Posts tagged: Don Lichterman

One of the highlights of my summers is the Marshall city band season, the six or seven weeks when the band performs on Wednesday nights.

The band concluded its 2023 schedule earlier this week. It was a perfect year for weather. The band made the most of it by providing great entertainment.

Their concerts are a special occasion for me and many other Marshall area music fans. There are several things the make them that way.

I could fill a page with things I’ve liked about the band over the years. The four main ingredients are the great music, the park, the people and the community spirit.

The music is very appealing to a wide audience and has plenty of variety. There are pop songs, show tunes, classical selections, medleys, and marches. There’s always a good blend of old and newer music.

The band is in its second year without its longstanding conductor Bob Meffert. Four great conductors have stepped forward to fill the void. They include Southwest Minnesota State University band director John Ginocchio, retired Marshall High School director Wayne Ivers, Marshall schools orchestra conductor Wes Meyers, and Minneota School band director John Voit.

They work well together at every concert, no matter which two or three team up. It always seems like a unified hour-long performance.

I enjoy having at least four or five songs that I already know. It’s equally fun to hear new things, and to listen to descriptions of their history given by the conductors.

Another part of what makes for a great concert is the setting. Liberty Park is my favorite park in Marshall. The bandshell is an important part of it. It’s also a nice place for a walk through my neighborhood. It has a neighborhood feeling.

On Wednesday nights in the summer it all shines forth, first with the city band and then with two Marshall Area Fine Arts Council concerts. This year the MAFAC concerts will be at 7 p.m. next week and the week after. In case of rain, they move the concert to First Lutheran Church.

The outdoor setting is a fun, relaxed way to enjoy music. Small children can play on blankets. Older kids can play on the playground. Older people have a choice between park benches or their own lawn chairs.

Children always have a special kids activity, sometimes a march and on other occasions something different. It averaged about 20 young people throughout the 2023 season.

That’s down from back in the 80s and 90s, but the important thing is that the concerts still attract a fair number of young families. That creates livelihood, an enthusiasm that can make older adults feel younger.

Many people take time to talk with others before and after the concerts. Most audience members have at least one friend or relative who plays in the band. Seeing them perform adds to the evening.

A fourth ingredient to the city band is the sense of community it inspires. This especially comes across when everyone who’s able to stand rises for the national anthem and when the band performs its patriotic Fourth of July concert at Independence Park.

The sense of community is partly due to how the city band is a tradition that goes back many years. The first concerts (before the bandshell was built) took place on Main Street with cars parked facing the stage.

It’s good that city band music survives in the 21st century. If everyone stayed home and got all of their entertainment from electronic media, we’d lose part of our community vitality.

It’s important that we still have community-based arts events, the city band as well as organizations such as Marshall Area Stage Company, the Prairie Dance Alliance and the MAFAC art gallery and gift shop.

Sometimes new people show up at these events. One of the city band concerts in 2023 was attended by a bus tour group from the Twin Cities. They saw a play at Chanhassen Dinner Theater and then ventured out onto the prairie for a traditional summer concert in the park. It was great to see tourism go both ways.

The summer concert season goes fast, but it’s long enough to get plenty of enjoyment. When it’s over, everyone can look forward to having the performances back next year. It’s always worth the wait.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent

Music icon Tony Bennett has died at the age of 96.

The acclaimed singer, most known for hits including New York State of Mind, Rags to Riches and his collaborations with Lady Gaga, died at his home in New York earlier today.

His publicist confirmed the news and explained that he died just two weeks before his birthday.

‘Tony Bennett, born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in Astoria, Queens on August 3rd, 1926, has passed away in his hometown of New York City at the age of 96 earlier today,’ they told People Magazine in a statement.

‘The beloved singer, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2016, is survived by his wife, Susan Benedetto, his two sons, Danny and Dae Bennett, his daughters Johanna Bennett and Antonia Bennett and nine grandchildren.’

His cause of death has not been shared, but he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016.

The New York born musician crafted his love of singing from a very early age, and impressed many with his talents when he was just a child.

He was drafted into the army in 1944 and returned to the US two years later, where he embarked on a hugely successful a career in the spotlight.

