Soul music legend Solomon Burke (above), who died in October 2010, had not performed in Roanoke in recent memory.

Among the ways that students can get involved with the Music Lab at Jefferson Center are scholarships in the name of soul music legend Solomon Burke.

Burke, who died in October 2010, had not performed in Roanoke in recent memory. But his name is enshrined at Jefferson Center thanks to his booking agent, Bruce Houghton, who with his wife, Katy Cates, has been in Roanoke for two years.

The three small scholarships are a way to "honor that relationship" with Burke, whom many critics and listeners agreed was a towering force of soul singing, Houghton said.

"And I love Roanoke," he said. "We've only been here for two years, but my wife and I just love it here and love the Jefferson Center."

Houghton, who founded and runs the Skyline Music booking agency and the music/technology blog hypebot.com, is on the Jeff's board of directors.

"The stuff they're doing at the Music Lab has such huge implications for those kids and such potential, I think, for the community," Houghton said in an interview late last year. "It's just a tiny little thing, that we pay for three kids to go."

In addition, Houghton's also open to mentoring students.

'Not an L.A. person'

Houghton and Cates didn't know anything about Roanoke when they were looking for a new place to live. Houghton had run Skyline from his home near the "middle of nowhere" in Mount Washington, N.H. He also had an apartment in Los Angeles, because his business kept him there so often. He met Cates there, and she wound up moving to New Hampshire with him.

"Let's just say I'm not an L.A. person, and by that time, neither was she," he said. "She had grown up there and grown sick of it."

They also agreed that they were over the Mount Washington area, so they made a list of small, inland cities in the south. North Carolina towns Asheville and Charlotte were on the list. Eventually, they had to mark off Roanoke.

They came to town to see a real estate agent and look at some houses on the market. As they rode to the last house on their list, the agent passed through Grandin Village.

"We went: 'Would you just turn around?'" Houghton remembered. "Because there's the food co-op, there's the theater, there's half a dozen good restaurants. It just felt right. So we looked within four blocks of Grandin Village."

After six trips, they found the house they wanted,

"And we just loved it," he said. "I like to say Roanoke has just enough of everything and not too much of anything."

'Meet my new agent'

Houghton's firm represents a variety of interesting and diverse acts, including bluegrass favorites Del McCoury Band and The Travelin' McCourys, bassists Victor Wooten (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) and Oteil Burbridge (Allman Brothers Band, Tedeschi Trucks Band), alt-rockers Kristen Hersh, Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, the Byrds' Roger McGuinn and soul/blues artists Bobby Blue Band and Irma Thomas.

To sign Burke, he rolled out some big ambition and thick charm.

Burke, whose classic soul sides include "Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)" "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" and "Cry To Me," was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

The next year, he released the CD "Don't Give Up On Me" (Fat Possum), which turned out to be a comeback record of sorts and received the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album.

Before its release, Houghton sought out a preview copy.

"It's not something I normally do, but it just touched me, what I'd heard," he said.

So he made another move to which he was not accustomed. He tracked down Burke and got him a message.

"You need an agent, and it's me," he told Burke.

Burke had recently signed with an agent — a good one, Houghton said, but not the right fit for Burke. A couple of months later, Houghton saw Burke again, singing the new album's title track on a late night talk show. Burke, by then so heavy that he had to sit on a custom-built throne, delivered the song beautifully.

"And again, for whatever reason, it touched me," Houghton said. "I sent roses to his hotel room, sincerely saying that you emote more with your hands and your face than most men do with their whole body.

"I got a phone call the next morning saying, 'Can you be in New York this afternoon?'"

Houghton made the trip to Joe's Pub, where Burke and his band were playing to a crowd of mostly press and promoters.

"It was just fabulous," Houghton said.

After the set, the agent went to Burke's small dressing room, where he waited among a crowd to meet Burke. As he made his way forward, he noticed that Burke was talking to a fawning Robert Plant. Houghton, his "heart palpitating," finally got next to the soul titan.

"Solomon, who had never met me before, turns to me and says, 'Bruce?' I said 'Yes sir.' And he said, 'Robert, I'd like you to meet my new agent, Bruce,' and introduced us. And I'm like, ooh, I guess I'm your new agent [laughs].

"But that was what he did. He was a very magnanimous person. When he decided something, he decided. So there we were."

Go to blogs.roanoke.com/cutnscratch to hear audio of some of Houghton's stories about Burke.

Podcasts: Leijiah Cooper; Michael Abraham

>> Roanoke-based soul/R&B singer Leijiah Cooper has had an on-again/off-again career in the region. She's recovered from surgery in April from a subdural hematoma. She is ready to get going again with a new song, the Don Muse/James Parsons-penned "I Don't Need This Hurt Anymore," and an already taped performance for the Feb. 4 debut of Joy Sutton's new talk show, "The Hour of Joy," which will air at 10 a.m. on MyNetwork TV.

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We discuss the book and The Crooked Road: Virginia's Heritage Music Trail on a podcast.