Arkansas Sounds Event: Big Piph and Tomorrow Maybe, November 21

Friday, November 21, 7 p.m.
CALS Ron Robinson Theater
100 River Market Avenue

Big Piph, an emcee formerly known as "Epiphany," and Tomorrow Maybe, a full band including female vocalists, will perform an innovative hip hop concert at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater on Friday, November 21, at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15, general admission, and available online or at Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Ave.

Big Piph has performed with artists such as T.I., Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, and Ne-Yo. Lindsey Millar of the Arkansas Times has described Big Piph’s style as "existential hip-hop that you’d want to party to." Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe play a unique fusion of funk, soul, and rock with a hip-hop foundation. They are currently crafting an "unplugged" EP, and Big Piph is heading up a fundraiser for Global Kids Arkansas to offer educational and hands-on experiences in foreign policy and global initiative to high school students in at-risk communities.

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Arkansas Sounds Event: Lyon College Pipe Band, October 24

Friday, October 24, 7 p.m.
CALS Ron Robinson Theater
100 River Market Avenue
FREE ADMISSION

The Arkansas Sounds monthly concert series continues with a performance by the Lyon College Pipe Band at the Central Arkansas Library System's (CALS) Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave., on Friday, October 24, at 7 p.m. The doors to the theater will open at 6 p.m. Admission to this concert is free and open to the public; seating is first-come, first-served.

Under the direction of Pipe Major Jimmy Bell, the Lyon College Pipe Band regularly performs at official college functions such as convocations and other ceremonies, in community parades, in concerts around the state of Arkansas, and at festivals throughout the United States and abroad. The pipe band competed at the 2006 World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, and won in its division. The group also won at competitions in 2013 at Sarasota, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, and it is currently placed at 12th in the world in its division.

Arkansas Sounds is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies focusing on Arkansas music and musicians both past and present. For more information, call 501-918-3033.

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Arkansas Sounds Event: Suzy Bogguss

Suzy Bogguss

Saturday, September 27, 7 p.m.

CALS Ron Robinson Theater

100 River Market Avenue

Tickets: $25

Suzy Bogguss, a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, is a singer and songwriter who has received awards from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. She has recorded platinum gold albums and has been nominated for a Grammy Award. Bogguss has collaborated with such artists as Chet Atkins, Alison Krauss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. In her latest album, Lucky, Bogguss shares her interpretations of songs by Merle Haggard.

Tickets are $25, general admission, and are available online and from Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Avenue. The theater’s entrance may be accessed from the Main Library’s parking lot, 100 Rock Street. Tickets purchased online will not be mailed. They will be available for pick up in the lobby of the Ron Robinson Theater one hour prior to showtime.

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Event Reminder: Legacies and Lunch, September 3

Rockabilly great Sonny Burgess, of Newport, Arkansas, and his band the Legendary Pacers are the topic of We Wanna Boogie, a new release from Butler Center Books by Marvin Schwarz, who will speak at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center's monthly lecture series, on Wednesday, September 3, at noon in the Main Library's Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. Books will be available for purchase; Schwartz, Burgess, and band members Jim Aldridge, Fred Douglas, Bobby Crafford, and Kern Kennedy will sign copies after the talk.

In We Wanna Boogie, Burgess and his band members tell of their original recordings for Sun Records in the 1950s and their shows with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. Burgess, whose music evolved in the Silver Moon and other clubs around the Arkansas delta, has influenced rock and roll music internationally and has led the contemporary rockabilly revival in the U.S. and overseas. The book also tells the history of a once prominent and high spirited delta community of extensive agricultural wealth. Newport was home to numerous music clubs, which often housed both performances by national artists and illicit back-room gambling.

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees may bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 501-918-3033.

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Iris DeMent in Concert

 

Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m.
CALS Ron Robinson Theater
100 River Market Avenue
Tickets: $30

Iris DeMent, born in Paragould, Arkansas, and the last of 14 children, is a contemporary folk singer and songwriter country legend Merle Haggard calls "the best singer I’ve ever heard." Influenced by gospel and country music, DeMent released her first album in 1992 and earned a Grammy nomination for her second album, My Life, in 1994. Her work is known for addressing political and personal themes, and her songs have been covered by artists such as David Byrne, Natalie Merchant, and Merle Haggard.

DeMent’s newest album is Sing the Delta. She says of the Arkansas Delta "A lot of what I had stamped on me — musically, Sunday-dinner-wise, religion, and everything else — was a direct outgrowth of that." The album, described by Rolling Stone as a collection of "artisanal songs of love and doubt" and by the Boston Globe as "a work of rare, unvarnished grace and power," has received positive reviews since its release in 2012. Slant Magazine has stated, "DeMent’s fully invested performances are lived-in and soulful, heightening the intensity of the experiences she’s singing about. Over the course of Sing the Delta, DeMent confesses, wails, and testifies, and there’s simply no one else in popular music who tells their truths with such urgency or clarity."

DeMent will perform at the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Ron Robinson Theater on Saturday, May 10, at 7 p.m. The theater is accessible from the Main Library parking lot, 100 Rock Street. Tickets, which are general admission, may be purchased for $30 online or from Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Avenue. The galleries are open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

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Keller Music School recital program

Keller Music School recital program, undated

Arkansas Small Manuscripts Materials, File 383

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From the Metz Family Papers:

Allan Lee with some of the instruments of the Baring Cross Stringed Instrument Band, Baring Cross (North Little Rock), Ark., ca. 1900

Metz Family Papers
MSS 05-02
Box 1, File 10, Item 11

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Save the Date!

The Butler Center is launching an annual Arkansas music festival with a focus on Arkansas music and musicians. This year's festival will be held on Friday, September 28, and Saturday, September 29, 2012.

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Featured Manuscript Collection: September/October

Little Rock Musical Coterie Records
MSS 98-42
Finding Aid
Member's Booklet, 1900-1901. Location in collection: Box 1, File 15.
In October 1893, Effie Miller Williams, Susan Pierce Stephens, and Elizabeth Pierce Lyman met at the home of Cora Cross Marshall and formed the Little Rock Musical Coterie. The purpose, as put forward at the first meeting, was for members to meet periodically and musically perform for each other. In time, they hoped to bring other music lovers into the club. This inauspicious gathering was the beginning of one of the most influential music groups in the state.


Left: "We Who Make Music" program, April 9, 1997. Right: Celebrate--Centennial! program, May 11, 1994.
Location in collection: Box 1, File 28.
Throughout its history, the Little Rock Musical Coterie has remained a vital component of the local musical community. The club was instrumental in starting the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Community Concerts, and the Choral Society. In addition, the Coterie contributed to the musical life of Little Rock by recognizing American and local composers, providing college loans and scholarships for music students, and producing the Crusade for Strings and the Young Artists concerts. Also, the Coterie has performed numerous programs for the nursing homes, orphanages, and hospitals in the area. In 1898, the Little Rock Musical Coterie joined the National Federation of Music Clubs, and, in 1915, became one of the charter clubs of the Arkansas Federation of Music Clubs.


Newsletter, Fall 2004 (front and back).
Location in collection: Box 1, File 14.
The Little Rock Musical Coterie Materials contains much of the club's history in the form of the scrapbooks of the various Coterie presidents, the minutes of Coterie meetings, club correspondence and ephemera, newspaper articles, and other materials. The Coterie minutes and scrapbooks are arranged in chronological order. Other portions of the collection are categorized by topic.

This information is taken from the finding aid. Click on the images to enlarge.

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