It was in 1949 that he was given a break, opening for Pearl Bailey in Greenwich Village – Bob Hope was in the audience and took a shine to the late star, instructing him to change his name publicly from Benedetto to Bennett.

Bennett landed his first record deal the following year and released a string of hits including Because of You and Cold, Cold Heart, which went on to hit the number one spot.

In 1952, he released his debut album, Because of You, and went on to drop Cloud 7, the Beat of my Heart and To My Wonderful One.

His 1953 track Rags to Riches was famously heard in the opening credits of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

As well as selling millions of records, he picked up an astonishing 20 Grammys over his decades-long career, including a lifetime achievement award in 2001.

He was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 thanks to his track, I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

Bennett was celebrated by fans, critics and his peers but it was Frank Sinatra who offered him the highest of praise, declaring in a 1965 interview: ‘For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.

‘He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He’s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.’

Throughout his career, he went on to collaborate with musical greats including Christina Aguilera, Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse.

He also worked frequently with Lady Gaga, most recently releasing their joint album, Love For Sale in 2021.

Gaga became emotional as she dedicated her Grammys performance to the singer in 2022, after he was too ill to attend.

‘We love you Tony, we miss you,’ she said at the time.

The music legend was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, and revealed the news of his condition in 2021.

Tweeting a link to an interview with AARP, he wrote: ‘Life is a gift – even with Alzheimer’s.

‘Thank you to [my wife] Susan and my family for their support, and AARP The Magazine for telling my story.’

Alzheimer’s is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and the ability to carry out the simplest tasks.

In most, the symptoms first appear in their mid-60s and eventually leaves them dependent on caregivers.

Despite the condition, he continued to perform for five years, before retiring from the stage in 2021.

Bennett is survived by his wife, Susan, their children, Danny, Dae, Johanna and Antonia, and nine grandchildren.

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It’s another week, another country music star falsely accused of racism. Last week, it was Luke Combs who has a huge hit with a cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song called Fast Car. I think we have a snippet of the song. 

EDITED VIDEO VERSION OF FAST CAR

You know, that song really is timeless. Somehow, Combs, though, is a bad guy for renewing interest in Chapman’s music and putting a bunch of money in her pocket out of respect for her talent. But he’s white and she’s black, so it’s bad. Now it’s Jason Aldean’s turn. Now, to be clear, as of last week, I had no idea who Jason Aldean was. 

FLASHBACK JULY 11 

EMILY COMPAGNO: And it reminds me of that song by Jason Aldean. 

GREG GUTFELD: I don’t know who that is. Who’s Jason Aldean? Ooo hear the audience groan?

COMPAGNO: It’s a country singer. 

GUTFELD: Oh, I’m sorry Fox News. It’s a country singer! I’m supposed to know about country music?! I don’t know anything about country music. 

JASON ALDEAN ADDRESSES CRITICISM OF COUNTRY MUSIC VIDEO: ‘THIS ONE GOES TOO FAR’

Country music star Jason Aldean appearing in the official music video for “Try That In A Small Town. The video took place in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, which has a controversial past. (Jason Aldean)

Yeah. It’s like… you could get killed if you don’t know country music at Fox. Now I know everything about the guy. The story is all over Fox more than Brian Kilmeade. He’s a lonely guy, he can’t go home. The CMT Network, which used to stand for country music television, now stands for cowards, morons and twerp’s because they… You should have seen the original acronym. CMT? Think about it. They pulled the video for Aldean’s latest single “Try That in a Small Town.” If you haven’t seen that yet, here it is again. 

CLIP OF ALDEAN’S SONG 

Musician Sheryl Crow called the song “not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.” Well, that’s not nice of her, but she should know. Here’s her singing at a recent concert. 

