Kopecky Family Band plays Teatro Scarpino

Indiana and the Byrds

Leon Russell, Kopecky Family Band, Fred Eaglesmith
It’s another one of those weeks that confirms that the Northwest Arkansas music is alive and well. Highlights for the week are the Kopecky Family Band tonight at the beautiful Teatro Scarpino on West Street, just north of Dickson Street. The neoclassical folk rock group from Nashville will be making their first visit to Northwest Arkansas. Friday night, the legendary Leon Russell will be at George’s. Saturday night will be rocking at George’s, too, with A Good Fight, My Solstice and a CD release party with Indiana and The Byrds. The band will be giving away copies of their new “Evader” CD to the first folks in the door. Things aren’t slowing down at George’s on Sunday night, when Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon) brings his Great American Taxi to town. Wednesday the man who pops the nails out of the walls at GoodFolk everytime he plays there, Fred Eaglesmith, will rock the house. Eaglesmith is up for his second Juno (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy).

Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins At The WAC
Jazz legend and tenor sax player Sonny Rollins will play the Walton Arts Center at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Rollins has a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential jazz musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries. He grew up in Harlem and first recorded in 1949 with Babs Gonzalez. In 1951 he made a name for himself when he recorded with Miles Davis. In 1953, he recorded with Thelonious Monk. At 78, Rollins is still at the top of his game and presents one of the greatest road shows in jazz. Robert Ginsburg, host of KUAF’s Shades of Jazz, says that Rollins holds a “unique place in the temple of jazz deities.” Tickets are $35-$70.

Katy and Matt Henriksen

The Burning Chair Readings and Roy Blount Jr.
April is poetry month and things literary are popping this week in Fayetteville. Author Roy Blount Jr. will speak at 7 p.m. today in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus. Blount is the author of 21 books that range from the first woman president of the United States to what barnyard animals are thinking. His one-man show was described by The New Yorker as the most humorous and engaging 50 minutes in town. This is a free event.
A number of visiting writers will be in Fayetteville for Cannibal Books’ Burning Chair readings. In addition to Fayetteville’s Carolyn Guinzio, Kevin Holden, M.C. Hyland, Keith Newton, kathryn l. pringle, Amish Trivedi and Joseph P. Wood will read from their work at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Fayetteville Underground, 1 E. Center St. in Fayetteville.
Cannibal Books, the duo of Matt and Katy Henriksen, publishes hand-sewn literary journals and chapbooks by emerging poets and focuses on presenting “daring work from a broad range of styles.” Founded in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2005, Cannibal Books currently nests at The Fayetteville Underground.
The Burning Chair Readings series was founded by the Henriksens at the Cloister Cafe in New York’s East Village in 2005. The series hosted hundreds of poets in numerous venues across Manhattan and Brooklyn. This is the first Burning Chair event at The Fayetteville Underground.
Guinzio is the author of “Untitled Wave” from Cannibal Books. Holden is the author of “Identity” from Cannibal Books. Holden lives and teaches in Iowa. Hyland, the author of four chapbooks, lives in Minneapolis, where she teaches creative writing and letterpress and runs DoubleCross Press. Newton’s chapbook “Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City” was published by Cannibal Books. He lives in Brooklyn, where he edits the online magazine Harp & Altar. Pringle, of Durham, N.C., is an editor at minor/american, and co-founder of the minor american reading series. Trivedi, of Iowa City, has published several electronic chapbooks. Wood’s first full book of poems, “I & We,” will be published in 2010. He lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
There is a suggested donation of $5. Katy’s baking pies, so come for a slice and bring a little extra dough for some of the handmade books that will be available. The Fayetteville Underground art galleries will be open after the readings.