THREE OAKS – Canadian musician Rita Chiarelli was planning a blues pilgrimage down U.S. Route 61, which runs from Wyoming, Minn., to New Orleans, La., when she stumbled upon a reference to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. “It came up because it has this incredible musical history,” Chiarelli says by […]

Spending time in the big house

                Blues singer Rita Chiarelli considered putting on a concert in 2010 for the inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Then she decided instead to collaborate with musicians among the prison’s population. The results of this idea form the basis of […]

‘Big House’ shows redemption through music

AT THE DANCING CLASSROOMS LA GRAND FINALS, LAUSD STUDENTS MERENGUE, RUMBA, FOXTROT, WALTZ, TANGO AND SWING THEIR WAY TO WIN AT THE COCOANUT GROVE Mandy Moore, two-time Emmy nominee, choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance, Phillip Rhee, martial artist, actor, director, producer, and creator of Best of the […]

Dancing Classrooms LA 2012 Grand Finals

On Tues. June 12, Lucy’s El Adobe, long a watering hole for political and entertainment industry figures,  extended a muy caliente “Bienvenidos” to St. Vincent Meals on Wheels supporters and amigos. Owner Lucy Casado, whose Mexican eatery on Melrose across from Paramount Studios has over the years nurtured many a political […]

Garden Party At Lucy’s

Good Monday All – We had a busy time last week in B.B. King’s Bluesville.  Rita Chiarelli was by to talk about her new documentary on Angola Prison…  

Bill Wax Interviews Rita Chiarelli

I have finally found a great 2012 documentary to champion with Bruce McDonald’s “Music From The Big House.” It follows “the goddess of Canadian blues” Rita Chiarelli as she visits what is considered to be the birthplace of blues music: Louisiana State Maximum Security Prison (a.k.a. Angola Prison). What she finds is […]

‘Music from the Big House’ – an Exhilirating Musical Documentary

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Hundreds of fifth graders put their best foot forward Tuesday night as they danced their way towards the finals in a LAUSD ballroom dance competition. Decked out in colorful costumes nearly 200 students from 19 schools danced foxtrot, merengue, rumba, waltz, tango and swing in hopes of […]

Strictly Ballroom: Hundreds Of 5th Graders Compete In Dance Finals

Wanna know the secret to the tango? Fifth-grader Kai Land will tell you. It’s his specialty. “I have to say the secret of the tango is your serious expression,” he said, hamming it up. The look he gave was a cross between the pang of a brain freeze headache and […]

5th-graders twirl into finals at LAUSD’s first dance competition

Award-winning novelist (Across a Hundred Mountains) Grande captivates and inspires in her memoir. Raised in Mexico in brutal poverty during the 1980s, four-year-old Grande and her two siblings lived with their cruel grandmother after both parents departed for the U.S. in search of work. Grande deftly evokes the searing sense […]

Author Reyna Grande’s Memoir Gets Starred Review in Publishers Weekly