EDITED VIDEO OF CROW SINGING

Those hormone blockers really work. But it doesn’t really matter. The controversy is already backfiring. The song is number one on iTunes, and CMT is as popular with its fan base as a warm can of Bud Light. I know, huh? He never gets old. And now even I’m talking about it and the last time I listened to any country music, I was doing blow in a Bass Pro bathroom with Larry Gatlin. It was a long time ago. But it’s the Streisand effect. When you tell people they can’t see or hear something, they want to know what you’re so afraid of. They want to make up their minds for themselves. You know, like adults in this country had been doing for years until this bag of used **** called the Modern Progressives came along. I probably should… Probably should have said new ****. But none of this is… None of this is about a song or an artist or a genre. It’s about who is allowed to speak their mind in 2023 America.

Consumers’ Research, nonprofit organization that aims to increase the knowledge and understanding of issues, policies, products, and services of concern to consumers, put out a “woke alert” after CMT pulled Jason Aldean’s video for “Try That In A Small Town.” (Rich Polk/Getty Images for iHeartRadio/BBR Music Group/Jason Aldean YouTube)

The modern left’s first impulse is always censorship, which is more anti-American than putting pineapple on pizza. So why is this song a target? Because it’s anti-crime. And to a liberal, being anti-crime is anti-Black. That linkage alone is racist. But it’s now a solid belief among progressives. If you redefine violence as mostly peaceful social justice, then rejecting violence makes you the enemy because crime equals blacks among liberals and the media. And now we’re here where songs about riots receive more condemnation from politicians than the actual riots did. Racist libs took it personally because the video featured the George Floyd riots, something they embraced. Aldean’s point being that in small towns people get touchy when you set fire to their businesses and try to kill them. 

Right now what a bunch of squares. And apparently, it’s racist because Aldean filmed the video by a courthouse where a young Black man was launched in 1927. Almost a century ago, the same year Joe Biden got his first letter from AARP. It’s funny, they call themselves progressives, right? But they spend more time looking in the rearview mirror than I do when I have a hitchhiker in my trunk. 

JASON ALDEAN’S WIFE BRITTANY PRAISES FANS FOR STANDING BY SINGER DURING ‘SMALL TOWN’ BACKLASH

So how much you want to bet Aldean had no idea about that? How much you want to bet that nearly all of the people claiming he should have known didn’t have an idea about it either. The media knows nothing, so libs will blame Aldean for something that happened before his grandparents were born. But they won’t blame Antifa or BLM for anything that happened during the riots. You know what else was filmed in front of that courthouse? Hannah Montana The Movie. It’s Kilmeade’s favorite. Nothing says White privilege like her father, Billy Ray’s mullet. 

Jason Aldean defended his song, “Try That In A Small Town” which has been out since May, from criticism after the video was released last week. (Jason Kempin)

So, libs, if you claim that opposing crime is racist, you’re assuming that criminals are all one race. Which is, guess what? Racist? Aldean addressed the controversy, tweeting, “There is not a single lyric in the song that references race. There isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,” but that doesn’t matter.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In the race-obsessed, racist world of modern liberals, they call it a dog whistle. Yet they’re the only ones that can hear it. Guess that makes them the dogs. No wonder they poop outdoors. 

Country singer Jason Aldean’s latest single opens with a line that immediately made me cackle with laughter: “Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk, Carjack an old lady at a red light.” It was the kind of line, sung with that overly sincere country candor, that made me hope against hope that this was just one of those country parodies.

Alas, it is not. The latest major controversy in the music world is this song, titled with Big Boy energy, “Try That in a Small Town.” The song itself was released to middling response back in May, but the music video, released recently and almost immediately pulled by CMT, was what truly gained negative attention.

And for good reason. Observe:

Aesthetically heinous? Tonally bereft of any artistic merit? Mid as hell? Yes, yes, and yes. But there’s more to it than that—much more, unfortunately.

The many ways to make an ignorant music video

“Try That in a Small Town” is Aldean’s attempt to clap back at all the changes in this country that he just cannot stand. The lyrics absolutely buy into the scare tactics that news outlets like Fox News tend to put out into the world, evoking an image of this country that’s lawless, with progressive politicking at the root of the problem.

The music video goes even further into that, using not only stock footage of anti-cop rioting, instances of theft, and protests that weren’t even in the USA, but also using said footage to evoke a sense of “vigilante justice” that goes hand-in-hand with the song’s lyrics. This footage is coupled with news snippets from said outlets, which confirms the angle he’s coming into this from.

