Tag: Center for Southern Folklore

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Center for Southern Folklore Space Has Changed But Remains Open

Mark Hayden at Center for Southern Folklore (Credit: Michael Donahue)

 The Center for Southern Folklore is still open. It’s just not visible from the street anymore.

“We’re located behind the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art,” says Mark Hayden, the center’s archives and store manager. “We’re at 119 South Main, Suite 106.”

They’ve been at that location, but they used to have additional space that had an entrance on Main Street. “The Peanut Shoppe (at 121 South Main Street) was our old store.”

The center downsized last summer, Hayden says. Now, everything is together, he says.

“Everything is back here,” Hayden says. “The museum is on one side and the store is on the other. I’ve always called it a museum. I remember Judy always called it a ‘cultural center.’”

Hayden was referring to executive producer Judy Peiser, who, along with William R. Ferris, were the center’s co-founders. They managed to move everything from the front to the back area.

“We moved it all up here,” Hayden says. “Actually, it looks pretty good in here. But people don’t know we’re back here. We’ve got a Facebook and an Instagram account where I post things. And I get a fairly good following. But I’m not getting the crowds coming in.”

Center for Southern Folklore (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The center currently is open between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. “We hope to open up our music schedule real soon.”

Live music traditionally was featured on Saturdays and Sundays. “Mostly Saturday night. We haven’t gotten our volunteer schedule yet. Once we do that, we will, hopefully, feature music on weekends.”

They originally had two stages: one in front and one in the back area, where they now operate. The old one in front was for the weekend music shows.

“The main purpose of the stage where I am right now was for the larger touring shows. Like Kate Campbell would come. Or, we would open it when we had our folklife festival — the Music and Heritage Festival.

“I would say that the stage that we have here is maybe one and a half times the size of the old one. Which isn’t a huge stage, but it’s larger than what we had.”

The festival was a Labor-Day-weekend tradition until a few years years ago. “We hope to bring it back, but with our volunteerism and pandemic we’ve kind of been on hold for three years.

Center for Southern Folklore used to operate a restaurant, Hayden says. “At one time we served breakfast and lunch, but we no longer serve that. Now, we do have cookies and coffee.”

Center for Southern Folklore (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The public can take advantage of the museum’s wealth of Memphis history. “We’ve got a southernfolklore.com web site, an online store that kind of details anything from CDs, and DVDs, and artwork, and books, and records. I call it ‘uniquely Memphis.’ Everything is local. And it’s submitted by local people.”

As for the center’s extensive archives, Hayden says, “I would say it’s the best. We’ve got a great archives.”

In addition to photos, written material, and video, and film footage on blues players and other musicians, the center also has material on local Jewish history and the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Hayden says.

“It was gathered by Judy. I don’t know the whereabouts and background behind everything because I’ve only been here about 10 or 12 years. The archives started, I think, in the mid ‘70s. The whole organization started as an archive.”

But, he says, “It just morphed into a rental area.”

The public can access the archives, Hayden says. “We’re not online, but they can come in. And if there is something they’re interested in, they can look through our archives.

 “They can look at it. It’s free. If they want something scanned, that will cost something. As a nonprofit, we need to pay our bills.”

Hayden recently had “a number of emails” from people looking for information. “We get a lot of interest in the history of Beale Street.

“We work with the Jewish Historical Society. They wanted to know Jewish businessmen on Beale Street.”

“We have transcripts from Beale Street and from Holocaust survivors. And just different people that worked downtown.”

Musically, he says, “There was one company from California that wanted information on Rufus Thomas.”

The Center for Southern Folklore has “just grown from what it originally was. We’ve moved a few times. It started out in Judy’s home, moved to Beale Street, then to the New Daisy. Then, we had our own location. And now we’re back here behind the Belz Museum.”

Center for Southern Folklore (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The center also is available to be rented for events, including weddings, symposiums, and bar mitzvahs, Hayden says.

Peiser once wrote down the purpose of the Center for Southern Folklore: “To preserve the unique culture of the south through the music and the legend and people.

