Sharon Jones is one tough woman. A former corrections officer and Wells Fargo security guard who once was told she was “too black, too fat, too short” to make it as the classic soul singer she’s become, Jones recently overcame the toughest battle of her life: beating pancreatic cancer. The…
Sharon Jones is one tough woman. A former corrections officer and Wells Fargo security guard who was once told she was “too black, too fat, too short” to make it as the classic soul singer she’s become, Jones recently overcame the toughest battle of her life: beating back pancreatic cancer…
It doesn’t take a genius to see that the mind holds infinite possibilities, from electric cars to cutting-edge medical breakthroughs, and bullet trains to Mars rovers. All it takes is a little spark, which is exactly the idea behind spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity.A mixed festival featuring live music, spoken…
Spring showers may bring flowers, but with mostly warm weather, the Valley comes alive with outdoor festivals around the same time. One of the most prominent is the Scottsdale Arts Festival, considered one of the nation’s premier art events. Nearly 200 jury-selected artists from Canada and the United States will…
Mavis Staples can be found in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s traveling “Women Who Rock” exhibit, currently on display at the Musical Instrument Museum. However, the soul icon, who ironically won a 2012 Grammy Award in the Americana category, easily could fit in several of the loosely genre-demarcated…
Living in Kenya, we never saw an ostrich with it’s head in the sand. That spells easy prey. The reality is that they can run close to 30 miles per hour. So why hide? The birds at the 26th annual Ostrich Festival won’t run that fast. Instead they’ll carry riders…
Maria Poveka Martinez is a legendary potter from New Mexico. Maria, Black Pottery of San Ildefonso, a short film showing at the Heard Museum, offers unique perspective on the late potter’s life working with clay, from her beginnings with simple black vases commissioned as museum replicas to artistic masterpieces painted…
Mavis Staples can be found in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s traveling “Women Who Rock” exhibit, currently on display at the Musical Instrument Museum. However, the soul icon, who ironically won a 2012 Grammy Award in the Americana category, easily could fit in several of the loosely genre-demarcated…
Austin has South by Southwest, San Francisco has Outside Lands, Manchester, Tennessee has Bonnaroo, and locally, now there’s Viva Phoenix. Viva Phoenix: A Downtown Music Festival is the Valley’s latest all-encompassing music festival. Last December, there was the disjointed True Music Festival, and the McDowell Mountain Music Festival has been…
In the song “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” Elton John sings, “Butterflies are free to fly, fly away/fly away, bye bye.” The insects at Desert Botanical Garden’s Spring Butterfly Exhibit won’t be so lucky, but visitors can enjoy their winged captivity through Monday, May 12. Hundreds of North America’s beauties…
The Valley is home to an abundance of Native American art, and one of the best places for viewing more contemporary artists is the 1Spot Gallery. Located in the Roosevelt Row arts district downtown, the gallery’s new exhibit, “Abstract Abstract,” opens this weekend with works from eight well-known and celebrated…
Forgive and forget. This simple philosophy seems lost on George Thorogood as he remains bitter and angry toward the record company that released his debut album some 37 years ago. Though the album contained what became his signature song (his rousing cover of Amos Milburn’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One…
The Pixies Comerica Theatre 2/24/14 In the darkened setting of Comerica Theatre on Monday night, it was easy to close your eyes and imagine the floaty female harmonies are those of the Pixies’ original bassist, Kim Deal. It wasn’t, of course, as those harmonies belonged to Paz Lenchantin, a more…
Does it seem right that in the middle of a desert exists the fifth largest metropolis in the United States? What of those golf courses and unnaturally green lawns? Ever notice that the Salt River trickles by the time it passes the airport? Water usage is a contentious issue in…
Ask George Thorogood how he’s doing, he’ll likely answer, “Bad.” Then, after leaving his interviewer wondering, he’ll follow up with “bad to the bone.” Somehow, it all seems pretty predictable, even expected, from the Delaware Destroyer some 40 years into a career — and 32 years after his biggest hit,…
There are inherent advantages to being a jazz musician. Genre constraints are practically thrown out the window and almost anything is considered acceptable, no matter how free, New Age-y, rock-leaning, contemporary, ballady, or bopping. As long as integrity to the art form remains, experimentation is rewarded. Guitarist Pat Metheny has…
There are inherent advantages to being a jazz musician. Genre constraints are practically thrown out the window and almost anything is considered acceptable no matter how free, new-agey, rock-leaning, contemporary, ballady or bopping. As long as integrity to the art form remains, experimentation is rewarded. Guitarist Pat Metheny has been…
Arizona Beer Week has made a habit of starting strong. And the 14th annual Strong Beer Festival aims high — in alcohol content, at least. At last count, 111 breweries have signed on from such microbrew hotbeds as Arizona, Colorado, California, Oregon, New Mexico, and, yes, Nebraska. Australia, Belgium, and…
No Night & Day entry was ever adapted into an acclaimed film starring Queen Latifah, and, thus, we’ve got nothing on The Secret Life of Bees author Sue Monk Kidd, who ventures to Tempe, thanks to Changing Hands Bookstore, to sign her latest novel, The Invention of Wings. Situated in…
Bettye LaVette has been making gritty, powerful soul music for more than 50 years. If you haven’t heard of her, that’s not unusual. If you thinkher career began in 2000, that’s not surprising either. LaVette’s had an up-and-down career, releasing almost three dozen singles — a number of them charting…
The world is full of strange things. Sometimes it’s natures way of telling you something’s wrong; other times societal traditions require, say, neck stretching. Some folks can’t help carving angels on the heads of a pins or building matchstick Rolls-Royces. Explorer Robert Ripley spent a lifetime accumulating more than 50,000…
Don’t even think that an art exhibit named “Moctezuma’s Revenge” has anything to do with a digestive order. Instead, the first comprehensive solo exhibition of works by Mexican-American artist Eduardo Sarabia relates to the duality faced wjen exposing “clichés about Mexican culture in order to question the imaginary borders demarcated…
