AuthorThomasCobb,L.SolomonBand,RI,4/9/11

Subject: AuthorThomasCobb,L.SolomonBand,RI,4/9/11
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 03:07 PM

Although recovering, Rosalie Sorrels will be unable to perform on Saturday at Stone Soup. However, Thomas Cobb, author of Crazy Heart, will do readings at 7 PM. Then at 8 PM the Lenny Solomon band will perform. Here's the information from the Stone Soup email.

The Lenny Solomon Band will be performing at Stone Soup Coffeehouse on Saturday, April 9, 2011. Stone Soup is a few blocks off Rt. 95 north of Providence and south of the Massachusetts state line. The concert begins at a special time of 7:00 PM with author Thomas Cobb.

Tickets are $15.00 and available at
http://www.stonesoupcoffeehouse.com/page3/JanMayCalendar2011.html   (paypal link)

This April 9 concert is part of a series in which Stone Soup presents an author as well as a singer-songwriter. Thomas Cobb is the author of the book, Crazy Heart, on which the movie of the same name is based. The main character in that book and movie is a country singer-songwriter, Bad Blake, facing difficulties and a subsequent comeback. The songs of The Lenny Solomon Band evoke much of the same character and feeling as the songs in the movie.

The Lenny Solomon Band is a folk/country band that has released four CD's of original music written by Solomon: Four Shortened, Not Life Threatening, Armando's Pie, and Maybe Today. As a solo performer he has shared bills with such performers as Chris Smither, Carolyn Hester, Bonnie Raitt, and Spider John. The Band members include Don Barry on acoustic and electric bass as well as harmony vocals, Bill Gibbs on acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitars, mandolin, and banjo, and Dennis Gurgul on drums and percussion. Lead singer Lenny Solomon plays rhythm guitar and mouth harp.

Much of the music of the Solomon Band is a product of Lenny's roots as a folk musician. There are melodic ballads ("The Ship," and "Birthday, Blue, and Possum Too"); songs with a blues influence ("Honey Spot Motel" and "Worried About my Time"); songs that tell stories with a message, ("Brother Blue,"); upbeat songs that venture into acoustic rock ("Scattered," and "Other Side of the Street,"); others with a strong country influence.

Thomas Cobb is a Professor of English at Rhode Island College and the author of three books, Crazy Heart, Acts of Contrition, and Shavetail. Having grown up in Arizona, Cobb writes that the desert "had become the landscape of my imagination. I live in New England, but I write in Arizona…. The desert, especially the Sonoran desert, is often called things like "harsh and unforgiving," and I suppose it is. But it's also delicate and exquisitely beautiful."

The New York Times Book Review wrote of Crazy Heart, "A measure of Thomas Cobb's talent is that he can make Bad Blake's story amusing even as we watch him fall. Bad is entirely sympathetic, and his crazy heart is vivid; the milieu is as resonant as a steel guitar, and the plot moves along without skipping a beat."

Cobb's newest novel is Shavetail, set in the Arizona desert. The story is in the literary tradition of Cormac McCarthy's and Larry McMurtry's historical westerns and traces parallel stories rising out of the Arizona Territory—the coming of age of a boy soldier stationed at the Army's most remote outpost, and a young woman's terrible passage across the American frontier.

The Band's website is http://solomonband.com
Thomas Cobb's website is http://www.thomascobb.net/

Stone Soup is located at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 50 Park Place, Pawtucket, RI.
Tickets are $15.00
The concert begins at 7:00 PM with Thomas Cobb
Stone Soup is wheelchair-accessible.