Patti LaBelle performs at the Kravis Center. (Howie Grapek / GPO)

There is no mistaking the vocal stylings of the R&B diva Patti LaBelle. Equally at home with jazz, blues or soul, LaBelle’s voice at its very best is dynamic, direct and imbued with that wonderful “purr” that sets her apart from other great singers. After all we’re talking about the Lady Marmalade here, who had repeatedly held the the number one slot on the R&B, Dance and Pop charts simultaneously.

While typing this review, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?” was repeatedly playing in my mind as it has since my adolescent days. I’ve seen LaBelle perform several times over the years, but this past Saturday evening, not only was the 67-year-old diva’s voice incredibly strong, but I witnessed her greatest asset came alive like I’ve never seen before. Of course, I’m talking about her flair for performance, which shone brightly at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

Photos: Patti LaBelle at the Kravis Center | Visit Howie Grapek’s website

Patti LaBelle’s music has always seemed effortless to me, but she simply glided through this performance like a vocal force of nature. The show opened with a storming rendition of “New Attitude”, then went into “If You Asked Me” and “Stir It Up”.

Ms. LaBelle sang a few more hits then took a moment to briefly describe her career. She shared that at 67 years of age, she is now single and is actually “better friends” with her ex-husband Armstead Edwards than she was when married. She logically segued into “On My Own”, which was sung with gusto. I must say, at this golden age, she looks and sounds absolutely spectacular. A few times throughout the show, she joked about the shoes on the piano and picked up a small hand mirror to examine her face and “fix” her hair. Naturally, there was nothing which needed ‘fixing’.

About half way through the show, LaBelle stopped singing and picked up a few pairs of high-heeled shoes which were perched neatly on the piano. As she kick-started the show with “I’m feelin’ good from my head to my shoes …Know where I’m goin’ and I know what to do …I tidied up my point …I got a new attitude”, this was no surprise to me. Misheard lyrics (also called mondegreens) occur when people misunderstand the lyrics in a song. These are not intentional rephrasing of lyrics, which is called parody. One of the most common mondegreens is from her song “new attitude” – the replacing the lyrics “I got a new attitude” with “I got a new pair of shoes”. What did catch me off guard was when she selected a beautiful pair from the piano and took the time to actually put them on in front of the audience. It was brilliant!

On stage with LaBelle were seven musicians and three chorus members. One of the high points of the evening included a pop-gospel rendition of “Lord’s Side”. In “Somebody Loves You”, she purred as much as she sang – her voice shimmering over a soothing chorus of backing singers.

Other highlights included “Right Kinda Lover” and the meltingly smooth “Somebody Loves You” which was delivered like medicine to cure a broken heart. One of the singers on stage named Debbie sang the classic hit “Shower The People” as a duet with LaBelle. Just prior to that, LaBelle sang “Can’t Make You Love Me” – both of these ballads literally took my breath away.

Of course, what would a Patti LaBelle show be without a rousing version of “Lady Marmalade” where she draws in a few audience members. Tonight, after dozens of guys rushed the stage when asked “who wants to sing with me”, 6 men were selected and brought on stage to sing and dance as LaBelle sang with them.

Patti Labelle concerts are a real treat for any age. At 67, she has the energy and drive of a 32-year-old – today, looking as beautiful and fit as ever. Her music historically stems from the funk and early-disco confluence of the mid-’70s but is not stale by any means. This show was a testimony that unlike most artists who live for their next hit single Ms. LaBelle lives for the moment – and expresses herself with flair.

Set List – Kravis Center – 2/4/12 – Total Play Time: 90 minutes
- New Attitude
- If You Asked Me To
- Stir It Up
- Since I Don’t Have You
- I Keep Forgettin’
- Love Need and Want You
- Somebody Loves You
- On My Own
- Right Kinda Lover
- Can’t Make You Love Me
- Shower The People
- Lord’s Side
- Lady Marmalade
- Rainbow
Encore:
- Earth Song

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Police in Las Vegas say rap music mogul Suge Knight was arrested a traffic warrant and a misdemeanor drug charge.

Officer Laura Meltzer says the 46-year-old former Death Row Records executive was stopped driving a black Bentley with California plates about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday on a street just off Flamingo Road west of the Las Vegas Strip.

Meltzer says Knight was charged with making an unsafe lane change and possession of less than one ounce of a controlled substance and was released from jail without bail. Knight’s court date wasn’t immediately available.

Attorney David Chesnoff has represented Knight in previous Las Vegas cases. He’s traveling and wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Celebrity website TMZ first reported the arrest. It says Knight had marijuana with him when he was stopped.

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“American Idol” winner Scotty McCreery, Brantley Gilbert and Hunter Hayes are The Academy of Country Music Awards’ best new artist nominees.

The trio of young country stars was chosen by fans and the academy’s membership and announced in a news release Thursday.

Fan voting in the category opens March 19 at www.voteacm.com and will continue until 8 p.m. EDT, April 1, just before the start of the live awards show.

Each brings a little something different to the debate. Teenager McCreery had a platinum debut this year after winning ‘Idol,’ Gilbert gained notoriety as a songwriter of Jason Aldean’s hits “My Kinda Party” and “Dirt Road Anthem,” and Hayes was something of a child prodigy.

The awards will air live from Las Vegas on CBS.

But its new video contest on YouTube does have at least one similarity: Voting by the public. Videos submitted by instrumental soloists will be up for anyone to watch. The top four vote-getters will get a chance to audition for musical director and conductor Manfred Honeck. The winner — if Honeck picks one at all — gets $10,000 and a paid trip to perform with the orchestra at Heinz Hall this fall.