“I think it’s a valuable commodity,” Hayden says.

For more information, call (901) 525-3655

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Art Art Feature

Art by Art

Art Covington began selling his artwork when he was five years old.

He copied cartoon characters. “I did Popeye and Mighty Mouse, and I would take them to my dad,” he says. “I would leave them on his chair.

“I would come back to get it maybe later that evening. I got through playing. There would be a nickel or a quarter.”

Covington, 61, who now shows his art locally at Center for Southern Folklore, Gallery 56, and Painted Planet, credits his dad for encouraging him to pursue art. “He saw that talent in me. As a matter of fact, later on, I guess around my junior high years, he and my sister enrolled me into this mail art course.”

They discovered the Famous Artists School art course on a matchbook. It said “Draw Me.” “And when you open it up [it’ll have] a little bulldog or something there. I think mine was a boxer. I drew the boxer and they sent it in. They’re supposed to let you know if you have talent or not.”

It was costly, Covington says. “I think it’s like $800. Back then, that was a lot of money. Norman Rockwell was one of the faculty members there.”

He stuck with it for a year. “I was too young. I eventually started missing my classes.”

Covington’s parents said, “We’re not going to be wasting our money on you. You’re not committed enough right now.”

“Draw Me” wasn’t a total waste of money; Covington learned “the foundation of how to project images. I never had anyone showing me that. How to make the foreground darker and, as you get closer, make the images lighter. And how to do the lines. The perspective.”

Noted Memphis artist George Hunt was Covington’s next inspiration. Hunt was Covington’s art teacher at Carver High School. “I would watch over his shoulder and see how he applied the paint to his artwork.”

But, Covington says, “I did not know that he was such a phenomenal artist because he didn’t put it out there. He didn’t brag about his stuff.”

Covington got away from painting after he got a full-time job. “I would paint just to get a few dollars here and there. When I got inspired to do something I would do it, but it was just every now and then.”

Hunt invited him to paint at Carver. “He said, ‘Why don’t you come on back? I got a little extra room. You want to use it for your studio?'”

Covington, who had married, also was encouraged by his wife, Vanessa, who said he should participate in a fine arts competition sponsored by Church of God in Christ.

He won the “Visual Artist’ category and went on to win a partial scholarship, which he used to attend Memphis College of Art.

Over the years Covington’s subjects have ranged from landscapes to “country stuff” — barns and outhouses — to Rockwell-ish “expressions of life.” He now paints a lot of music-themed works.

Covington discovered Center for Southern Folklore about 15 years ago when he was trying to find someplace to hang his artwork. “I noticed they had some artwork on the wall and met Judy [Peiser, Center for Southern Folklore founder and executive producer]. I’ve been with them ever since.”

Covington began selling his paintings at the Center’s Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. “Most of the people buying my artwork are people from out of town.”

“Art Covington uses his art to tell us about the people and places he knows,” Peiser says. “From someone talking on the phone to the Pyramid at Memphis, Art’s work allows us to know more about this place we call home.”

One of Covington’s popular works is “Kings of Beale” — his Memphis take on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. Instead of the Beatles, he painted W. C. Handy, Elvis, Isaac Hayes, and B. B. King.

And instead of Abbey Road, the men are crossing Beale Street. “It’s such a beautiful place,” Covington says. “Especially at nighttime when it’s all lit up. I wish I had time to put it all in there, but I just wanted enough so people would know, ‘Hey. This is Beale Street.'”

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Music Music Blog

Get ready for the 31st Annual Memphis Music & Heritage Festival

Sharde Thomas and The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band

For Memphians, the days leading up to Labor Day are synonymous with good local music. For over three decades, the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival has filled the holiday weekend with select local sounds, often reaching far back into the region’s history. This coming Saturday and Sunday are no exception.

One strength of the festival is its eclectic sampling of local cultural traditions. Latino, Native American, gospel, jazz, bluegrass, electronica, hip hop, rockabilly, reggae, rock, and blues of all stripes will be available. This diversity has been cultivated since day one by Judy Peiser, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Southern Folklore, the non-profit that stages the festival. Peiser has just been honored for her dedication to promoting local music and culture with a brass note on Beale Street, to be dedicated on Sunday.

