A wide-ranging but remarkably intimate account of a legendary music hall.
A comprehensive history of one of America’s most storied concert venues by its owner and founder, Oelze, and music writer Moore.
This detailed history opens with a thoughtful foreword by music critic Buzz McClain, who celebrates Oelze’s ownership of the Birchmere, a well-known music club in Alexandria, Virginia, since the mid-1970s. Over the course of the book, readers will recognize dozens of household names who graced the hall with their presence, from Joan Baez to Ray Charles, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock, but the venue itself always remains the star of the show. In the opening chapters, the authors describe the Birchmere’s early history, starting in the 1940s, when it was an “unassuming suburban neighborhood restaurant,” to when it became a fully fledged music space in the late ’60s where one could see bluegrass acts and burgeoning stars, such as Linda Ronstadt. Interspersed throughout these detailed descriptions of nights at the Birchmere, the authors regale readers with anecdotes of famous visitors, including some who weren’t professional musicians; once, President Bill Clinton, on the advice of Vice President Al Gore, went to hear Jerry Jeff Walker play on a Thursday night in 1993, during the early days of his presidency. For music aficionados, the work will serve as an encyclopedic trove of information—not only about major musicians of the second half of the 20th century, but also about the low-key charms of club life, which faced growing competition from arenas and stadiums as time went on. Although readers may be attracted by the accounts of the stars on the Birchmere stage, the most impassioned writing here centers on Oelze’s expert management of the club he loves; as he wryly comments, “Everybody knows how to run the Birchmere. They’ve been telling me how to do it for 55 years.”
A wide-ranging but remarkably intimate account of a legendary music hall.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64718-969-3
Page Count: 502
Publisher: Booklocker.com
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An instructive history with a disturbing coda: If you want to learn about evolution, go to college.
Fox News commentator Jarrett’s account of the iconic 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial turns out to be a satisfying traditional history that celebrates the good guys.
Although widely derided, the flurry of post–World War I state laws forbidding public schools from teaching evolution enjoyed a great deal of popular support. Concerned about the effect on academic freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union ran a news release seeking a volunteer to test the newly enacted Tennessee law. The trial took place in the small town of Dayton only because local boosters believed it “would put [the town] on the map.” They persuaded high school teacher John Scopes to offer himself as defendant. News of the case made headlines, and a mass of journalists descended on the city along with celebrities, including William Jennings Bryan and legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow. With a churchgoing jury and biased judge who began the proceedings by declaiming the first chapter of Genesis, the outcome was never in doubt, but Jarrett remains firmly for the defense, praising Darrow’s and colleagues’ arguments in favor of First Amendment freedoms and opposing religious bigotry and government interference in education. To Darrow’s frustration, the judge ruled that the trial was solely to determine whether Scopes broke the law, so he refused to allow the defense to call scientists and theologians to inform the jury that evolution was not equivalent to atheism. After several frustrating days, Darrow grew discouraged, and many reporters left before he hit the jackpot cross-examining Bryan, who had volunteered to prove the literal truth of everything in the Bible and did a terrible job. Despite an upbeat conclusion, Jarrett admits that there is less in Darrow’s triumph than meets the eye. Disbelief in evolution remains common, so school boards (and publishers anxious to sell them science textbooks) treat the subject with kid gloves.
An instructive history with a disturbing coda: If you want to learn about evolution, go to college.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781982198572
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
A warm homage and affecting memoir.
The surprising cultural afterlife of a wad of gum.
In 1999, Australian musician and composer Ellis was in the audience at the Meltdown Festival in London, directed by his collaborator Nick Cave, eager to see Nina Simone, whom he venerated as a goddess. She walked out on stage, Ellis recalls, looking tired, defiant, angry, and in pain. When she sat down at the piano, she stuck the gum she was chewing on the underside of the keyboard. Feeding on the audience’s adulation, she gave a triumphant performance: “People were in shock. Faces wet with tears, not knowing where to look or how to speak. We had witnessed something monumental, a miracle. This communion that had taken place, between her and us.” After the concert, Ellis scrambled on stage, took the gum, wrapped it in her towel, and kept it. That wad of gum is the central image of the author’s guileless and reflective debut memoir, in which he recounts his musical career from the time he played violin, accordion, and flute as a child; his collaboration with Cave and the Bad Seeds and work with the Dirty Three; and the meaning of his treasure. Ellis believes his life changed once he took possession of the gum. He married and “weighed up what was important to me,” and he saw the gum’s significance emanate to others when Cave asked him to contribute it to an exhibition at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen. Being separated from the gum felt traumatic: What if it were lost or stolen? “This tiny object,” he reflected, was gathering meaning “like a tornado”—to the empathetic jeweler who cast it in silver, the museum staff who exhibited it behind bulletproof glass wired with a burglar alarm, and everyone who viewed it. The gum represented Simone: “her voice, her strength and resolve. Her defiance, courage, fearlessness.” The book is illustrated with photographs of the gum’s unlikely journey.
A warm homage and affecting memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-571-36562-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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