The godfather of soulful Motown music headlines at a festival named for a beloved California folksinger, when Smokey Robinson stars in June at the Kate Wolf Music Festival in Laytonville. The 20th annual festival held in honor of Wolf, who died in 1986 at age 44 of leukemia, will run [...]
British rock legends The Moody Blues will bring their “Timeless Flight -- The Polydor Years” spring tour April 29 to the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. The center also announced that the Texas rock blues band ZZ Top (pictured above) will play there April 22. Both [...]
Jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall's previously announced Nov. 13 concert at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts has been canceled, along with the rest of her fall U.S. tour. Suffering from ongoing complications caused by a severe case of pneumonia, the five-time Grammy Award-winner has postponed release of her [...]
Charlie Haden Healdsburg Jazz, sponsor of the town’s annual jazz festival, will present a special tribute Oct. 12 in memory of famed bassist Charlie Haden at the SHED Cafe in Healdsburg. Haden, who was honored with a two-day celebration at the 2013 Healdsburg Jazz Festival, died July 11 [...]
Pride & Joy (Press Democrat photo by Crista Jeremiason.) The Montgomery Village shopping center in Santa Rosa will open two free, live outdoor concert series this month, both running until early October in the center’s Village Court area. And before the two series start, the center opens the [...]
Dan Earl (Press Democrat photo by Kent Porter) Popular local choral director Dan Earl might not be considered shy, but he certainly is retiring. Earl, now 71, retired in 2005 after 39 years of full-time teaching, 28 of them spent as a music teacher at Santa Rosa High [...]
Billy Currington Grammy-nominated country music star Billy Currington, the American rock band Lifehouse, young Australian pop star Cody Simpson and Radio Disney's Coco Jones will be the headliners at this summer’s Sonoma County Fair. The fair, themed “Peace, Love and Fair” this year, opens July 24 and runs [...]
Mickey Hart Grammy Award-winning drummer Mickey Hart has never stopped experimenting, from his earlier days with The Grateful Dead to the present. Hart has collaborated with San Francisco choreographer Alonzo King, and with scientists across the country, who helped him translate brain waves, and light waves from space, [...]
Actor, comedian and singer Mario Cantone, best-known as flamboyant wedding planner Anthony Marantino on the HBO series "Sex in the City," will perform May 9 at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. Cantone will be backed by musical quartet for the cabaret-style style show, to be presented in the center’s [...]
What is art? Whether it’s oil on canvas or actors on stage, dancers on their toes or comedians doing stand-up, Press Democrat staff writer Dan Taylor covers the fine and lively arts in Northern California. Meet the people, go behind the scenes and get ahead on what’s coming up.