A recurring treasure of the lineup is Jimmy Crosthwait, erstwhile member of Mudboy and Neutrons and creative dynamo of Memphis for over forty years. This year, he’ll be joining country blues master Zeke Johnson, who learned a thing or two from Furry Lewis himself. Guitar virtuoso Luther Dickinson will also bring some folk and blues flavors to the proceedings.

Many other fine performers will grace the five stages (click here for a complete schedule). But surely the highlight will be Sharde Thomas and The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band. Thomas carries on the tradition of her grandfather Otha Turner, playing fife and leading a drum corps that epitomizes country funk and soul. Though they are based in North Mississippi, the band’s appearances in Memphis are all too rare. Not to be missed!

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Music Music Features

The 30th Annual Memphis Music and Heritage Festival

The Center for Southern Folklore will turn two blocks of Main Street into a street festival this Labor Day Weekend, complete with live music, arts and crafts, dancers, and chefs from around the city.

Founded in 1972, the Center for Southern Folklore is a nonprofit that documents and presents the music, culture, arts, and rhythms of the South. Center for Southern Folklore Executive Producer Judy Peiser said the Memphis region is what makes the festival so special.

“This year marks our 30th festival. The first was produced in 1982 on Mud Island. From 1988 to the present, we used Court Square, Beale Street, and Main Street as the festival backdrop,” Peiser said.

“The Festival reaffirms the abundance of musical talent and this region’s love of music.”

The two-day festival will feature four outside stages in addition to two indoor stages at the Center for Southern Folklore. While the complete lineup has yet to be announced, festival highlights include Joyce Cobb, Elmo and the Shades, Domingo Montes, the Bell Singers, and Lonnie Harris.

The festival will also honor those who have passed on but where integral to the Center for Southern Folklore, including board member Deanna Lubin and quilt maker and storyteller Hattie Childress. Yvonne Sunshine Pascal, the founder and director of the Millennium Madness Drill Team and Drum Squad, will also be honored. All events at the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival happen between Union and Peabody Place, and all are free to attend. Over 100 performers, chefs, craftspeople, and dancers are scheduled to appear over the 48-hour shindig. For a complete list of bands and activities, visit www.southernfolklore.com.

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Music Music Blog

Nate Currin Live at the Center for Southern Folklore

Nate Currin.

An RV sat lonely at the far end of the wide-open, Wal-Mart parking lot on a Sunday morning. As the blue-haired ladies drove their sedans past to make their donut run before church, they saw a pleasantly round dog being pushed out the RV’s window. Then a man in his thirties with a beard fell out of the window after the dog.

“My door broke on the RV for a while and the only way out was to climb through the window,” Nate Currin explained, “but I fixed that pretty quick. My dog, Max, tours with me.”

Having spent three years traveling the country in his RV, Nate is a troubadour and pilgrim who is no stranger to the great American road. Blending traditional country styles with modern folk music, Nate’s songs reflect his life’s journey between love lost and a faith re-gained.

Having grown up the son of a Baptist preacher, Nate left his faith at the age of 19. He traveled the world, and by his late twenties, he struggled to overcome some serious issues with drugs and alcohol. The struggle brought him back to his faith which, he says, plays a big part in his songwriting.

“I really attempt to show the dirty—the gritty side—of my faith. I struggle with doubt, and I struggle with unbelief. I attempt to show that through my music.”

Having played with Jars of Clay and Blues Traveler, any fans of serious songwriters such as Owen Temple, Cory Branan or Adam Duritz of Counting Crows should definitely check out Currin’s music. He is currently touring in support of his April 15 release, The Madman and the Poet..

In his twenties, Nate was traveling through the British Isles with a friend. While hiking and camping in Whales, they came across a mountain named Cadair Idris. According to local legend, a traveler who spent the night on its slopes would return either a madman or a poet. Shortly after camping atop the mountain, Nate Currin began to write his first songs.

