Season previews: Classical music/dance | Theater | Fine arts | Bargains

CLASSIC ALBUMS LIVE: ‘THRILLER’
Duncan Theatre, Oct. 30

The Canada-based company of musicians and singers has tackled everything from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to the Beatles’ “White Album” on the stage of the Duncan Theatre on the Lake Worth-area campus of Palm Beach Community College. But now they re-create, from start to the finish, the masterwork of the King of Pop. If you can’t get tickets to any of the showings of This Is It, the documentary about the late Michael Jackson’s would-be concert series — or even if you can — check out why Thriller is, note by note, one of the greatest albums ever.

Local bluesman Ben Prestage. (Courtesy myspace.com/benprestage)

BEN PRESTAGE
Propaganda, Nov. 28

Close your eyes, take a breath and listen to Ben Prestage. Take in the hearty blues twang of the strings of his guitar, the smoky-scratchy tone of his voice, the backwoods, juke joint, live and unfettered soulful joy of it all. Be thrilled that there’s a young guy from the Treasure Coast (who’s descended from vaudeville singers, boogie-woogie musicians and a Delta sharecropper) with his own spin on the blues and a very nifty one-man band setup (including a cigar box guitar). Go see him at Lake Worth’s Propaganda. Be amazed.

FRANK SINATRA JR.
Palm Beach Pops: Kravis Center, Florida Atlantic University, Palm Beach Community College, Jan. 2-9

Last season, I wrote about how everybody and their great-uncle seemed to be doing a Frank Sinatra tribute. Did we really need another one? Apparently we do, if the person doing the tribute is the heir to Ol’ Blue Eyes’ legacy. Frank Sinatra Jr. brings his personal take on his father’s songs with “Sinatra Sings Sinatra” at the Palm Beach Pops’ three usual venues. And it’s sure to be the swingingest thing you’ve heard.

Event listing: Click here for further information

Richie Havens, unchanged since Woodstock. (Jim Dyson / Getty Images)

RICHIE HAVENS
Lyric Theatre, Jan. 14

On the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, it’s good to know that one of the festival’s most incredible voices is still unchanged, and the man who wields it, Richie Havens, is still in fine and fluid form. There is an intense warmth to Havens’ voice, on “Freedom”, “Follow”, “Here Comes the Sun” and other songs, that’s riveting. And judging from some recent YouTube video, he’s still got it.

Gladys Knight, one of the most soulful singers you'll ever see. (AP)

GLADYS KNIGHT
Kravis Center, Feb. 16

For the younger set who might know her only from her recent work in Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself, let me explain who Gladys Knight is. She’s the one who originally “Heard It Through the Grapevine”, even before Marvin Gaye did. She’s the one whose lover is leaving on that “Midnight Train to Georgia” and she’s got to go. She’s interpreted classics such as “The Way We Were” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” through her own aching, soulful tone like she wrote them with her own heartbreak. She’s hands down one of the best American singers ever. So now you know.