The Birchmere
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The Birchmere
The Birchmere is a concert hall in Alexandria, Virginia, that features rock, blues, bluegrass, country, folk, jazz, ethnic, and comedic performers. Its main room seats 500 and provides dinner service, making for an intimate space, with tables only a few feet away from the stage. The location also features a bandstand with a bar and a dance floor. Owner and manager Gary Oelze opened The Birchmere in 1966 as a restaurant. History The Birchmere opened its doors on April 4, 1966, as a restaurant. Music was added in 1975 with a concert space that held up to 200 people. Its original location was 2723 S. Wakefield St. in the Shirlington area of Arlington, Virginia, in a strip mall that was later razed. On May 14, 1981, the Birchmere reopened at its second location at 3901 Mt. Vernon Avenue in Alexandria, Virginia in a space that held at least 300 persons. In 1997, the club moved two blocks away to its current location at 3701 Mt. Vernon Avenue with seating for 500 customers. An estim ...
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Marquee (sign)
A marquee is most commonly a structure placed over the entrance to a hotel, theatre, casino, train station, or similar building. It often has signage stating either the name of the establishment or, in the case of theatres, the play (theatre), play or film, movie and the artist(s) appearing at that venue. The marquee is sometimes identifiable by a surrounding cache of light bulbs, usually yellow or white, that flash intermittently or as Chase (lighting), chasing lights. Etymology The current usage of the modern English word ''marquee,'' that in US English refers specifically to a canopy projecting over the main entrance of a theater, which displays details of the entertainment or performers, was documented in the academic journal ''American Speech'' in 1926: "''Marquee'', the front door or main entrance of the big top." In British English "marquee" refers more generally to a large tent, usually for social uses. The English word ''marquee'' is derived from the Middle French wor ...
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Bryan Bowers
Bryan Bowers (born August 18, 1940 in Yorktown, Virginia) is an American autoharp player who is frequently credited with introducing the instrument to new generations of musicians. Career Bowers became very popular with the audience of the comedy radio program ''The Dr. Demento Show'' with his 1980 recording of Mike Cross' song "The Scotsman". In 1993, Bowers was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame whose membership includes Mother Maybelle Carter, Kilby Snow, and Sara Carter. In two consecutive years, 2006 and 2007, he released new recordings: ''Bristlecone Pine'' and ''September in Alaska''. "Although such guests as Tim O'Brien, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, and Enright and O'Bryant play and sing on a number of cuts, this is a Bryan Bowers disc all the way, with his exquisite autoharp flavoring many of the tunes," wrote a November 2006 ''Bluegrass Unlimited ''Bluegrass Unlimited'' is a monthly music magazine "dedicated to the furtherance of bluegrass and old-time musicians, d ...
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Janis Ian
Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink; April 7, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter who was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Her signature songs are the 1966/67 hit " Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" and the 1975 Top Ten single " At Seventeen", from her LP '' Between the Lines'', which in September 1975 reached no. 1 on the '' Billboard'' album chart. Born in Farmingdale, New Jersey, Ian entered the American folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-1960s. Most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century. She has won two Grammy Awards, the first in 1975 for "At Seventeen" and the second in 2013 for Best Spoken Word Album, for her autobiography, ''Society's Child'', with a total of ten nominations in eight different categories. Ian is also a columnist and science fiction author. Early life Born in Farmingdale, New Jersey, Janis was raised on a farm, and attended East Orange High School in ...
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Herb Alpert
Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, five of which became No. 1 albums; he has had 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums. Alpert is the only musician to hit No. 1 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as both a vocalist ("This Guy's in Love with You", 1968) and an instrumentalist ("Rise", 1979). Alpert has reportedly sold 72 million records worldwide. He has received many accolades, including a Tony Award, and eight Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Alpert was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2013. Early life and career Herb Alpert was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles, California, the younger child ...
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Guy Clark
Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter and luthier. He released more than 20 albums, and his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Kathy Mattea, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Chris Stapleton. He won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album: ''My Favorite Picture of You''. Career Clark was born in Monahans, Texas. His family moved to Rockport, Texas in 1954. After he graduated from high school in 1960, Guy spent almost a decade living in Houston as part of the folk music revival in that city. His wife Susanna Talley Clark and he eventually settled in Nashville, where he helped create the Americana (music) genre. His songs "L.A. Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train" helped launch his career and were covered by numerous performers, including Steve Earle and Brian Joe ...