But the orchestra says the contest is no classical “American Idol.”

“Not at all,” said Robert Moir, the orchestra’s senior vice president of artistic planning and audience engagement. “This is applying 21st century technology to something we’ve been doing since orchestras began, and that’s scouting young talent.”

Moir and Honeck revealed the idea to The Associated Press in advance of Thursday’s news conference formally announcing the nationwide contest hosted on the popular YouTube online video platform. The orchestra’s Facebook page and website also have links.

Starting Thursday, people who play any one of 10 instruments — piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet or harp — can upload clips up to 10 minutes long on YouTube through March 22. The musicians must play certain concertos without accompaniment, and orchestra musicians and other officials will judge the clips and post 20 semi-finalist videos on April 13. The public will vote on the finalists until April 30, with the top four winning paid trips to Pittsburgh to audition for Honeck in June.

(And, yes, the orchestra will even pay for an extra airline seat for any finalists who play either the cello or harp.)

The winner will play their concerto with the orchestra Nov. 30 and Dec. 2 as part of its BNY Mellon Grand Classics subscription concert series.

Jesse Rosen, president and chief executive officer of the League of American Orchestras, said technology is changing the way orchestras interact with their patrons. Rosen said the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is one of several with “tweeting sections” where the audience is free to post Twitter comments about the performance as it happens. The Washington, D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra was one of the first to deliver real-time program notes via Twitter during a performance in 2009.

But Rosen said the Pittsburgh contest is “very much a leading edge thing. They’re in the forefront. This is not something others are doing.”

“Secondarily, it’s so fascinating this role change of an orchestra or orchestras, who have historically been the curators of what gets played and what represents quality and standards, saying, ‘You, the public, millions of you, can have a role in deciding who plays, too,’” Rosen said.

But Honeck and Moir stressed that doesn’t mean they’re sacrificing quality for the sake of popular input or appeal.

“The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has a reputation of being one of the best American orchestras and we would never allow ourselves to have a soloist who is not good enough to be accompanied by us,” Honeck said. “The quality must be guaranteed.”

How?

“If we don’t find somebody at the level that we think is appropriate for our subscription concerts, we have the right not to put anybody on,” Moir said. “We don’t have to have a winner.”

“But we’re both pretty confident that the level is there just because we’ve both been using the Internet so much (to scout talent) and we’ve seen so many people who we’ve never heard of before who are so talented we think that this is probably going to bring us a lot more of these young interesting artists,” Moir said.

Orchestras typically find new musicians through talent agencies. Honeck usually holds auditions arranged in cities where the orchestra travels or, more often, by having the musicians come to the city.

But Honeck and Mori have increasingly shared online video clips of musicians who are creating a buzz in symphony circles and figured, why not formalize the online screening process just once and see what happens?

The orchestra currently has no musicians who have auditioned by video, though Moir and Honeck said their concertmaster, or first violinist, did come to their attention through a video clip.

The contest is open only to legal U.S. residents — which includes students here on visas and others noncitizens in the country legally — and only to those 18 or over (19 in Alabama and Nebraska, and 21 in Mississippi) because laws governing such contests require it. Contestants also cannot be represented by a talent agency or have previously been represented. That’s for legal reasons and because it would defeat the purpose of finding “unknown” talent, Moir said.

The contest was limited to the United States because laws governing YouTube videos and the contest itself would have had to be tweaked country-by-country to allow international contestants. The YouTube platform was selected because it would have been too expensive for the orchestra to build its own. The endeavor is being supported by a grant.

Honeck said nobody’s sure how well the contest will work. It could be repeated if successful. It could be a one-and-done. Honeck is even open to the idea of finding future orchestra members this way.

“Anything’s possible,” he said.

The report by the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the July 12 exercise foretold almost the exact conditions of the Aug. 13 tragedy, when seven people were killed after the stage rigging plunged into the crowd.

The scenario imagined high winds, lightning and hail and specifically mentioned the concert by country duo Sugarland, which fans were waiting to hear before the stage collapse.

A state labor department spokesman says it proves the fair commission had insufficiently prepared for the conditions.

On Wednesday, the commission paid a $6,300 IOSHA fine for workplace violations.

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Rapper 50 Cent is teaming up with the World Food Program to see firsthand the effects of hunger in Somalia and Kenya.

The rap star flew to Dolo, Somalia on Wednesday. Tens of thousands of women and children have fled there over the last year to flee a devastating famine that killed tens of thousands of people across Somalia.

WFP said the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, has committed to provide 1 billion meals for the hungry, and is donating to WFP 10 cents from every sale of a new energy drink called Street King that he is promoting.

The U.N. last week declared an end to Somalia’s six-month famine, though it said tens of thousands of people still need food aid to survive. The British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died from the famine’s effects.

All three are up for top honor Woodie of the year along with Frank Ocean, Foster the People and J Cole. Awards also will be handed out for emerging artists, performance and video. MTV added a category for electronic dance music this year, too.

The awards show will take place March 15 in Austin, Texas, during the South By Southwest Music Festival. The day begins at 2 p.m. EST with the first Woodie Awards Festival, then the show starts at 8 p.m.

Fans can watch performances live online and the full show will be broadcast March 18. MTV and mtvU will offer special programming all week from Austin.

In 2010, Earl Klugh was invited to play at the Crossroads Guitar Festival outside Chicago.

At first blush, it seems an odd match – the roster of Crossroads was blues and rock heavy, Klugh is well known as an acoustic jazz guitarist.

