The ambitious G. Love & Special Sauce will headline a free concert Friday, May 28 in Forsyth Park - the annual "new alumni" show intended as a thumbs-up for graduating seniors.
Other acts on the bill - and there are usually two or three - haven't been announced.
G. Love, a.k.a. Garrett Dutton, is a Philadelphia singer, guitarist and harmonica player; the band creates a frenzy-whipped hybrid of rhythm ‘n' blues, hip hop, rock, funk and Delta blues.
But you knew that already, didn't you?
More on this shortly.
Say it out loud
Coming the weekend of April 30 is the 6th annual Savannah Spoken Word Festival. Clinton D. Powell and the amazing Spitfire Poetry Group, which has been leading the way in area spoken word for a decade now, is centered around an All-Day Slam Saturday, May 1 - the youth competition starts at 11 a,.m., adults at 7 p.m., at the Sentient Bean. Youth registration is $10; for adults, it's $25.
The April 30 event - also at the Bean - is a free Open Mic ("Friday Night Fix") starting at 7:30 p.m.
On May 2, the "So Long Sunday" portion of the Spoken Word Festival ($10 admission) features two-time National Poetry Slam winner Anis Mojgani, a SCAD graduate who also took home the International World Cup Poetry Slam prize.
The Sunday bill will also include comedy, music, dancing and "more stuff."
New from the records bins
Savannah fave Keller Williams isn't one to let grass grow under his feet. The one-man-band was here a month or so ago, touring solo behind his latest CD, Odd ... and now he's got another one. Thief, a collection of cover versions, comes out May 25. Keller's putting his stamp on Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," Kris Kristofferson's "Don't Cuss That Fiddle," the Butthole Surfers' "Pepper," and tunes by Ryan Adams, the Raconteurs, Cracker and the Grateful Dead, among others.
The solo Thief tour won't bring Williams back to the Creative Coast, but you can catch up with him this Saturday (April 24) at Freebird Live in Jacksonville, and April 30 at the Handle Bar in Greenville, S.C. Come summertime, he'll be on the road with the Dead's Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart in a band called the Rhythm Devils.
... Also due in stores May 25: A remastered, expanded edition of the Rolling Stones' seminal Exile on Main St. Mick Jagger and former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor went into the studio to clean up the tracks, and the new edition will include a second CD with 10 previously unreleased recordings, including some alternate versions and a couple from the Exile sessions that have never seen the light of day ("Plundered My Soul," "Dancing in the Light," "Following the River" and "Pass The Wine").
A deluxe edition will also include the Exile album on vinyl and a DVD with segments from Stones in Exile, a full-length documentary about those heady, early ‘70s days. The full film is to be released separately, perhaps after it's screened on television (nobody seems to know for sure).
