Down On The Corner
• In the darkest of winter months, the Reaper seems to find many more souls to collect and this year is no exception, as the Codas list below demonstrates. Talent and success constitute no barrier, either, though talent sometimes seems to translate into a longer life. In any case, we will all miss and mourn those we lost this year.
• The February issue of Scientific American describes a new effort at resolving some of the copyright issues produced by the Internet and the digitization of intellectual property, including music. A nonprofit group called Creative Commons has developed a set of licenses that allow owners to tailor their intellectual property rights and offer some uses of their property while retaining others. Instead of the "touch this and we'll sue your ass off" model of "all rights reserved" favored by the record companies, the "Some rights reserved" licenses allow users to include portions of a work in other content so long as attribution is allowed or perhaps to allow sampling under defined conditions and so on. There are about a dozen different kinds of licenses available online at http://creativecommons.org
, plus explanations and such. Musicians who want to post their music online might take a look at this site and utilize one or more of the licenses, thus avoiding the equally vile necessity of giving up all rights to their materials in order to post it on line.• The Music Department at Indiana University Southeast will hold Music Major and Scholarship auditions for the 2005-2006 academic year on February 12, March 12, and May 14, 2005, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Interested s
tudents should contact the Music Department office at (812) 941-2655 to schedule an audition time.• Public Radio International's "From the Top" program will come to Louisville for the second to record a program for national broadcast on Saturday, February 5 at 8 p.m. at the Comstock Concert Hall at the University of Louisville's School of Music. The performances on February 5 will include two winners of the WUOL Young Classical Artist Competition and the Louisville Youth Orchestra, conducted by Robert Franz, as well as the Pacific Boychoir Academy Trio. Tickets are $18 for adults, $15 for students/seniors/PRP members. This episode will air on WUOL 90.5FM on April at 6 p.m.
• The New York-based label Martyr Records has inked A Suburban Blood Drive, a Louisville Punk Rock/Post-Hardcore act. We wish them the best.
• Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher will present a number of Governor's Awards in the Arts on February 8, 2005. Honorees include John Harrod, who will pick up the Folk Heritage Award for his folk with old time fiddlers and fiddling and Ricky Skaggs, who gets the National Award.
• Codas
• Clark, Robert P. 82, died in Louisville on December 6. Clark was the longtime owner of the old Do Drop Inn, a country music dance hall in the Butchertown neighborhood.
• Mahanes, David James Jr., 81, died in Nashville, TN on December 29. A Lexington, KY, native, Mahanes sang professionally with big bands in the 1940s.
• Orrender, Janice Savage, 51, died in Louisville on January 8. She was a singer with the Jerry Baird Band.
• Schweitzer, Theodore "Ted" Francis, Jr., 52, died in Louisville on January 29. He was a professional musician and a member of the Rockin' Horse Band.
• Speevack, Joseph, 88, of Louisville, died on Friday, December 31, 2004. "To say 'music was his life' sounds trite, but it is true in his case. He started playing the trumpet at age nine and continued until this year, when he was forced to stop due to his health." He was in US Army bands from 1942-1945, backing up celebrity entertainers who were promoting war bonds. He was a founding member of the Wednesday Night Band, a big band which practices at the Highland Post on Bardstown Road every Wednesday and in which he played for half a century. He was also a member of the River City Concert Band, the Mello-Tones and the Holy Name Band.
• Stamper, Art, 71, died on January 23 in Louisville. He was a fiddler who was in the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame. He performed with many famous bluegrass acts including Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Goins Brothers and Jim and Jesse McReynolds. Read the additional articles elsewhere on this page.
• Woodruff Henry, 82, died in Louisville on December 5. Woodruff was a longtime Louisville blues musician and a recipient of the Kyana Blues Society's Sylvester Weaver Award. For more about Woodruff's passing, read Keith Clements' I've Got A Mind To Ramble column in this issue.