Down On The Corner
· The Louisville music scene lost a great supporter and recording pioneer when Ray Fultz died last month. Fultz's studio up on the hill in Fairdale was a spot visited by lots of Louisville musicians over the years. We'll all miss him.
· Mo' Radio Days. WAMZ picked up yet another award, this one from the Gavin Report, for the Station of the Year in a medium-sized city. Congrats all around.
· Mo' Mo Radio Days. KISS (aka WZKS) is undergoing a formatectomy. By the time you read this, you might have gotten rope burns from all the Garth Brooks and nothin' but Garth the new station plans to play for three days. Louisville natives and longtime transplants will no doubt remember the debut of WAKY, when there was three days of Sheb Wooley's "Flying Purple People Eater." Let me know which you prefer.
· Kudos to Debbie Hupp for her new #1 country tune. In case you missed hearing Coyote tell you (he did tell you, didn't you?) the John Anderson tune "Straight Tequila Nights" was written by Debbie and K. Robbins.
· Are you ready to get back to your native American roots? You can do it at the U of L Shelby campus, April 24 - 26, when the Progressive Students League and the Kentuckiana Native American Support Group present a Traditional Earth Week Pow-Wow. In addition to an array of panels, discussions, and (undoubtedly) some politicking, you can catch a concert on Friday night, featuring Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman, who will be performing traditional Native and American folk songs. Westerman starred as Chief Ten Bears in Dances With Wolves. Besides that, there'll be intertribal dances every day.
Admission is $3 per day or $5 for the whole weekend. For more information, call 634-8374 or 637-2592.
· Ron Lewis, he of the modestly named Mr. Wonderful Productions, dropped us a note saying he'd been inside the Beltway meeting with Our Honorable Congressman Ron Mazzoli about the Audio Home Recording Act of 1991, a bill to deal with the problems of home taping, to wit, the loss of royalties. (And you thought there was no harm done when you copied that tape for your buddy!)
The bill(s) are S. 1623 and H.R. 3204, in the Senate and House respectively. Check with your Congressperson and/or Senator about these.
· It Ain't New News Dept. By now, you certainly have heard that Jimmy Bowen, head of Capitol Nashville, is changing the name of the label to Liberty Records. If not, there you are. The label is going to be open to all styles of music, not just country, according to Nashville insiders.
· The KYANA Blues Society will dedicate the marker for Sylvester Weaver's grave at 2:00 p. m. on March 29 in Louisville Cemetery. The Society has been raising money for this project for a year. Weaver made musical history when he was the first person to play the guitar on a blues recording on October 19, 1923.
KYANA is also working on a Louisville Blues Legacy Project. Kevin Hines and Keith Clements are the two driving wheels of that effort and they plan to keep and catalogue the material at the Louisville Free Public Library. They're looking for any and all materials, including photos, records, tickets, articles, etc. relating to the blues in Louisville.
They are also gathering oral histories, so if you have any of this material, please call Kevin at 964-1507 or Keith at 451-6872.
· Perry Scroggins, formerly of Fire Dept., recently had back surgery. He survived the surgery well but took indefinite leave from the band. Now he's taking a different direction, with a "real phenomenal band" backing him up. He's now doing a "Super Star Tribute," in which he does four characters in two-hour show. His act includes Garth Brooks, Alice Cooper, Edgar Winter, and James Brown tributes.