On the vinyl edition of The Madman and the Poet, there is a “madman” side, which features country infused songs like “Ballad of a Horse Thief” and “Birmingham.” A second side features the mellow, “poet” side of Currin’s songwriting. It begins with the title track and ends with a softly reverent tune, entitled, “Let Grace Fall Down on Me.”

Having already played several sold out shows on this tour, the award-winning Georgia native looks forward to continuing his tour through the Deep South and playing through the summer on a series of West Coast dates.

“The Deep South plays the largest role in my music from a stylistic standpoint,” Currin said. 

Listening to songs off the new album like, “Midnight Train,” which has a Southern gothic sound not unlike the ever popular Chris Stapleton, it isn’t hard to notice that Nate’s Southern roots run strong. The music video on Youtube for “Midnight Train” is wrought with Spanish moss, trains, and alligators —some of the finer things the Deep South has to offer.

On the flip side, the Southern songwriter has been influenced by his travels outside of the South. He spent some time living and working in San Francisco, which is known for its circuit of mellow acoustic songwriters.

“Two years out in San Francisco was really more of a time about rest and rejuvenation. I did some writing out there, but I was primarily working on The Pilgrim album, which I had a vision for already,” Currin explained.

His 2013 release, The Pilgrim, was another concept album based on The Pilgrim’s Progress, which is a religious text written by John Bunyan in 1678 that has been referenced by authors from C.S. Lewis to Mark Twain. The Pilgrim is a mellow album that seems to be the touchstone work of Currin’s return to his faith after spending about a decade experimenting with drugs as the prodigal son. It has a somewhat Lutheran sound, although it is not intended to speak exclusively to a religious audience.

“I’ve always shied away from the Christian music label. You get pigeon-holed so fast with it. There’s so much more to write about than one faith, one point-of-view, or one world view,” Currin said.

The 2013 album is the sort of spirit quest concept album that brings to mind author Joseph Campbell’s book, Hero with a Thousand Faces. The call to adventure occurs on the third track entitled, “Two Friends and a Map” in which the pilgrim must leave behind his friends and ultimately his pack.

“It was really symbolic of all that baggage I was carrying around for all those years. Being able to let all that go was a huge thing for me.”

Nate Currin 8:00 PM on Saturday, June 4 at the Center for Southern Folklore.

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Music Music Blog

Kate Campbell at the Center for Southern Folklore

Kate Campbell.

Nationally recognized singer-songwriter Kate Campbell will perform at the Center for Southern Folklore this Saturday night. With 15 albums to her credit, Campbell has attracted acclaim from her story-driven songs that lyrically have been compared to everyone from Eudora Welty to Flannery O’Connor.

“Kate’s songs reveal a narrative of and about the South, the good and the not so good,” says Judy Peiser, co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Center for Southern Folklore. “With each new CD Kate brings us her dreams, visions, signs and even old cars.”

Prior to the day of the show, general admission tickets are $15.00. Day of the show tickets are $18.00, and front-row seats are $25.00. Tickets are available at the Center at 119 S. Main Street or by calling the Center at. 901.525.3655. Tickets are also available here.  

Kate Campbell at the Center for Southern Folklore

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Music Music Features

Never too old for the Blues

“Daddy” Mack Orr has a lot of stories to tell. Since learning how to play the guitar at the young age of 40, Orr has traveled the country and released multiple albums with local label Inside Sounds, all while becoming a fixture on the Memphis blues scene. We caught up with Orr to get some of his backstory prior to the release of his latest album, A Bluesman Looks at Seventy.

Flyer: What made you want to learn how to play the guitar at 40 years old?

Orr: Ever since I was boy I wanted to play the blues. I’d be out in the field pickin’ cotton during the day, and at night I’d go home and listen to the radio. I’d listen to B.B. King and Little Milton and I’d think, Man, I wish that I could do that.

When I was around 12 or 13 years old, I became friends with a boy on another plantation that was close to mine, and on the weekend, we would go to another plantation that had gambling in one room and music in the other. We would stay there for two or three nights over a weekend, but after I got married and moved to Memphis, I got away from all of that. I forgot about it.