But Eric Clapton’s invitation bore out, as Klugh gave a standout performance.

"I really enjoyed the idea," Klugh said in a telephone interview. "Just be allowed to play and do what you’re going to do. I ended up having even more fun backstage, there were so many various people. It was really a who’s who of everyone having to do with guitars."

Directions, invite a friend, nearby dining

On Saturday, Klugh will be playing a more traditional show, performing Saturday at the Duncan Theatre on the suburban Lake Worth campus of Palm Beach State College. Klugh said his setlist will encompass a good stretch of his career, which reaches back to when he began working with artists like Chet Atkins, Yusef Lateef and George Benson as a teenager.

"I think we’re pretty much up to snuff on what we’re doing," he said. "If I have enough confidence that night, I may even pull off something I’ve never done before. It gives you something to keep everyone on their toes."

Klugh, who at one point released two or three albums a year, keeps a much more spread-out schedule when it comes to releasing music. He went six years between 1999′s Peculiar Situation and 2005′s Naked Guitar, and his last LP, the Grammy-nominated The Spice of Life, came out in 2008.

"The older I get, the more time it takes," he said. "I want to make really good records. When I was starting out, I was able to work with really good people, but the pace was quite different. Over the years, things have changed so much. The record business has shifted – I tour quite a bit more now."

However, Klugh revealed that he is working on some upcoming new albums – a solo effort and a record with his band, which includes keyboardist David Lee, bassist Jeff Cox and multi-instrumentalist Nelson Rangell.

If you go:

EARL KLUGH

Where: Duncan Theatre, Palm Beach State College, suburban Lake Worth

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $29, available at www.duncantheatre.org

The Blue Caps, the Comets, the Crickets, the Famous Flames, the Midnighters and the Miracles will be inducted at the April ceremony in Cleveland.

The Crickets’ Buddy Holly and the Famous Flames’ James Brown were inducted in 1986. The Comets’ Bill Haley and the Miracles’ Smokey Robinson were inducted in 1987. The Midnighters’ Hank Ballard was inducted in 1990 and the Blue Caps’ Gene Vincent was inducted in 1998.

Previously announced inductees are the Beastie Boys, Donovan, Guns N’ Roses, Laura Nyro, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Small Faces/The Faces, Freddie King, Don Kirshner, Cosimo Matassa, Tom Dowd and Glyn Johns.

Paul McCartney will debut the songs from his new album “Kisses on the Bottom” in a free live streaming performance on iTunes.

The performance takes place at 10 p.m. EST Thursday from Capitol Studios in Los Angeles where much of the new album was recorded.

“Kisses on the Bottom” features McCartney’s interpretation of several beloved standards like “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” ”Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive” and “Bye Bye Blackbird,” and has two new songs, “My Valentine” with Eric Clapton and “Only Our Hearts” with Stevie Wonder.

The former Beatle recorded the album with the help of Diana Krall and her backing band.

The original lineup of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks will be joined by Grammy nominees Foster the People and Maroon 5 in a special performance.

A news release Wednesday also says The Civil Wars, Diana Krall and Joe Walsh have been added to the performance lineup and Common, Reba McEntire and Diana Ross will be presenters.

The Beach Boys announced late last year that they would reunite to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a new album and tour.

The Grammy Awards will be broadcast live Sunday night on CBS.

A northwest Georgia county has bought the garden where the late folk artist Howard Finster held court for tourists and art lovers from around the world.

Chattooga County, where Paradise Garden has been based since Finster began building it in 1961, used donations and grant money to buy the small plot for $125,000, said Jordan Poole, executive director with the Paradise Garden Foundation. The foundation will continue to work on restoring the quirky garden, which was featured in a 1983 R.E.M. video.

Finster, a bicycle repairman and preacher who turned to art to spread God’s word, has long been considered the grandfather of the American folk art movement. He filled the garden, located about 100 miles northwest of Atlanta, with primitive mosaics, sculptures and buildings. It was the setting for numerous weddings that Finster presided over.

The garden fell into disrepair after his death in 2001. The county’s ownership will protect it from ever being closed down, Poole said Wednesday.

“It means Paradise Garden is still owned by an entity — it can’t be snatched up by a private investor who goes in there and starts removing everything,” Poole said.

The county bought the four-acre plot in late December after receiving news it had won an Appalachian Regional Commission grant, said the county’s sole commissioner, Jason Winters. The county is in a much better position to apply for grants to help restore the crumbling structures in the garden than the nonprofit that bought the property from Finster’s family, he said.

Winters said he hopes to create a tourism economy around the garden, which drew more than 2,000 visitors last year with no marketing. The county will lease the garden to Poole’s foundation, which will be in charge of maintaining and restoring the property, Winters said.

“Finster was a citizen of Chattooga County first, and he was proud of his home and we need to be proud of him,” Winters said.

Members of the Finster family did not immediately return calls for comment on Wednesday.

So far, volunteers have helped shore up the tier wedding cake-like World’s Folk Art Church and put on a new roof with money raised by auctioning off art from the garden. Volunteers also help guide tours of the garden for visitors who show up on its doorstep.

The foundation has also revived FinsterFest, a folk art festival that Finster held every year in the garden to help promote hundreds of unknown artists.

Finster began creating what he called “sacred art” in 1976 after a vision appeared to him in a dollop of paint on one of his fingertips. His art, which featured everything from ants to Elvis, gained national fame after members of R.E.M. befriended him.

