
What are your favorite local places for shopping, pampering or entertaining? Vote now in this year's Best Of Holiday Shopping readers' choice poll.
Having some clutter around the house is unavoidable. Lives are busy, so we often throw items in a junk drawer instead of putting them away, or we move boxes of old toys and clothes to the basement instead of finding them a new home. However, taking some time to de clutter and get organized not only improves the space where you live but could also put some money in your pocket or help the community. Molly Hunter , a professional organizer with My Clutter Solutions in Roanoke, recommends that people go through their piles of stuff every four to six months. "Just touch it again," she said.
Willie Nelson wrote “Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away,” among the greatest country songs of all time. Nelson played that song early in a 90-minute set Friday night at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre, and it served as an apparent platform for everything he stands for musically. His melodies are timeless, but when he sang, he avoided them almost entirely, instead improvising vocal lines that landed far ahead of
For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another and another might be lost, till this whole system of things should vanish by piece-meal. - Thomas Jefferson Wisdom is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you. - Proverbs 24:14 It's been a year of lessons from the bees, and it stings a bit. Of course, nature does teach with
I've always loved music, but never attended a big festival until last weekend when I joined 20,000 or so other s in the beautiful Nelson County countryside for Lockn' - four days that renewed my faith in the spirit of rock 'n' roll, which I had all but given up for dead. Lengthy waits to get into the festival on the first day were just first-year blues as the organizers
If you missed the premiere of “Plan 9” at The Grandin Theatre in Roanoke last month, then it may still be a while before you’ll get to see this homegrown remake of the worst film ever made. Charlottesville filmmaker John Johnson filmed portions of his reimagining of Ed Wood’s classic of terrible cinema, “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” in Roanoke back in spring 2011. On Aug. 24 a packed house
It was final examination week at Roanoke College, and the custom of the wives of the faculty (collectively known as the Fortnightly Club) during this period was to host a break of light refreshments of coffee, tea, and pastries for the students. I thought this was a gracious, thoughtful and generous act. With these thoughts in mind, I made it a point to say thank you to those who hosted
TODAY Party in the Park Proceeds will benefit local charities, with live music by the The Embers. Next week’s season finale will feature Domino. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. No coolers or pets allowed. 6 p.m. $6; children under 12, free. Daleville Town Center, 90 Town Center St., Daleville. www.pitp.org. Party in Elmwood A portion of every Thursday’s revenue is donated to local charities. This is the
It’s a well-known fact of the blues world: A blues man has got to ramble. That urge took Kevin Selfe from his hometown of Roanoke to Portland, Ore. And Selfe has navigated that city’s strong blues scene very well. Some six years after heading west, he and his band, the Tornadoes, are perennial winners at the Cascade Blues Association Awards. And that’s no joke — other winners have included Curtis
Verona Gourmet Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria in Dublin occupies the building that for decades was known as the Ranch House. The Ranch House closed and for awhile it became a Mexican restaurant, but now the aroma of garlic and oregano greets you when you enter. Even though vestiges of it s Mexican past are visible, the spacious interior of booths and tables has the feel of a casual Italian pizzeria.
FRIDAY Bukuru Celestin CD Release Bukuru Celestin and his family arrived in America as refugees from Burundi almost six years ago. Since then, he has attended Music Lab at Jefferson Center where, by the time he graduated, his African gospel/folk music had caught the ear of international jazz-funk bassist and producer Michael League, of Snarky Puppy. Celestin and League collaborated on an album, “Amkeni,” released on the groundUp/Ropeadope label. The disc came
In the early 1970s, bass singer Richard Sterban was living the good life in music. Legendary bass singer J.D. Sumner had hired him to take his place in the Stamps Quartet, and six months after he got that gig, Elvis Presley brought on the Stamps as his male backing vocalists. “To actually sing with the ‘King of rock ’n’ roll,’ that was almost mind-boggling,” Sterban recalled. “You can’t beat that.
For decades, Italian restaurant Villa Sorrento on Patterson Avenue was a Roanoke landmark. Anyone who dined there in the 1980s and ’90s remembers the murals evoking fanciful Mediterranean scenes — a young couple on a rocky cliff looking out on the ocean, a Venetian panorama with boats carrying passengers through canals dividing old world buildings. Villa Sorrento may be long gone — the restaurant left the murals behind in 2000
They’re headed down south to the land of the pines. Emily Gordon and Jill Haydet, a couple from Philadelphia, are on a nearly one-month-long road trip across the Southeast inspired by the lyrics to Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel.” This past Sunday they arrived in Roanoke (“Walkin’ to the south out of Roanoke”), where they sampled the fare at Fork in the City and sipped bourbon at Blues Barbecue
It should shock no one that a son of American music icon Willie Nelson likes being on the road. Lukas Nelson even travels in his dad's old tour bus. These days, the road is also where the pair typically get to hang out, said the younger Nelson, who opens for his father on Friday at Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre. After a set with his own band, Promise of the Real,
Fans of country music's Dwight Yoakam are familiar with the red-hot guitar lines that elevated such numbers as "Little Sister" and "Long White Cadillac." Those flashes of six-string insanity came courtesy of Yoakam's producer, Pete Anderson. In the decade since Anderson and Yoakam parted ways, Anderson has focused most of his time on his own music. But don't expect to hear the alt-country grooves that made their music famous. Anderson
Several years ago, I took my daughter to a kids’ birthday party where it looked like a youth version of “The Price is Right” showcases had exploded in the front yard. Barbies, playhouses and other swag were strewn across the grass. The impressive mountain of birthday presents prompted the child’s grandfather to note how things had changed since he was a kid. The only present he got on his sixth
I’ve long been a fan of Stephanie Klein-Davis’ photography. I’m sure there are times when papers such as The Roanoke Times go through soul-searching to evaluate the value of staff photographers. Is it worth the time and travel expense to send someone all the way to Pulaski County to take a picture of a bridge? But great photos contribute so much to a story. Stephanie’s front page photo on Aug.
“Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.” That’s how the late John Lennon described his wife, Yoko Ono, to Rolling Stone magazine in 1971. He called her “the most famous unknown artist,” a quote that has defined her career in the years since. When “Imagine Peace” opens Saturday at the Taubman Museum of Art, the Roanoke Valley will have a chance to see what Ono does. The
The Athenian Society for the Arts and Sciences has been helping Center in the Square with its day-to-day operations since the downtown Roanoke institution opened in 1983. But the Athenians, as they call themselves, were pitching in even before Center opened. The group formed in 1980. “We were a group of lonely ladies,” joked charter member Margaret Ann Hoag. “We were all interested in arts and sciences.” Now that Center
The University. The University of Virginia may be the only educational institution in the country that is so widely known as “The University” — a sobriquet that has existed since the late 19th century. It is hard to imagine that a university with a $5 billion endowment that has produced so many successful graduates almost didn’t survive its first 20 years. In “Rot, Riot and Rebellion,” Rex Bowman, a former
“When They Were Boys” promises in subtitle to be “the true story of the Beatles’ rise to the top.” After all, author Larry Kane traveled with the boys in the American tours of 1964 and 1965. As the only American journalist to make every stop with the group during those years, Kane has a unique voice. The book offers plenty of interesting anecdotes and eyewitness accounts to make it a
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