What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1500133
Madagascar The Musical Based on the Dreamworks Animation Motion Picture Performed by arrangement with Music Theatre International (Europe) Limited Book By Kevin Del Aguila Music & Lyrics by George Noriega & Joel Someillan JUNE 2-3 • 4 SHOWS! Media Support: Show Underwriter: Todd & Melissa Simmons Show Sponsor: 6 WHAT'S UP! MAY 28-JUNE 3, 2023 Ball Continued From Page 5 Orleans influence," she says. By 1974, Ball had dropped out of college and had a successful run with a country band during the early part of the progressive country heyday that was happening in her new home of Austin, Texas. "The hippies were playing country music, and it was called 'Progressive Country' with a capital P and a capital C," she says. "That was the scene here for a while, and it really put Austin on the map." While the early education and access to the scene were great, she says that the blues was her calling. "I used to say I know this country thing is real popular, and it's really happening, but the blues thing is coming along." Since she started her solo career in the blues, Ball has garnered five Grammy nominations and 21 music awards including Best Blues Album of the Year, Best Blues Instrumentalist/ Keyboards and the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Award. She's released more than a dozen albums over the past 49 years and has played with everyone who's anyone. These days she plays festivals and live shows with a band that includes Johnny Moller on guitar, Michael Archer on bass, Eric Bernhardt on saxophone and Mo Roberts on drums. She adds that she hopes to get come back to Arkansas with them soon. She still enjoys the music scene in Austin that she's seen grow and change over the last half-century, but she wishes it was more accessible. "There was … a really wonderful creative world in Austin. And unlike what's going on now, it was affordable. Even in the context of being 30 years ago — a musician could live in Austin," she says. "Of course, that's a lot more difficult now. But it's also still very creative in Austin. There are still wonderful musicians playing here." She's also working on a musical theater project about Texas politics with author and journalist Lawrence Wright, who wrote "The Plague Year," "God Save Texas," and "The Looming Tower," which won a Pulitzer Prize. Again, Ball is humble and doesn't want to brag about the project that they are still "figuring out." It's the first time that she's made music for a play. For her Eureka Springs show next weekend, she'll be solo when opening for fellow Texan, Ray Wylie Hubbard, at 7:30 p.m. June 2 at The Auditorium. Even though she's solo, she plans to tear it up. "I still play the same music! I just play it all by myself."