis magazine. While at the latter, he edited an anthology of short stories and poetry, Tennis and the Meaning of Life: A Literary Anthology of the Game(Breakaway Books, 1999), which the New Yorker called “a delight—and perhaps a surprise—to those who know and care about literature.” His work has been recognized by The Best American Sports Writing annual and has appeared in the humor anthology Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor. He is a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow in fiction and was awarded a grant in 2008 from the Arkansas Arts Council for a novel-in-progress. Most recently, he edited a collection of Charles Portis’s work, Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, which was published in 2012 by Butler Center Books and in paperback in 2013 by Overlook Press.

Carry the Rock: Race, Football and the Soul of an American City was his first book and was named a 2010 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.

The Sisters Sweet are tonight’s Oxford American Local Live act at South on Main

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llsom sistersTonight at 7:30 PM is this week’s installment of the Local Live concert series.  The Sisters Sweet headline tonight 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 at (501) 244-9660.

The Sisters Sweet is a trio of sirens that sing and play original works by Candy Lee. Gorgeous three-part harmonies create a sound that is sensual and powerful, yet honest and tender. Though they’re not afraid to share their softer side, these ladies also know how to get down. Rooted in the earthiness of folk, The Sisters Sweet keep it fresh by merging modern indie influences with throwback moods of funk and blues. Their jazz-inspired vocal stylings are reminiscent of Billie Holiday and The Andrews Sisters. Their lyrics are thought-provoking and passionate, bringing into question the forms of our shared human condition, and evoking visions of a more harmonious reality.

Candy Lee is the 2011 Northwest Arkansas Music Award Winner for Best Female Singer/Songwriter and Best Female Vocalist in a Band. The Sisters Sweet (formerly Candy Lee and the Sweets) have performed at the Yonder Mountain Harvest Festival, as well as the Fayetteville Roots Festival, and a sold out show at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. They have opened for Amy LaVere, The Lost Gonzo Band, and Elephant Revival.