The artist painted the covers of albums for R.E.M., Talking Heads and other bands in the 1980s, and soon his primitive paintings and sculptures became famous, drawing thousands every year to his home near the Alabama-Georgia border.

His art spilled from the basement of his home into his backyard, where he carefully placed mosaic Bible verses into the sidewalk and turned objects like bicycles, car motor parts and dolls into sculptures. Some of the objects in the garden look like the contents of a child’s toy box or a recycling bin were dumped into piles of wet concrete, drying into a misshapen heap.

A shack is made out of bottles embedded in concrete. Trash cans are painted with messages about transforming trash into treasure. One wall is a scrapbook of family photos and clippings from newspapers, all preserved behind glass.

Everything about the garden is folksy, right down to the name, which is Paradise Garden or Paradise Gardens, depending who you ask. Finster — who sometimes wrote his name as “Finister,” which is how the residents in Chattooga pronounce it — used both in legal documents, Poole said.

Finster eventually produced 48,000 pieces, including quirky wooden statues and sculptures made from other people’s trash. He awed architects with his complex folk art church, which seemed impossible for a man lacking formal engineering training.

Ronald L. Smith

Born April 12, 1952, Ronald Louis Smith, helped define the upbeat, splashy “Miami Sound’’ that made stars of the Sunshine Band, Gloria Estefan and others with whom he played.

He started on a trumpet that his father salvaged from the trash, and became a drum major, “doing the funky chicken,’’ at both Edison and Jackson Senior high schools, said his son, Ron Jr.

With his guitarist brother, Jerome, and friend Robert Johnson, Smith founded the Ocean Liner Band, for a time the show band for another Miami star, Betty Wright.

Influenced by their Bahamian musical roots, the brothers played behind dozens of artists at Miami’s T.K. Records studio. All three became original members of the Sunshine Band: a disco/funk supergroup during much of the 1970s and ’80s that toured worldwide.

“My dad was a humble man,’’ Ron Jr. said. “He said that the limelight was not about him. He always wanted to make the people love the music. You hear the horn section dancing — that’s entertainment.’’

Smith made one, little-noticed solo album, “Party Freaks (Come On)’’ for Miami’s Sunshine Sounds in 1978, backed by the Sunshine Band. “K.C.’’— Harry Casey — wrote the liner notes.

A U.S. Air Force veteran who lived in Miami Lakes, Smith had been a patient at the Veterans Administration Medical Center since a violent carjacking near the Liberty Square housing projects left him comatose in 2004, though his son said he responded to music, and once was able to say “I love you.’’

He died Jan. 21. No arrest was ever made.

His brother also met a sad end. Jerome Smith, 47, died in a West Palm Beach construction accident in 2000.

In a 1998 interview posted on YouTube, “Bo’’ Horne said Smith was “the most exciting member of the Sunshine band and a pioneer of that group. Ron could play all those high octaves. When the Sunshine Band first came out, Ron Louis Smith put together a horn section that just blew you away… The Ocean Liners were the hottest band in Miami, and K.C. asked for the privilege to be a part of that group, because he loved soul music.’’

The band morphed into the Sunshine Junkanoo Band before settling on its final name at T.K. Records, Horne said.

“I believe it was done that way because of segregation. During that time, a white guy in front of an all-black band was something that white radio would buy.’’

The Sunshine Band website notes Smith’s passing, although Casey and Smith parted on less-than-cordial terms, Ron Jr. said.

But the band’s co-founder, producer/arranger Richard Finch, in an email called Smith “an amazing musician. The contributions he made as an integral part of K.C. and the Sunshine Band are permanently etched in the music. No one could ever replicate what he brought to the band. Ron was the life of the horn section and did all of the choreography for the band. He was pure positive energy and he delivered that in every performance.’’

In addition to his son, Smith is survived by daughter Ronsh’ka Latara Smith, and his wife, Beverly Fountain Smith, a Miami-Dade teacher.

Smith was buried with military honors at the South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Worth.

Friends are conducting an online fundraiser to cover his final expenses, at www.gofundme.com/eebfs.

The Avett Brothers perform at Sunfest in 2011. (Mark Edelson / Post file photo)

UPDATE: Fixed date for Avett Brothers’ show to Friday, not Saturday.

It wasn’t that long ago that you could see the country/folk/rock trio The Avett Brothers in Lake Worth’s intimate Bamboo Room, performing their stomping brand of music. (I did in 2007.)

Four years later and the following things have happened:
• Appeared on the Grammy Awards with Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons
• Recorded I and Love and You LP with Rick Rubin
• Appeared on the late-night shows of David Letterman, Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon
• Performed as a headliner on the first night of SunFest in 2011
• Recorded a show at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, N.C., and released a DVD/CD of the show, Live, Vol. 3.

Directions, nearby dining, invite a friend

So it’s not that surprising that the Avetts aren’t playing the same venue this time around – although I’m sure they’d love to if the opportunity presented itself. Instead, they’ll play the much roomier Sunset Cove Amphitheater, west of Boca Raton, on Friday.

Currently they’re working on the follow-up to I and Love and You, again with Rubin. Will we hear new stuff that might end up on the LP? Well, they have made a point of playing “The Once and Future Carpenter”, which is likely to be on the new record.

Catania, Lafferty

• Groove approved: Above all else, the Blues Brothers — which started out as a skit on Saturday Night Live with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd — have always been about getting people off their feet and enjoying some good rhythm and blues. On Thursday, that ethos will be enforced at the Kravis Center, when the Official Blues Brothers Revue pays a visit.

