For musician Ben Taylor, the Hot Tin Roof legacy is an unfinished song. The lyrics tell a story — since 1979 so many rock and roll, blues, funk, hip-hop, bluegrass, and folk greats have walked through the doors of the Vineyard nightclub at the airport.
Now Mr. Taylor and the current owners of the nightclub, which is now named Nectar’s, say there is one more verse to write.
The audience is the boss. Performance is a seduction. Never give up something for nothing. Livingston Taylor eagerly passes along all this and more to his students at the Berklee College of Music, and now to readers who pick up a copy of the new edition of his book, Stage Performance.
Jameison Sennott was three years old when he first heard Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called To Say I Love You and picked out the melody on keyboard. Soon after, he climbed on to the bench of his aunt’s piano and played a rendition of Chopsticks. In high school, he found out he had perfect pitch.
Drumbeats will echo out across the Camp Ground in Oak Bluffs on Saturday evening, and anyone drawn by them towards the open-air Tabernacle will see flashes of color in constant motion and hear the voices of the Watoto Children’s Choir, a singing group from Uganda.
Uganda is currently home to more than a million orphans who have lost their parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. About 20 of them will be performing on the Vineyard at the end of the choir’s six-month tour of the United States.
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is hosting a Civil War concert featuring American troubadour Bill Schustik on Thursday, August 11, at 5:30 p.m. at the Federated Church, 45 South Summer street, Edgartown. The concert is being held in conjunction with the museum’s ongoing exhibit We Are Marching Along: Martha’s Vineyard and the Civil War.
“Listen Local” might be the theme of the evening on Monday, July 18. That’s when Jemima James hosts her third annual Variety Show at Featherstone Center for the Arts, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The show is part of Featherstone’s Musical Mondays concert series.
It was hard to believe the witty and talented musician who played at the Yard last Tuesday night to promote the release of his first CD heard his own music on the radio for the first time that very morning. The artist, Ollie Childs, and his wife and manager, Alix, had been out driving around the Island when WMVY radio debuted a song from All in Good Time.
It was an emotional moment for the young couple, and, as Mr. Childs put it, quite “surreal.”
Recently the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society chose singer Emily Lowe as the recipient of its annual Caroline Worthington Scholarship. Emily graduated from the regional high school this past June and is the daughter of Cheryl and Erik Lowe of West Tisbury, and the granddaughter of Ernest Mendenhall and Kathy Logue.
Few people embody the statement “still waters run deep” more than Island singer-songwriter Willy Mason, equal parts thoughtful and lighthearted as he considers his musical roots and his career.
He is half done with his next album, which should be released around January. In August and September, he will be playing festivals in the United Kingdom.
