News

Musicians, like plumbers and electricians, often need an organization to stand up for them.

Labor Day is a result of political efforts undertaken by organized labor unions 130 years ago.  The American Federation of Labor pushed hard for Congress to declare a national holiday in honor of the working classes of the country. It finally did so in 1894.  Just two years later, the American Federation of Musicians was created to represent the interests of all those who made their living playing instruments.  Even before the age of recordings, there were live musicians who played everywhere, and thought of themselves as workers.  

I can imagine someone saying “Well, musicians are artists, not exactly workers—not like a teacher or an electrician or a teamster.”  But like all of us, musicians live in a world dominated by the attitudes and 

Danniebelle Hall's first solo LP while a member of Andrae Crouch and the Disciples is bright, effervescent gospel-pop. 

Hear the full track below!

Trump Campaign Launches Texas Bus Tour; Greg Abbott Considers State Takeover Of Police Departments With Budget Cuts

In Episode 89 of Downtown Depot, show host Austin Meek interviews Dr. Tyrha Lindsey-Warren, a Professor of Marketing at Baylor University. Dr. Tyrha discusses the hollowness of “virtue signaling” by corporate brands, her work with the Waco Family & Faith International Film Festival, and how the city can be more racially inclusive. Before that interview, Austin learns about the pop-up vendor fair East Side Market from one of its founders, Andreas Zaloumis.

Terms like face-to-face, virtual learning and hybrid classes have rapidly become commonplace throughout higher education. Baylor has invested time and resources to equip professors to engage students at the highest levels in both traditional and non-traditional classrooms. In this Baylor Connections, Dr. Gary Carini, vice provost for institutional research and professional education and professor of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, analyzes how COVID-19 accelerates shifts throughout higher education, shares how Baylor is proactively helping professors thrive in this environment and casts a vision that Baylor is pursuing as a recognized leader in teaching, engaged and research amidst these new models.

The hearing is over whether to hold Texas in contempt of court and is part of a multi-year lawsuit over the operations Texas Child Protective Services.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

In my distant past, I had an affair with archaeology.  I read of all the tombs and digs.  Recently, I came across The Golden Child by Penelope Fitzgerald.  According to the paperback cover, she is one of England’s most celebrated contemporary writers with scads of short novels.  She died in 2000.

The story begins when an ancient, gold-covered corpse of the African ruler of the Garamantia arrives at a London Museum. It “instantly becomes the sinister focus of a web of intrigue spun by all manner of museum personal” (Jacket).  Three characters are prominent: the archaeologist, a scruffy guard, and a junior office in the museum.  This is satire of the first order.

Greg Leman discusses a program that helps businesses fine tune their product ideas.

(New installments of the Business Review are on hold due to Covid-19.  This is a repeat of a previously aired segment.)

Product research and development can take years - but what if the timeline could be accelerated?  According to Dr. Greg Leman, accelerated commercialization can save small businesses a lot of time and money.

“It’s very predictable what kinds of things could derail you. There’s technology risk, you know, your contraption might not work. You have market risk. You could misgauge the size or the urgency or the   

José Menéndez and others in the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus are asking Congress to investigate recent deaths, possible homicides and other crimes at Fort Hood.

While the proposed cuts aren’t set in stone, the “working” document obtained by the Austin American-Statesman shows how hard the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic could hit several state agencies.

Fredericksburg’s Museum of the Pacific War came to be because of native son Chester Nimitz, who commanded the Pacific Fleet during World War II.

One Central Texas superintendent estimated that up to 7,000 students in his district struggled to access virtual learning, and new iPads are not likely to arrive before October. In South Texas, students share computers, phones and spotty internet with siblings.

With party conventions wrapped and presidential nominations officially confirmed, local party officials are setting their sights on November 3rd. However, in an election year marred by a global pandemic, socio-political unrest, and widespread accusations of both voter fraud and voter suppression, election preparation this year is anything but normal.

Historic Jazz Spots in New York City are scrambling to stay afloat as the effects of the pandemic keeps their doors shut.

Last week I mentioned the rush I got from going to a famous jazz club in New York just before the pandemic shut everything down in March, and all the consequent troubles music venues are having since they’re now unable, for the most part, to host performances.

I’ve written before about the energy that some particular places have in terms of art:  the room where Jackson Pollack painted Lavender Mist, for instance, with the swirls of paint still on the floor; the bar at which Roger Miller was sitting when he wrote the classic “Dang Me.”  Birdland is one of those places, and even though it isn’t in the same spot as it was in its heyday, when you’re there you still get the feeling that you’re someplace culturally important.

The original Birdland opened on Broadway in December 1949, as was known as the “Jazz Corner of the World.”  Almost any jazz player you could name from the 20th century played there repeatedly.  Many of them recorded live albums from its stage.  Over the course of the 1950s it developed a cultural cache all its