Then one day I was sitting in my truck listening to the radio, and they played Albert King. I don’t know what the song did to me, but I had to learn how to play the blues. I went to the pawnshop and put an amp and guitar on layaway, thinking that I’d get it out for Christmas. This was about two or three months before Christmas, and I ended up getting them out of layaway in about two or three weeks. I used to carry that guitar everywhere I went. I’d take it fishing with me, and I’d take it to work. I had the type of job where I had a lot of time to just sit around playing guitar. It was kind of tough learning how to play, but once I started catching on to it and learned it on my own, I started putting different stuff together.

What keeps you driven at this age to create new music?

I just love to perform, and I think people enjoy it. I also hope to make some money before I die. A lot of people are dead before they get famous, and I’m hoping that doesn’t happen with me, even if it looks like it might be going that way right now.

You’ve been playing at the Center for Southern Folklore for quite some time. Where else did you play when you were first getting started?

I know those folks well, because I’ve been playing there since I started playing out. This lady named Ellen used to work there, and she knew me because I had a shop nearby. She kept telling the people at the Center that they needed to get me to play there. She got me my first show, and I’ve been playing there ever since. Before that, this guy Earl the Pearl asked me to play in a band as a fill-in, and I played a couple of songs with them. The next Saturday night, they were playing at Green’s Lounge. I was lying in the bed when he called again and said to come help them out. I went and played with them and came back home. The next Saturday night, I was lying in bed again when they called and said, “The guitar player didn’t show up to play. We want you to be in the band permanently.” That’s how I joined the Fieldstones. When I first started playing, I figured that I would play small clubs or someone’s house or something. I never dreamed I would play in a lot of the places I’ve been able to play. I just haven’t made the money yet. But I have had a chance to see the world. These long drives we go on used to seem like they took a long time, but now driving to a show in Minnesota is just like driving up the street.

Daddy Mack Blues Band, Saturday July 11th, at the Center for Southern Folklore, 8 p.m. $10.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Year of the Dragon

Americans ring in the New Year with booze, black-eyed peas, and cheap cardboard hats, but the Chinese take things a little more seriously for their annual New Year’s celebration.

Elaborate costumes, graceful dance performances, and traditional music mark the start of the Chinese lunar calendar. Although this year’s holiday fell on January 23rd, the folks at the Center for Southern Folklore are still celebrating.

On Saturday, January 28th, from 4:30 to 8 p.m., the center will hold an opening reception for a series of Chinese New Year photographs by Changzhi Yu, the center’s director of photography. Yu’s photos depict Chinese dancers and kung-fu students performing in Memphis from New Year celebrations past.

To ring in the Year of the Dragon, the center will serve symbolic New Year’s foods, such as noodles for long life (don’t cut them or risk bad luck) and dumplings and egg rolls for good fortune (they resemble gold bars). There will also be dance and musical performances.

This is the first such multicultural event at the Center for Southern Folklore, and board chair Mary Patterson says it won’t be the last.

“This is not a one-shot deal. The center will be focusing more on the multicultural [aspects of our city],” Patterson says.

Patterson is inviting other cultural groups in town to contact the center about hosting their traditional celebrations.

Chinese New Year Celebration and Photo Exhibition, Saturday, January 28th, 4:30-8 p.m. at the Center for Southern Folklore, 119 S. Main at Pembroke Square (525-3655).

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Music Music Features

Bringing the Scene Together

CREDIT: Dan Drinkard

The Memphis rap and hip-hop scene is thought of nationally in terms of Three 6 Mafia, Yo Gotti, and 8Ball & MJG, all roughly similar artists. But the scene has grown more diverse — and, as a consequence, more fragmented — in the past decade.

This weekend, Friday, January 14th through Sunday, January 16th, independent promoter Kaviar Lewis seeks to put the spotlight on the local scene by bringing artists from different strands of the Memphis hip-hop scene together for three showcases at three local venues in a self-described “unification summit” dubbed “Mic Check.”