Wayne Catania and Kieron Lafferty have been performing as Jake and Elwood Blues since 2004, and the revue is the only Blues Brothers show around that’s been approved by Dan Aykroyd and Judy Belushi.

Tickets are on sale at the Kravis box office. | More information

• On sale this week: Moody Blues, Hard Rock Live, March 11 (Friday); Tony Bennett, Hard Rock Live, March 16 (Friday); Van Halen, BankAtlantic Center, April 10 (Saturday); Mana, American Airlines Arena, May 11 (Friday).

Willie Nelson performs at the Broward Center. (Veda Jo Jenkins / sflimages.com)

How far would you travel to see your favorite musician?

Traveling more than 3,000 miles from Calgary, Alberta, the Whelans, Valerie and Hank, sat dead center, second row for Willie Nelson. Nelson played at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale to a sold out crowd and for the Whelans it was a fulfillment of a dream.

“It was on our bucket list,” Valerie told me. “When we saw he was playing at the Broward Center we just had to go.” Now that’s no ordinary snowbird.

Photos: Willie Nelson at the Broward Center | Visit Veda Jo Jenkins’ website

In fact the lady next to me, Kitty, flew all the way from Auburn, Wash. (that’s Washington state) – the Seattle area-to-South Florida is about the farthest distance you can travel in the continental United States.

“When I saw he was coming I kept trying to buy my mom a ticket,” her son Chuck explained. “It was the last one available.” For Kitty another dream became reality.

Kitty and I sat in the third row, and at the Broward Center, which doesn’t have a bad seat in the house, it was as if we were on stage. I have to say, watching Kitty, who is even older than Nelson’s 78 years, smiling from ear to ear and even standing up and dancing (she uses a walker) made the show extra special for me.

As we all know Willie Nelson is a legendary American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet and actor. Seeing Nelson live brings back the real truth and beauty of what made the backbone of America. At least the good old USA, where manual labor in the fields and working in steel mills brought food to the table.

Nelson is not decorated with tattoos on his body, at least from what I could see. His signature braids, red bandana and simple clothing are as weathered as his guitar. Nelson calls his guitar “Trigger” and there is a worn seeping hole in the guitar’s body near the sound hole from the constant strumming. I couldn’t get the exact date but I think Nelson purchased the guitar around 1970 and has been quoted as saying, “When Trigger goes, I’ll quit.”

Well I hope that isn’t anytime soon. Nelson’s voice was a pure as the midnight rain and his guitar picking can quiet your soul, evoke emotions of sadness or joy or make you want to stomp your feet.

Nelson mixed up the set list with his own original hits like “On the Road Again”, “The City of New Orleans”, “Me and Paul” (in reference to his longtime percussionist Paul English) and “Always on My Mind” as well as playing his version of the songs of some the great musicians who influenced his work. Nelson played Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Looking”, “Move It On Over” and “Jambalaya” (also known as “Me Oh My on the Bayou”).

When Nelson played “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys” the crowd was signing along. In fact the fans sang throughout the night to songs like “Good Hearted Woman” by Waylon Jennings, “Me and Bobby McGee” by Kris Kristofferson as well as Albert Hammond’s “To All the Girls I Loved Before”. The gospel hymn “I’ll Fly Away’ was a huge success. During “Georgia on My Mind”, a classic Ray Charles song, Kitty leaned over and whispered in my ear: “I just want to box him and take him home.”

Closing up the night Nelson explained how his doctor had ordered him to stop performing after having carpal tunnel surgery in 2004 from strumming his guitar. Nelson shared with us that during that time he just wrote more songs. He then moved into the song “Superman” with lyrics about pain pills and blowing up his tour. Funny but cute. To top it off Nelson entertained us with a new song “Roll Me Up and Smoke We When I Die”. Touché.

There were just so many great songs and Nelson never skipped a beat. He would occasionally stop and smile at the crowd his blue eyes looking out at the audience, his “cowboy” weathered look a testimony of the road he has traveled.

To top off the night of incredible music performance, Nelson signed his autograph close to 100 times for fans on anything from T-shirts, bandanas and pictures to concert tickets. The Whelans got a book, a picture and a T-shirt signed making that 3,000-mile journey even better. As for Kitty, I jumped up front and got her ticket signed and had a moment to look Nelson in the eye and say “Thank you”.

Amazing how just an autograph from someone you have idolized for years will become a treasure of a lifetime.

Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells.

Derek Miller hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

The guitarist/songwriter for the duo Sleigh Bells was taking time off during the holidays at his mom’s home in Jupiter, when he and singer Alexis Krauss decided that they had the perfect location for a new music video: the old neighborhood.

“There’s a scene where Alexis is jumping on a bed, that’s in my mom’s room, and she’s holding my rifle,” Miller said about the video for “Comeback Kid”. “We tried to film at the Publix, but it would’ve been really expensive, so we went up to this place called Peggy’s (Natural Food Market) in Stuart.”

Directions, nearby dining, invite a friend | Miami show information

“Comeback Kid”, the second song released off the group’s second album, Reign of Terror, is not only a great introduction to the group’s pop-vocals-meet-heavy-guitar-and-quick-beats style, it’s also a very different look at South Florida. Krauss and Miller sing and play in the Egret Cove neighborhood, while during the chorus, Krauss sings on the beach during sunset.

“It sounds kind of ridiculous, but they do call that the ‘golden hour’,” Miller said. “That part of the song is all like it is at the beach – it’s airy and moody at that point, and the beach shots worked really well.”