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Graham Nash
Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, photographer, and activist. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and the supergroups Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of the Hollies in 2010. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to music and to charity. Nash holds four honorary doctorates, including one from New York Institute of Technology, one in Music from the University of Salford in 2011 and his latest Doctorate in Fine Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Early life Graham William Nash was born on 2 February 1942 in Blackpool, to where his mother had been evacuated from her hometown ...
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Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell (April 22, 1936 – August 8, 2017) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor and television host. He was best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting ''The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour'' on CBS television from 1969 until 1972. He released 64 albums in a career that spanned five decades, selling over 45 million records worldwide, including twelve gold albums, four platinum albums, and one double-platinum album. Born in Delight, Arkansas, Campbell began his professional career as a studio musician in Los Angeles, spending several years playing with the group of instrumentalists later known as " The Wrecking Crew". After becoming a solo artist, he placed a total of 80 different songs on either the ''Billboard'' Country Chart, ''Billboard'' Hot 100, or Adult Contemporary Chart, of which 29 made the top 10 and of which nine reached number one on at least one of those charts. Among Campbell's hits are " Universal So ...
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Daryl Davis
Daryl Davis (born March 26, 1958) is an American R&B and blues musician and activist."Class of 88 – Celebrating Chuck Berry: Jon Carroll, Daryl Davis & Josh Christina... April 17, 2017,"
, Institute of Musical Traditions (public-funded), Takoma Park, Maryland, (includes "a picture of Class of 88 Performer Daryl Davis performing with rock icon, Chuck Berry"*). Retrieved March 29, 2017 (NOTE: This photo also appears at th

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His efforts to fight racism, in which, as an

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Dar Williams
Dorothy Snowden "Dar" Williams (born April 19, 1967) is an American pop folk singer-songwriter from Mount Kisco, New York. Hendrik Hertzberg of ''The New Yorker'' has described Williams as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters." She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, the Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis. Early life Williams was born in Mount Kisco, New York, and grew up in Chappaqua with two older sisters, Meredith and Julie. Her nickname "Dar" originated due to a mispronunciation of "Dorothy" by one of Williams's sisters. In a 2008 interview with WUKY radio, Dar said her parents wanted to name her Darcy, after the character in ''Pride and Prejudice'', and that they intentionally called her "Dar-Dar", which she shortened to "Dar" in school. In interviews, she has described her parents as "liberal and loving" people who early on encouraged a caree ...
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Danny Gatton
Daniel Wood Gatton Jr. (September 4, 1945 – October 4, 1994) was an American virtuoso guitarist who combined blues, rockabilly, jazz, and country to create a musical style he called "redneck jazz". Career Daniel Wood Gatton Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., in 1945. The son of a rhythm guitarist, Gatton started playing at the age of nine. From 1960–1964 he played jazz guitar with the Offbeats, then worked as a session musician in Nashville. When he returned to Washington, he drew attention in the 1970s as a member of Liz Meyer & Friends and other local bands. He recorded his debut album, ''American Music'' (1975), followed by ''Redneck Jazz'' (1978) with pedal steel guitarist Buddy Emmons appearing as a guest. He founded the band the Redneck Jazz Explosion. Although Gatton could play most genres of music, including jazz, blues, bluegrass, and rock, he was known as a country and rockabilly guitarist. He toured with singers Roger Miller and Robert Gordon. He was sometimes ca ...
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Cleve Francis
Cleveland Francis (born April 22, 1945) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and cardiologist. Active since the late 1960s, Francis has recorded a total of nine albums, including three for Liberty Records. He has charted four times on ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs, most successfully with "You Do My Heart Good" in 1992. Biography Francis began his music career as a folk and blues singer and songwriter in the late 1960s while still a graduate student at the College of William & Mary, where he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1969. He attended medical school at the Medical College of Virginia (now Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine), eventually becoming a cardiologist. However, in the late 1980s he switched his focus to country music, signing first to Playback Records. His debut country album ''Last Call for Love'' was released that year. The album included a single titled "Love Light", which was also made into a music video. After seeing th ...
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