“I started to see the same people [at every show] and wanted to reach out,” Lewis says. “I made it a point to slowly start integrating the scene. Lots of guys are sitting at home making record after record and no one is seeing them. And I don’t care how many Facebook friends and YouTube hits you have, you have to be able to get onstage and move the crowd. Be an MC. That’s what it’s about.”

A quick primer on the schedule concerts:

Friday

The lineup Friday night at the Center for Southern Folklore was designed to “show the diversity of the hip-hop scene,” according to Lewis. A couple of the acts are more tangentially rap-related.

Artistik Approach, which pairs recent transplants Brandon Tolson (East St. Louis) and Siphne Sylve (New Orleans), incorporates R&B elements, doo-wop, and human beat box in a vocal-based style that, based on what I’ve seen and heard, is more lively than the band’s rather stiff name. And solo artist Ify is a Memphian of Nigerian descent whose music stands at the intersection of rock, pop, reggae, and R&B. Her look and style is reminiscent of Santogold.

Artistik Approach and Ify will share the stage with three more conventional rap acts. Knowledge Nick is a University of Memphis student and promising pure hip-hop MC whose dexterous flow can, like a lot of self-consciously “conscious” MCs, get a little wordy at times. UndenYable is “more street-oriented, but lyrical,” according to Lewis. And rounding out the bill is Detroit transplant Promise.

Dubbed “The Hip-Hop Happy Hour,” the night will include a meet-and-greet period from 7 to 8:30 and a panel discussion with local music-industry figures from 8:30 to 10. The music starts at 10. There is no cover for this event.

Saturday

The Saturday night lineup at Young Avenue Deli is meant to be a showcase for lyrically advanced pure hip-hop acts, according to Lewis.

The highlight here might be Cities Aviv, a young MC with punk roots who has put out a series of terrific internet singles (citiesaviv.bandcamp.com) in recent months, the best of which, “Coastin’,” will be released as a seven-inch single next month by the local Fat Sandwich label.

Total Savage is an energetic young white rapper who has toured with Lord T & Eloise and opened for Girl Talk at Minglewood Hall last year. New Orleans transplant Preauxx is a promising young MC who comes across, stylistically, in much the same way as emerging Memphis hip-hop contender Skewby.

Reggie Bean is an Orange Mound rapper with a smooth flow who scored a local radio hit of sorts a year ago with “All 4 U,” which was produced by Free Sol’s Elliot Ives. “He’s the most lyrical street dude I know,” Lewis says.

Rounding out the bill are Dutchess, whom Lewis describes as a fixture on the spoken-word and battle rap scenes, and Taktix, who emerged earlier in the decade as a member of the group Poisonous Dialects and is now a veteran of the local underground hip-hop scene. Last year, Taktix, Cities Aviv, and Ify all contributed to “Pushin’ Buttons,” a single from local DJ Homework.

Music starts at 10:30 p.m. Cover is $7 for under 21 and $5 for over 21.

Sunday

The Sunday night lineup at Murphy’s is devoted to local rap crews and features longtime stalwarts the Iron Mic Coalition alongside several crews in the more traditional Memphis rap vein, including the promising young bunch Team Black Embassy, whom Lewis describes as “Iron Mic for the ghetto.” Other crews on the bill are the INM Music Group, 3MK, and The Heavy Chevvy Boyz. Showtime is 10:30 p.m. Cover is $10.

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Music Music Features

Hard-Working Harry

“I know what it’s like to be on both sides, so I try not to overstep my bounds,” says musician/producer Harry Koniditsiotis, who has engineered sessions for Al Kapone, Lover!, True Sons of Thunder, and, most recently, Midtown groups Bloody Foot of Rock and The Devil’s Handshake at his 5 and Dime recording studio.

This month, Koniditsiotis is stepping away from the control board for a pair of high-profile gigs with his shoegazer-style pop group Twin Pilot, who, along with The Lights, open for Swervedriver‘s Adam Franklin at the Hi-Tone Café on Thursday, October 11th, then return to the Hi-Tone for an acoustic set opening for Concrete Blonde‘s Johnette Napolitano on October 29th.