Miller’s attachment to Florida is also reflected in the group’s decision to play eight Florida dates to start their tour in support of Reign of Terror, which includes a show Saturday at Revolution Live. They will also play Grand Central in Miami on Tuesday.

The way Miller talks about living in Florida, it’s clear he looks back with a smile even though the duo is currently based out of Brooklyn. (And they’re touring with another South Florida native, Diplo, from Plantation – although he won’t be at the Revolution show.)

“I have a special relationship with Florida,” Miller said in a telephone interview. “It’s really weird, but it’s home. Diplo also grew up in Florida, and when we had the idea for a tour, we were hanging out with him in Brooklyn. We egg each other to do ridiculous things, and we all had this idea for a two-week tour of Florida. Not a lot of bands come down to Florida, but it’s a strange place and something about it felt right.”

Miller, who was born in Pahokee, left Florida for Brooklyn after spending time in the South Florida hardcore band Poison The Well, while working as a barback at Cucina Dell Arte on Palm Beach.

“Nothing was really panning out for me here, so I went to New York, and ended up working at a Brazilian restaurant, which is where I met Alexis,” Miller said. “I’d say within a month or two it was pretty clear to me that we’d work well together. We began working on (the song) ‘Infinity Guitars’, and it sounded good almost immediately. I didn’t know what it was about this project, but I knew it was something worth doing, something worth my time.”

The band has been gaining momentum and audience almost from the get-go. “Infinity Guitars” found its way to commercials, and wasn’t the only song from the group’s debut LP, Treats, to find its way to other media. Treats tracks ended up on video games, movie trailers, sports broadcasts and more.

Miller said he hopes Reign of Terror, which comes out on Feb. 21 — just three days after the band makes their first appearance on Saturday Night Live, can meet the high standards that he and Krauss have set for themselves.

“The priority is pretty simple for us – we hope it’s decent and memorable,” Miller said. “We hold ourselves to a pretty high standard. We rarely if ever meet it.”

Blue Oyster Cult's Donald 'Buck Dharma' Roeser and Rudy Sarzo perform at the Pavilion at Seminole Casino at Coconut Creek. (Andrew Nathanson / Gatorproduction.com)

More Cowbell! 

For those listening closely, the cue-in to Blue Öyster Cult’s show at the Pavilion at the Seminole Casino at Coconut Creek was refrains of the famous catchphrase from the Saturday Night Live sketch about the group. It spoke to a quality band who appreciates a good joke and isn’t afraid of a little self-deprecation. BOC itself is no joke, however — it’s a seminal hard rock group influencing loads of others.

Opening with the vintage album track “The Red and the Black” from back in ’73, Blue Oyster Cult helped break in the new venue in Coconut Creek.

Photos: Blue Öyster Cult at the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek | Visit Andrew Nathanson’s website

The group next went with “The Golden Age of Leather” with appropriate toasting lyrics: “Raise your can of beer on high, and seal your fate forever, our best years have passed us by, the golden age of leather.”

While some in the audience appeared to fit the toast, BOC still brings the spiked punch to the party. To make sure the crowd knew it was a hot soiree, they kicked out “Burning for You.” Though Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser played a guitar looking liked Swiss cheese, the music was not cheesy.

They brought their pre-jam band sound with Dharma’s axemanship juxtaposed tastefully with the polished lead guitar of Richie Castellano, and lead vocalist Eric Bloom contributing on guitar to harmonious effect. Bloom’s vocals were clean, with crisp vibrato technique underneath suggesting he takes his “instrument” seriously.

Then there’s Rudy, as in Rudy Sarzo – one of the premier rock bass guitarists on the planet. If he could kick out any more pyrotechnics on his instrument it would burst into flames — which couldn’t be more appropriate for “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll.” The crowd chanted “Rock and Roll” in synchronous timing with the song.

There were some who missed an opportunity with some empty seats in this high-school gym sized facility with quality acoustics. Perhaps the facility is so new people aren’t aware — they missed a chance for very clear music this night.

Dahrma took some time working the whammy bar and creating a 1960’s psychedelic entre nous, which got the crowd on their feet. The band went back to the beginning with “Then Came The Last Days of May” from BOC’s self-titled first album, which allowed for introductions to the group’s newer, less-known members: Jules Radino did a solid job on the drums. Castellano’s guitar is polished and smooth like a modern Clapton with bit of chirp, and he snuck in a bar of Van Halen tap.

Then there’s Rudy Sarzo, bassist extraordinaire. Buck Dharma, founding member. Eric Bloom with vocals dating back before the BOC name, who was once in the back seat of a limo reciting quality poetry, but that’s another story. 

Dharma took the lead into an extended jam, missing from many current bands’ live repertoire. Sarzo crushed the bass all the way through the show. 

During the setup for “Godzilla” they mentioned the descendants of a creature from a million years ago that might be found in the Okefenokee Swamp. At this point BOC was in total control of the crowd and could do whatever they wanted. This included Dharma culling special effects guitar tone by sliding his axe strings against the microphone stand.

And then came the solos: Rudy Sarzo lived up to his introduction as the “Monster Bassist”. The rest of the group played along as Sarzo’s timeline was revealed, from his time in Quiet Riot (complete with a few bars from “Cum On Feel The Noize”) to Dio to Whitesnake to Ozzy Osbourne (and the opening bars to “Crazy Train”). It was a tasty pseudo-medley of Sarzo’s metal blue-chip background.

Sarzo then duetted with drummer Radino, who laid out rhythms for Sarzo to thrash over. Sarzo then hit a funky slap Flea would salute, then played over chorded bass lines. Radino’s ensuing drum solo was tight but is something best left to those with names like Peart or Bonham.

