Tag Archives: John Prine

Huascar Medina Nominated for Membership on National Council on the Arts

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Huascar Medina may soon be joining the National Council on the Arts.

The Latino poet, writer, and performer, Kansas’ first Latino Poet Laureate, is among President Joe Biden’s intended nominees for the council.

Huascar Medina

The eight-person list, posted on the White House website, also includes choreographer and educator Christopher Morgan, executive producer of Harlem’s Apollo Theater Kamilah Forbes, the president of John Prine’s Oh Boy Records (and widow of the late folk music icon) Fiona Whelan Prine, and ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro.

Medina has worked as a freelance copywriter and as the Literary Editor for seveneightfive magazine publishing stories that spotlight literary and artistic events in northeast Kansas. His poems can be found in his collection How to Hang the Moon published by Spartan Press. He’s the winner of ARTSConnect’s 2018 Arty Award for Literary Art. His new collection of poems Un Mango Grows in Kansas is available at huascarmedina.com.

The National Council on the Arts was established in 1965, with members appointed by the president and approved by the U.S. Senate for staggered six-year terms, advises the National Endowment for the Arts on agency policies and programs, and reviews and makes recommendations on applications for grants, funding guidelines, and leadership initiatives. If approved, Biden’s nominees will join other members serving now.

Biden’s roster of nominees is:

  • Kamilah Forbes, executive producer at the Apollo Theater. A veteran stage director and producer, Forbes’ Broadway credits include The Mountaintop and Stick Fly, as well as Off Broadway’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, written by two-time Pulitzer prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage, among others. She served as  associate director on the Tony Award-winning A Raisin in the Sun, and Emmy Award-winning The Wiz Live for NBC. Most recently, she directed Between the World and Me on HBO and HBO Max in November 2020. Forbes is set to direct a Broadway musical adaptation of Soul Train alongside producer Questlove, playwright Dominique Morisseau, and choreographer Camille A. Brown;
  • Christopher Morgan, choreographer, educator, facilitator, curator, and arts administrator. Morgan is Executive Artistic Director of Dance Place in Washington, D.C., and has directed Art Omi: Dance, an annual collaborative residency for international choreographers in New York;
  • Ismael Ahmed, co-founder of The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and co-founder of Detroit’s world music festival Concert of Colors;
  • Kinan Azmeh, artistic director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Players, a pan-Arab ensemble dedicated to contemporary music form the Arab world;
  • Huascar Medina, the 7th Poet Laureate of Kansas. He currently works with the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission reimagining and developing innovative programming for the poet laureateship;
  • Jake Shimabukuro, the world-famous ukulele player who, in 2001, signed a historic deal with Epic Records/Sony Music that formed the basis of a string of hit albums and standing room audiences. He has played with world-renowned orchestras and at prestigious venues and events such as the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, and Sydney Opera House, Bonnaroo, SXSW and Fuji Rock Festival;
  • Constance Williams, who, with a background in publishing, marketing, and small business and financial consulting, was the economic development and small business coordinator for Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District. She has served as the Chair of the Board of The Philadelphia Museum of Art and is now Chair Emerita, and was also a trustee of the National Museum of American Jewish History;
  • Fiona Whelan Prine, President of Oh Boy Records, the country’s second-oldest independent record label still in operation. Prine oversees the multiple Grammy Award-winning recordings and publishing copyrights of her late husband, American songwriter John Prine, and serves as Founder and President of the newly established Hello in There Foundation, named after a classic song written by her late husband. In the last year alone, her community involvement has raised more than $1 million for important social causes, including those related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mariah Carey Nominated for the Songwriters Hall of Fame

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Mariah Carey has the write stuff, and could soon have the prize to prove it…

The 48-year-old half-Venezuelan American songstress is one of the 2019 Songwriters Hall of Fame nominees.

Mariah Carey

Carey, a five-time Grammy winner, has penned or co-written some of her biggest hits, including her insta-classic holiday song “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Fantasy,” “We Belong Together,” “Emotions,” and “Make It Happen.”

In all, Carey wrote or co-penned 17 of her 18 Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers:

Songs, Weeks at No. 1
“Vision of Love,” Four Weeks
“Love Takes Time,” Three Weeks
“Someday,” Two Weeks
“I Don’t Wanna Cry,” Two Weeks
“Emotions,” Three Weeks
“Dreamlover,” Eight Weeks
“Hero,” Four Weeks
“Fantasy,” Eight Weeks
“One Sweet Day,” Sixteen Weeks
“Always Be My Baby,” Two Weeks
“Honey,” Three Weeks
“My All,” One Week
“Heartbreaker,” Two Weeks
“Thank God I Found You,” One Week
“We Belong Together,” Fourteen Weeks
“Don’t Forget About Us,” Two Weeks
“Touch My Body,” Two Weeks

Joining Mariah Carey as performing nominees are Missy Elliott, Chrissie Hynde, Vince Gill, Mike Love, Jimmy Cliff, Jeff Lynne, Cat Stevens, John Prine, Lloyd Price, Tommy James and The Eurythmics (Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart).

Non-performing nominees are Jack Tempchin, Dean Dillon, Jerry Fuller, Tom T. Hall, Roger Nichols and Dallas Austin, who wrote hits for TLC, Madonna, Monica, Pink and Boyz II Men.

Nominated non-performing songwriting duos include P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, Russell Brown and the late Irwin Levine, musical theater writers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, Bobby Hart and the late Tommy Boyce.

Songwriters are eligible for induction after writing hit songs for at least 20 years.

Six songwriters, or songwriting groups, will be officially inducted at the Hall’s 50th annual Induction & Awards Gala in New York on June 13, 2019. Eligible members can vote for three non-performing songwriters and three performing songwriters until December 17.

Max Gomez Releases Music Video for His Latest Single “Joe”

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Max Gomez is more than your average Joe…

The Latino singer-songwriter has released the official music video for his new single “Joe,” which encompasses everything about the young artist that his fans have come to love: his distinctive “old soul” voice, his love of his city of Nashville and his lyrics that call to mind the likes of Jackson Browne and John Prine.

Max Gomez

“Joe,” a track from his recently-released EP Me & Joe, tells the story of someone who struggles with things like “running from the past” and being able to hold his head high.

Throughout the EP, the mysterious character is mentioned as Gomez’s counterpart. The song titled after him is an exercise, then, in learning from the lives of people around you — real or imagined.

When it comes to who “Joe” is, Gomez in his classic style reveals that Joe is an allegory: “To me, Joe is someone who wants to do good but can’t. I think a lot of people go through his same struggle in different ways. Joe tells you who he is throughout the song, and he isn’t shy.”

The video was created with “Gems on VHS” and matches the mood of the song: Gomez pensively sings (live, it’s worth noting) in an abandoned industrial building in Nashville at sunset. As to the video’s conception and Gomez’s satisfaction with how it all came together and turned out: “I sing ‘Joe’ for Jed Zimmerman; he’s the author of the song and one of my dearest friends… This performance was recorded live in Nashville with Anthony Simpkins. I knew Anthony was great at what he did just from meeting him. As we filmed, we caught the tail end of daylight as the sun set over Nashville.”