NEWS In his Saturday Night Live debut, Jason Aldean gave a tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas. Cmt.com reports it was his first public appearance since the night 58 people were killed and 489 injured when a gunman opened fire on the crowd […]
We remember Marty Robbins on September 26, the 92nd anniversary of his birth. CONCERT REVIEW – GARTH BROOOKS My first memory of Garth Brooks is 1990. When I moved to Jacksonville, Florida, from Guam, the radio airwaves and nightclubs were filled with the sounds of his wonderful music. I bought his first two CDs, Garth […]
NEWS Don Williams (1939-2017) “The Gentle Giant,” Don Williams, died September 8 after a short illness. He was 78. Born and raised in Texas, he won his first talent contest at age three. The prize was an alarm clock. His first chart-topping song was “I Wouldn’t Want To Live If You Didn’t Love Me. Other […]
By James Reston, Jr. A Rift In The Earth: Art, Memory, And The Fight For A Vietnam War Memorial could be considered a biography of this national memorial. Having many times visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and having followed the controversy as it was built, I looked forward to reading this […]
CONCERT REVIEW – BILL ANDERSON The Performing Arts Center in Sisseton, South Dakota, hosted the Bill Anderson concert Saturday night. Bill invited me to come up from Sioux Falls for the evening, and I took sister Kayo and friend Perry with me. The folks at Coteau Entertainment Company treated us well, complete with a delicious […]
Edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal This is not a book for beginners. Pioneer Girl Perspectives; Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder is a collection of essays for those with a scholarly appreciation of the life and work of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It follows an earlier book, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, which was an unexpected bestseller in […]
CONCERT REVIEW – TRAVIS TRITT The Sioux Empire Fair brought Travis Tritt to Sioux Falls last Friday evening. It was the first time I’d seen him in concert. There was no opening act, and he came on stage singing “Put Some Drive in Your Country.” He then traded his electric guitar for an acoustic one, […]
NEWS In 1997, Garth Brooks performed at the Sioux Falls Arena, after selling 41,183 tickets. Now, when ticket sales opened for one show at the new Denny Sanford Premier Center in September, he sold out six shows in half an hour. Ticket sales opened several days later for an additional show. Within 20 minutes, there […]
CONCERT REVIEW — JOHN ANDERSON AND TANYA TUCKER The Orpheum Theater in Sioux City, Iowa, was the place to be on Friday, July 7. John Anderson and Tanya Tucker both put on fantastic shows. A person forgets how many hits a singer has had, until listening to one recognizable song after another for over an […]
NEWS The last surviving member of Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys has died. Alden Johnny “A. J.” Nelson, age 94, of Hendersonville passed away June 22. He had served in the US Navy during WWII, and he performed on many USO tours during the Vietnam war. In addition to being an entertainer, he was a […]