These solos segued into the close of “Godzilla”, which had the audience on its feet with fists pumping.

Dharma did some riffing on a tight groove with Radino’s bass drum driving behind it, as they audience clapped to the beat. Then finally, “More cowbell!” The lead in to “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” had the audience in the groove and then the song notes rang out. It’s true there’s cowbell in the original song, but this night it sounded like Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken were in the wings tagging cowbells repeatedly.

Afterward, the band thanked the audience a couple of times before stepping off for a short break. For the encore they reached back to their second album, from way back in ’73, with “Hot Rails to Hell” which the band picked for to celebrate Castellano’s birthday. For his part, Castellano belted out the lyrics, doing a yeoman’s job.

In closing they wished everyone to “get home safe and don’t text when driving.” BOC took control and “cross-and-hooked” the crowd.

Commissioner Lori Torres said Wednesday that Mid-America Sound Corp. has been cited with three major safety violations in connection with the collapse of outdoor stage rigging in high winds that killed seven people Aug. 13. A crowd has gathered at the stage to see the country duo Sugarland perform.

The department issued a $63,000 fine against the company.

It is also citing the Indiana State Fair Commission and a stagehands union for safety regulation violations.

Officials say the commission failed to conduct proper safety evaluations of its concert venues. Smaller fines were issued against the fair and the union.

Those rich, classic songs, interpreted with Szot’s perfectly effortless baritone, sounded on Tuesday night at the Royal Room as if they were being sung for the first time, as if Szot was a knight pledging his hopeful, doomed commitment to someone he shouldn’t love, or a devastated lover recounting the romantic dream he’d realized and lost. Szot, a dashing figure with classic matinee idol looks and a reserved yet warm smile, sang as if the objects of that unrealized devotion had just slipped through the doors of the Royal Room and silently into the ether on Worth Avenue, as all the exquisite pain lingered. Devastating and cathartic for the singer, deliciously transcendent for the audience.

Yeah, it was that good.

Best bets: Broadway/opera star Paolo Szot, more | Directions, invite a friend

The Brazilian, opera-trained Szot traveled comfortably between Spanish-language songs and that lovely old American Songbook. “Almost Like Being In Love”  from “Brigadoon” was a breezy highlight, and his take on “Soliloquy,” the sweet, hopeful imagination of a bittersweet dream from “Carousel,” was uniquely moving, because even though it was done apart from the show, the listener likely knows what happens to Billy Bigelow and that child he’s looking forward to. Szot connects so beautifully to these songs, to the essence of their back story, and he makes you want to get a lot of Broadway shows on Netflix.

Szot is equally engaging when not singing, even when he’s just introducing the songs, and making polite, almost shy smiles at the audience. The only regret I had was when it was over.

PALM BEACH GARDENS
AND BOCA RATON
LOVE LOUIS?
Bob Lappin and the Palm Beach Pops pay tribute to the great man in Wonderful World: A Salute to Louis Armstrong at FAU’s Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and at the PBSC Eissey Campus Theatre, 3160 PGA Blvd., at 8 p.m. Sunday. Tickets $29-$89. Info/tickets: (561) 832-7677; www.palmbeachpops.org/armstrong | Find a performance near you

Grammy show producer Ken Ehrlich had considered putting dancing/electronica music into the ceremony in the past, but could never quite figure out how to incorporate the high-energy club feel in front of a sometimes staid audience.

He thinks he’s figured it out this year. For the first time, the Grammy show will put the spotlight on the genre with a segment featuring Grammy nominees Deadmau5, the Foo Fighters, Chris Brown, David Guetta and Lil Wayne, all performing in a tent space amid 1,000 fans.

“We decided to go all out this year,” Ehrlich said of the performance taking place outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where Sunday’s ceremony will be held. “All we’re going to try and do next week is to try and put the home audience in the middle of it. … It is more than just sitting there and watching it.”

Dance music did not receive its own category until 2003 with the best dance recording/dance field, and the music had not been featured with its own segment in the show.

“I don’t know that I figured out a way to do it that felt right until now,” Ehrlich said in an interview Monday. “My feeling about dance is it’s such an immersive experience for the participant, that to put it on stage … where the audience is not a part of it … I don’t know, honestly, until we came up with the idea of doing it this way, I don’t know if it ever would have worked.”

Ehrlich calls the performance the “most ambitious number that we’ve ever done outside the Staples Center.” It will feature at least four cameras from audience level as Deadmau5 (pronounced dead mouse) and the Foo Fighters perform his remixed version of the band’s song “Rope,” which netted him one of his Grammy nominations, and as Brown and Lil Wayne perform with Guetta.

Ehrlich said the performance reflects the popularity of dance music over the past few years.

“As much as a recorded medium that it is, and the fact that it’s selling a lot of CDs and downloads, it’s really a live experience,” he said. “It is more than just sitting there and watching it.”

Other performers on the show include Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Brown, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift for what Ehrlich boasted would be a “pretty amazing show.”

“What I try and do when we’re building this show is to think about the audience first. … What can I do that’s going to keep an audience for 3 1/2 hours watching the Grammy Awards?” he said. “I do try and look for how broad I can make it and still assume that people are going to tune in and stay with it.”

Johnny Cash is still cool.

Like Elvis or Hank Williams, Cash retains a certain cachet in current popular culture even in death. More proof of his enduring legend is on the way as plans to celebrate what would have been the American icon’s 80th birthday unfold later this month and year.