But the most egregious aspect of this music video is the fact that all of this is filmed in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee: the site of a lynching in 1927, where 18-year-old Henry Choate was killed by a white mob. Combined with the very pointed footage and combative lyrics, this set decision makes it very clear that Aldean’s conception of American problems is one where Blackness is inherently culpable. Though he has attempted to claim that these assertions are “meritless,” even if he were truly ignorant of the Courthouse’s history, this ignorance still belies a mentality that considers itself untouchable and does not value the honoring of African American history in any capacity.

In response to this, Rolling Stone interviewed Dr. Karlos K. Hill, a professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Hill had the following to say about the music video:

It was dog-whistle politics at play. There are a couple themes: the idea that rural America is the moral center of America. That’s a very present theme, because you see images of urban America on fire, with protests, but then you have the country music singer placed in the rural area where it’s tranquil and calm and peaceful. You have the rural/urban divide theme, the “rural America is the moral compass” theme, and the “urban America is in chaos” theme.

You also have this veiled threat: “Try that in a small town.” The song is part of the current rhetoric of the moment. The “us versus them, Make America Great Again” idea. You have all of that without the artist even having to touch it. But what’s most concerning is the veiled threats of violence that, given the Jan. 6 attacks, we should be really alarmed by, because we know where they can lead. 

All of what I see and feel is just the conservative narrative of Make America Great Again: “Look at the chaos, the ways America is unraveling. You better not try that transgender stuff in a small town. You better not try that abortion rights stuff in a small town.” That’s the cultural polarization in this country. That’s the irresponsible part. If he was trying to create some sort of anthem to bring people together, he really missed.

Obviously there are no references to lynching in the song. I think there are veiled threats of violence, but that would be a stretch, to connect it to the history of lynching. There are actual lynching songs, like songs that are actually about lynching Black people. We can’t equivocate. But, at the same time…someone should have known that there was a possibility that someone would say that. 

After the images of urban unrest and violent protesters, you have the imagery of white men shooting guns. So there’s this real deep insinuation of “We have weapons, you better not try to take our guns.” The imagery is what’s doing all the work. That’s what people are seizing upon. There’s this insinuation that these guns are being used recreationally — but if you “try that in a small town,” then that same mentality will be turned on you. 

Dr. Karlos K. Hill, in conversation with Jonathan Bernstein of Rolling Stone

The thing is, you can make a song about taking care of community and looking after one another that doesn’t invoke sundown sensibilities, let alone in front of a site of great historical tragedy. It’s ironic, and unfortunate, that in making a song like this, Aldean’s essentially created the pinnacle of what non-country fans think all country music is: exclusionary, belligerent songs that are written for racist white southerners.

And even as a non-country fan myself, I know that that’s not indicative of the genre in its entirety. I DJed for folk and country shows in college, so I have firsthand knowledge that most basic country songs are about chilling out, spending time with family, and getting laid. Therefore, this prompted Sheryl Crow, one of the genre’s foremost modern stars, to speak out on this foolishness:

The real kicker is that Aldean wasn’t even raised in a small town. He was raised in two cities: Macon, Georgia and Homestead, Florida. The kind of idealizing he’s putting on small towns is, again, in alignment with a lot of conservative talking points about “returning to this country’s origins,” and those talking points are, at their core, racist and exclusionary, and rooted in America’s anti-Black history.

At the risk of sounding parasocial, I’ll go out on a limb and assume that this farce of a song is a misguided expression of Aldean’s own trauma regarding the shooting. Despite the lyrics being incredibly confrontational, the song itself has no bite whatsoever, with no real direction, and the music video is delusional with no landing point. It ends with an awkward transition into an interview with a farmer who just wants to take care of his community. So, in totality, he attempted to make sense of this country’s history of violence with the nonsense he’s likely seen on conservative talk shows, and ended up with nothing but a loose narrative that he could only piece together using stock footage and hollow, outdated sentimentalities.