“It’s funny. I almost feel like it’s ’90s revival month at the Hi-Tone,” Koniditsiotis says. “I’m a big Swervedriver fan. For me, Johnette’s like the Patti Smith of the ’90s, so I’m stoked we’ve been asked to play with people of this stature.”

On Saturday, October 13th, Koniditsiotis’ rock outfit The Turn It Offs will play Murphy’s with Oxford, Mississippi-based garage rockers The Black and Whites and Japanese punk band Gito Gito Hustler. It’s the first gig in months for the Turn It Offs, who were forced to take a hiatus after guitarist Bryan Leonard accidentally severed a finger last April.

Then on October 26th, Koniditsiotis’ band The Angel Sluts and Leonard’s group The Six String Jets will host a pre-Halloween party at Murphy’s.

Between all the live shows, Koniditsiotis is scrambling to finish a number of recording projects. “The other day, we finished the layout for a full-length the Angel Sluts have coming out on Wrecked ‘Em Records,” he says. “Twin Pilot’s also working on an album right now, although we hit a stopping point last spring and haven’t been able to finish it up. All these catastrophes keep happening, but right now, it looks like everything’s going really well.”

Acoustic music fans, rejoice: On Wednesday, October 17th, Colorado-based alt-rootsy quintet the Boulder Acoustic Society is presenting old-time banjo and Celtic music workshops, followed by a 7:30 p.m. concert at the Center for Southern Folklore‘s Folklore Store at 123 S. Main. To learn more, call 525-3655 or go to SouthernFolklore.com.

On October 19th, the Folk Alliance and the Coffee House Concert Series present four homegrown singer-songwriters — Keith Sykes, Jimmy Davis, Cory Branan, and Blair Combest — at the Church of the Holy Communion. Tickets for this sure-to-sell-out event are on sale at Fiddler’s Green Music Shop, Cat’s Music, and High Point Coffee. For more information, call 336-6275 or go to CoffeeHouseConcerts.org.

And the Memphis Acoustic Music Association will be celebrating its 10th anniversary with contemporary guitar master Richard Gilewitz, who will perform at Otherlands on November 10th. For more details, visit MamaMusic.org.

Blues news: Wander into B.B. King’s Blues Club to see Beale Street mainstays Blind Mississippi Morris or Preston Shannon, and you’ll hear one of the world’s best sound systems, newly installed by local companies Ninth Wave Audio/Visual Design and EgglestonWorks. Twenty custom speakers were designed for the nightclub and its elegant restaurant upstairs, Itta Bena, and installed last month, just in time for King himself — who is slated to appear November 8th and 9th — to test ’em out.

Clarksdale, Mississippi-based record label Cat Head Presents just released septuagenarian harmonica slinger Big George Brock‘s live debut, Live at Seventy-Five. Captured at Clarksdale’s Ground Zero Blues Club this past May, Brock ably demonstrates why interest in his career — he’s just returned from his third European jaunt this year — is at an all-time high. To learn more about the album, go to CatHead.biz.

Tickets for the Blues Foundation‘s 24th International Blues Challenge — scheduled for January 31st through February 2nd, 2008 — are already on sale via Blues.org. Last year, more than 150 amateur acts from 34 states and eight foreign countries dueled for top honors in a talent-filled competition that, says foundation executive director Jay Sieleman, is the world’s largest annual gathering of blues acts.

Hats off to Jim Dickinson: On November 1st, Dickinson will be presented with the Americana Music Association‘s Lifetime Achievement Award at Nashville’s Americana Honors & Awards show. The musician/producer will be honored for his work with artists such as Ry Cooder, the Rolling Stones, Big Star, and the Replacements, as well as his solo oeuvre, which ranges from his seminal 1972 Atlantic release Dixie Fried to last month’s Killers From Space (on Memphis International Records), an 11-song collection of obscure cover tunes paired with one deliciously irreverent original, “Morning After the Night Before.”