Big time bumper music: My young friends in the bluegrass group, King Wilkie, are having a big time these days: Next Saturday they’re nominated for IBMA “Emerging Artists of the Year” (trust me, a big deal in bluegrass music) and their website reports they’re on the cover of Japan’s only bluegrass magazine, Moon Shine. But, I’m sorry, those two things didn’t impress me nearly as much as I was today when I heard their song “Brokedown & Lonesome Again” used as bumper music on Car Talk.

While the bad news is that “Brokedown & Lonesome Again” is not available on iTunes, the good news is that King Wilkie has a free download (MP3) of the song (and two other cuts from their current CD) available on their website.

Enjoy.

Magazine history — Alfred Stieglitz: While the launch yesterday of the new iteration of LIFE magazine has been in the news this week, here’s an article by Richard Nilsen of The Arizona Republic about “the most beautiful photography magazine ever published,” Camera Work, which was produced from 1903 to 1917. “It was also the most influential,” writes Nilsen.

Quote:

A single man was responsible for making sure the magazine was beautiful, and he was perhaps the most influential person in the history of photography as an art. Alfred Stieglitz was a cantankerous, difficult man, who spoke a great deal, condescended a great deal, bullied, persuaded and pronounced. He was a salesman par excellence. If he had been promoting Florida land development, today Miami would be the nation’s capital.

On a side note, Nashvillians have a special connection with Stieglitz as the he left a portion of his renowned art collection to Fisk University in Nashville. Stieglitz’s wife, Georgia O’Keefe, oversaw the apportioning of his estate in 1949. Today, the university’s Alfred Stieglitz Collection is comprised of 101 paintings, sculpture, prints and photographs by 29 American and European artists, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Diego Rivera, Arthur Dove, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Gino Severini, Abraham Walkowitz and Alfred Stieglitz, himself. African sculpture from Stieglitz’s collection also was included in the gift.

If you are ever in Nashville (or live here and have not done so), you should visit a true hidden treasure of the city, The Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University. (While you’re there, also visit Jubilee Hall, another treasure.) The gallery is on Jackson Street and 18th Avenue North. Hours: Tues-Fri 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Sat & Sun 1 – 5 p.m. Closed Mondays.

(Currently, a selection of 66 images from Camera Work magazine organized by the James A. Michener Art Museum is on view at the art gallery at Yavapai College in Prescott, Ariz.)

rexblog bumper music: Your Picture (Camera Obscura)

Rexblog Playlist 004: It’s Saturday and that means I’m a day late in posting this week’s playlist of the past seven-days of rexblog bumper music. By the way, I forgive all of you who are forgetting to click on my affiliate store link (it’s there on the top left of every page) before you download an iTunes song. Last night after seeing the movie Garden State, I purchased the soundtrack from iTunes, but forgot to do so thru my affiliate link. (Okay, the secret’s out: I’m a fan of depressing contemporary rock — blame rexblog reader, Lewis.).

Rexblog Playlist 004: Weekly Bumps #3

Mountain Dew (Willie Nelson)

Two Different Worlds (Ricky Skaggs)

Radio Fodder (Cloud Cult)

Send in the Clowns (Judy Collins)

I’m Gonna Miss You (Dolly Parton)

You Can’t Do That (K.T. Oslin)

Too Young (Royal Crown Revue)

Story of My Life (Social Distortion)

The Agony and the Ecstasy (Smokey Robinson)

Embrace the Sun God (Kevin Kendle)

Dueling Banjos (Smokey River Boys)

Hot Links (Star Pimp)

It Takes Two (Marvin Gaye)

Outbound Plane (Nanci Griffith)

Peek-a-Boo (Devo)

Don’t Give Up (Peter Gabriel)

Cover of the Rolling Stone (Dr. Hook)

I’ve Been Everywhere (Johnny Cash)

How magazines get started (continued), Part 2: (Despite the temptation I will not mention a fellow blogger — whose initials are Jeff Jarvis — in this post.) The Central New York Business Journal is reporting the launch of a new Syracuse–based magazine called Making Music, aimed at amateur musicians between 50 and 70 years old. (rexblog note: why stop at 70?) With a tagline, “better living through recreational music making,” Making Music magazine is targeting hobbyists and active music makers, editor Antoinette Follett, president of Bentley-Hall, Inc., the Syracuse company publishing the magazine. told the newspaper.

Quote:

We’re focused on building a community for amateur musicians,” says Follett….The magazine’s target audience, the “senior market,” is defined as those between 50 and 70 years old. “The senior market is an emerging market,” Follett says. “Fifty- to 70-year-olds are empty nesters who have more time and income.On Oct. 14, Making Music will officially launch at the “Life @ 50+ AARP convention expo in Las Vegas.

(Explanation: How magazines get started.)

rexblog bumper music: Geezer Rap (Dixon DeVore II) [if you have iTunes, be sure to listen to the :30 sec. sample of this]

How magazines get started (continued) Part 1: The Austin Statesman (requires registration) and the Austin Business Joural (no registration required) are reporting that Texas Cheerleader Magazine has been launched by Denise Martin, a former San Antonio Spurs cheerlleader who nows owns a cheerleading studio in Cedar Park.

Quote:

<blocqkuote>Texas Cheerleader is targeted to school-age cheerleaders and dance troupes. It will feature articles on injury prevention and cheer fashion, profiles of professional cheerleaders and dates of area competitions….”People don’t take it seriously, but it’s a major force, a shaper in society,” said Pam Bettis, co-author of the book “Cheerleader! An American Icon.” “Most people think it’s a real frivolous activity and a frivolous topic to even talk about, but it’s a major economic endeavor.”…The Lone Star State has the largest cheerleading market, industry officials said, for several reasons, including the popularity of high school football. The entire industry has grown tremendously, in part because of the increasing numbers of cheerleading studios, and in part because the activity has become more rigorous, Halterman and Bettis said. In addition, all types of girls are attracted to it because cheerleading needs different-size girls to perform their stunts, said Brian Page, co-founder of Cheer Station, an Austin cheerleading studio that serves 400 clients each week.

(Explanation: How magazines get started.)

rexblog bumper music: Mickey (B*witched) [Oddly, the one-hit wonder Toni Basil version isn't available via iTunes.]

How to teach a magazine columnist not to go over the line: In the past, Sports Illustrated columnist (and nine-time winner of a national sportswriter award) Rick Reilly was featured in the University of Colorado football media guide as one of the school’s “famous alumni.”

Then, according to today’s Kansas City Star (registration required), the famous graduate wrote a column about former Colorado kicker Katie Hnida, who accused a teammate of raping her and said other players harassed her. Reilly also had the audacity to appear on national TV and say that the scandal involving Hnida and three other women who have step forward to say members of the team raped them made him embarrassed to wear his University of Colorado class ring. After that, “I couldn’t consciously keep him in (the media guide). He went over the line,” Colorado sports information Director Dave Plati told the Star. So he purged Reilly from the football media guide’s “famous alumni” list.

If I used this weblog to make personal attacks and sear people, I would now be saying something about how Dave Plati appears unconscious and would make me want not only to remove, but to melt-down my class ring had I attended his school. But in this weblog, I don’t call people idiots for inviting sports columnists nationwide to pen columns in defense of their fellow columnist and about the sports information director’s idiocy. So I won’t.