There will be a groundbreaking on the project to preserve Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, Ark., on Feb. 26, his birthday. A new Cash museum will open in Nashville later this year and several music releases are expected to commemorate the anniversary of his birth. There are three documentaries in the works as well.

Interest remains as high as ever more than eight years after his death in 2003 at 71 of complications from diabetes.

“He appealed to people and still appeals to people who have a small CD collection and live in middle America just as much as the punk on the streets of Germany,” Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, said. “And that’s sort of magical the way he’s been able to do that still, that his image still draws people from all walks of life.”

The Cash family is most excited about the project in Dyess. Many of Cash’s children and grandchildren will attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Project, an undertaking led by Arkansas State University.

Fundraising for the project began last summer and the family and university hope to restore the house Cash grew up in and its outbuildings. ASU also has taken over other buildings of historic importance that remain from the New Deal era Dyess Colony and want to reflect not only Cash’s life, but the reality of The Great Depression.

The government put 500 families in homes with small agricultural land grants at a time of great hardship, and Rosanne Cash says without exaggeration that it saved her family. Her father would later become a citizen of the world, but his time in Dyess was instrumental in shaping his sound and his world view.

Rosanne Cash says of all the thousands of tributes and moments of recognition her father has received over the years, the restoration “has really captured my heart.”

The house is being restored based on photos and the memories of relatives. It will be furnished and decorated as it was when the family lived there in the 1930s and ’40s. ASU plans to establish a museum and a space for workshops, demonstrations and classes.

“It’s so amazing how you don’t realize how important these touchstones in your ancestry are until your parents are gone,” Rosanne Cash said. “There’s this paradox that you can’t really feel it or realize it while they’re here, so there’s a tremendous amount of poignancy and embracing it and protecting it and preserving it for future generations, and drawing my own children into it. It’s a big deal to me.”

Bill Miller, a Cash memorabilia collector and the operator of the Johnny Cash website is behind the Nashville museum, which will be located on Music City’s busy Lower Broadway tourist strip, “right in the middle of the hubbub,” John Carter Cash said. The museum will be filled with pieces from The House of Cash, which closed in 1999, and other items endowed by the family.

“He’s been an incredible supporter of my dad and one of the largest collectors of memorabilia,” Rosanne Cash said. “If anybody has the whole structure to put up a museum, he does. So I have a lot of trust in him and I think it’s great at this point. I think he’ll do something with dignity and class that’s historically important, not some kitschy thing. I’m very interested in seeing what he does.”

No celebration of Cash would be complete without music. There’s been plenty since his death, including the completion of his American Recordings work with producer Rick Rubin and the start of a bootleg series. The two-CD “Bootleg IV: The Soul of Truth,” focusing on gospel and spiritual songs recorded in the 1970s and ’80s, will be out April 3 and will include some unreleased material. And Columbia/Legacy plans other releases later this year, including a large box set, but details on those projects are not yet available.

Whatever is released will find a willing audience, eager to hear new material or learn something new about The Man in Black.

“Dad was, I don’t know how else to put it but to say, he was the real deal,” John Carter Cash said. “He had a humility and a charm and a style and a charisma that just still attracts people to him. Through his music, his writings and the other people who study his life, it’s inspiring. And I think that’s a great thing that people are inspired by my father still.”

Chris Brown will perform at this year’s Grammy Awards, the event where his career almost ended three years ago.

Brown assaulted then-girlfriend Rihanna at a pre-Grammy party in 2009 and is serving five years of probation for the felony attack. A source told The Associated Press on Monday that Brown will hit the stage at Sunday’s show. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because Brown’s performance has not been officially announced.

After his attack on Rihanna, Brown’s reputation plummeted. But he has since bounced back, releasing multiple mixtapes and the multi-hit album, “F.A.M.E. (Forgiving All My Enemies).” It’s nominated for three Grammys.

Rihanna will also perform at the show. She’s up for four awards.

Brown and Rihanna were supposed to perform at the 2009 Grammys.

Jay-Z has entered a new level of music superstardom, performing at Carnegie Hall.

The veteran rapper performed more than two dozen hits at the famed venue Monday night, one of two shows for charity planned this week.

He was backed by an orchestra of 30-plus and a band that included Questlove of The Roots.

Jay-Z got a little emotional during the song “Glory,” about his 1-month-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter. After the song, he said: “That was tough.”

Fellow New Yorkers Alicia Keys and Nas joined Jay-Z onstage.

Ticket sales from the Carnegie Hall shows will benefit the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation and the United Way of New York City.

Jay-Z is the second hip-hop act to perform at the venue. Wyclef Jean did so in 2001.

Related articles

• Video: Jay-Z Performs “Glory” at Carnegie Hall (worldaccordingtomonte.com)

Madonna’s not finished with stadiums.

Live Nation Entertainment announced Tuesday that the Material Girl’s first tour since 2009 will include a Sept. 6 show at Yankee Stadium.

A tour itinerary also listed Miami as a tour stop, but didn’t list a date as yet.

On Sunday, she was the Super Bowl halftime performer at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Her world tour will start May 29 in Tel Aviv, Israel. It will include performances in Istanbul, Brussels, Helsinki and Zurich.

The North American portion of the tour will include Montreal, San Jose and Cleveland.

The tour will also visit South America and Australia.

Tickets for most of the U.S. shows go on sale Feb. 13.

Madonna’s last tour, 2008-2009′s “Sticky & Sweet,” grossed more than $400 million.

Her new album, “MDNA,” is scheduled for release March 26.