It’s all just so sloppily put together and planned that one has to wonder how it left the editing room at all, let alone the recording studio. Worst of all is the fact that, because it’s a product of the news he’s consumed, it can now be used as a tool for the worst iterations of those sentiments, brought to a modern context. He claims that the outrage against the song is reckless, when in reality, the song itself is a reckless ode to an America that, ironically, does not value community and care at all.

(featured image: Terry Wyatt/WireImage)

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Pam Tillis among performers for upcoming Tribute to Music Legends show

A tribute show is planned for next month with some Grammy winners in the lineup

Updated: 8:09 AM CDT Jul 20, 2023

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A THERAPY DOG IN THE CLASSROOM. WE LOVE THIS. WELL, SOON YOU’LL GET THE CHANCE TO SEE SOME BIG NAMES HONORING MUSIC LEGENDS. HERE IN OKC. THERE’S A TRIBUTE SHOW PLANNED FOR NEXT MONTH, AND THERE ARE SOME GRAMMY WINNERS IN THE LINEUP. YOU SEE THE LIST RIGHT HERE. PAM TILLIS WILL PAY TRIBUTE TO WANDA JACKSON, THE QUEEN OF ROCKABILLY, AND OKLAHOMA’S OWN DARCY LYNN WILL CELEBRATE GAYLA PEEVEY, WHO SANG I WANT TO HIT APODEMUS FOR CHRISTMAS. WOW. I KNOW THIS SHOW HONORS AMAZING. I KNOW. I SHOULD BE HONORED HERE. I’M JUST KIDDING. THIS HONORS FOR OKLAHOMA MUSIC HALL OF FAME MEMBERS WHO WERE DISCOVERED IN THE 50S THANKS TO AN OKC RADIO STATION AND THEY ALL MADE A NATIONAL IMPACT IN MUSIC. YOU WANT PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY OF MUSIC. IT’S ENRICHING WHEN THEY CAN GO BACK AND LISTEN TO SOME SOME OF THE ARTISTS OF OF PREVIOUS DECADES, THE OKLAHOMA CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY IS PUTTING ON THIS SHOW. IT IS HAPPENING AUGUST 15TH AT THE YALE THEAT

Pam Tillis among performers for upcoming Tribute to Music Legends show

A tribute show is planned for next month with some Grammy winners in the lineup

Updated: 8:09 AM CDT Jul 20, 2023

You’ll soon get to see some big names honor music legends in Oklahoma City.A tribute show is planned for next month with some Grammy winners in the lineup.Get the latest news stories of interest by clicking here.Country music singer and songwriter Pam Tillis will play tribute to Wanda Jackson. Oklahoma’s Darci Lynne will celebrate Gayla Peevey, who sang “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”The show honors four Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame members who were discovered in the 1950s thanks to an OKC radio station.>> Download the KOCO 5 App”You want people to understand the history of music,” Tillis said. “It’s enriching when they can go back and listen to artists of previous decades.”The Oklahoma City Historical Society is putting on the tribute concert. It will be held on Aug. 15 at the Yale Theater in southwest Oklahoma City. Click here for tickets.Top Headlines American Heartland Theme Park and Resort to be built in northeastern Oklahoma Video: 6-foot ‘doomsday fish’ baffles deep sea divers The wait is over as Powerball finally has a winner for its jackpot worth over $1 billion Hall of Fame wrestler Goldberg pictured at Oklahoma Walmart ODWC: Oklahoma boy catches exotic fish native to South America in neighborhood pond

OKLAHOMA CITY —

You’ll soon get to see some big names honor music legends in Oklahoma City.

A tribute show is planned for next month with some Grammy winners in the lineup.

Get the latest news stories of interest by clicking here.

Country music singer and songwriter Pam Tillis will play tribute to Wanda Jackson. Oklahoma’s Darci Lynne will celebrate Gayla Peevey, who sang “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”

The show honors four Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame members who were discovered in the 1950s thanks to an OKC radio station.

>> Download the KOCO 5 App

“You want people to understand the history of music,” Tillis said. “It’s enriching when they can go back and listen to artists of previous decades.”

The Oklahoma City Historical Society is putting on the tribute concert. It will be held on Aug. 15 at the Yale Theater in southwest Oklahoma City. Click here for tickets.

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