The State of Independent Bookstores

With fundraising gambits, home delivery options, curbside pickup, virtual book club events and new online ordering systems,  independent bookstores across the nation are doing their best to adapt to an uncertain retail landscape in the wake of the pandemic.

It's no different for the Richmond region's indie bookstores, once healthy and thriving.

My Richmond Magazine feature article on the state of the bookstore is now available on the mag's web site. I talked with the owners of Chop Suey Books, Fountain Books, Book People, Velocity Comics, the Little Bookshop, and BBGB Books, and found out not only how the stores are surviving, but what  customers have been reading during the COVID-19 crisis.

To see "Turning the Page," put your reading glasses on and go here.

Exploring the subject further: To hear my Open Source RVA with Kelly Justice, the owner of Fountain Books and president of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance,, go to the Source podcast page.

(Photo of the Little Bookshop by the mighty Jay Paul!) 

Remembering Days of a Quiet Sun

"Days of a Quiet Sun,” a compilation on Feel It Records, gives pioneering Richmond music producer Martin Gary his proper due. 

For years,  his family owned the Richmond-area record store chain Gary’s, and young Marty became involved in music early, managing a local folk singer while he was still in junior high school in the early '60's.  

In 1966, when local recording studios were scarce, he started taking bands into Washington, D.C., and Baltimore studios, recording and releasing independent records that were distributed through his father’s store.  "Days of a Quiet Sun" brings together this often-startling work by rock and soul bands such as the Barracudas, King Edward and His B.D.'s, the Hazards, and Group Nine.

“Marty operated in two worlds, business and bohemia,” archivist Brent Hosier says, “He had his ear on the frat house as well as the coffeehouse, and those worlds usually didn’t meet.”  

For my Richmond Magazine article on the new compilation,  and the work of Martin Gary,  go right here.

You can listen to my Open Source RVA interview with Gary by going to the Source podcast page.

To hear/order "Days of a Quiet Sun,"  go here.

(Photo of original 45s courtesy Feel It Records)

Rebranding the Redskins

The Washington Redskins management announced in July that the NFL team will retire its name and mascot and rebrand itself away from divisive Native American imagery. The $3.4 billion organization, he seventh-most valuable franchise in the league, is now known as the “Washington Football Team,” with a fresh name and look tentatively to be unveiled in 2021.

But what will it take to completely rebrand such a long-established sports franchise? And is a year enough time? What kind of new name should they adopt? Will the team colors be retained?

For a recent piece in Virginia Business, I asked local branding experts what they thought the team should do.  Read the piece. right here.

To hear my Open Source RVA interview with branding guru Kelly O'Keefe, which explores this same subject, go to the Source podcast page.

Discomfort Food: Dr. Kelley Deetz

Food archaeologist and author Dr. Kelley Deetz documents American history, specifically African American history, through its vittles. 

In her book, "Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine,” she traces the preparation of everyday dishes back to enslaved people in 18th- and 19th-century plantation home kitchens, highlighting how they introduced ingredients from their African homelands and employed cooking methods that have stuck to the nation's ribs.

To read my Richmond Magazine Q&A with Kelley Deetz, go here.

For my previous Savor Virginia Magazine coverage of the book, go here.

(Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelley Deetz) 

Legal Mainstays: Sands Anderson

 

Cited as the oldest continuously operating business in Virginia, the law firm Sands Anderson has been a downtown Richmond fixture since before the Civil War. 

Formerly known as Sands and Sands; Sands, Marks and Miller; Sands, Williams and Lightfoot; and a few other names along the way, it can trace its roots back to an office in the Goddin Building, which was the first structure to be incinerated when the city burned in the last days of the Civil War in 1865.

Hanging outside of today's Richmond board room of Sands Anderson are portraits of those who have made significant contributions to the firm, the most prominent being founder Alexander Hamilton Sands, who packed a lot of lives into his 59 years: lawyer, author, Baptist minister and moonlighting literary editor, among others.

My Richmond Magazine feature article on the history of this illustrious firm charts the practice's zig-zag history, its influence on the region, and its growth. Read "Legal Mainstays" right here.

And for more on Sands Anderson, go here. 

(Portrait photo of firm founder Alexander Hamilton Sands courtesy Sands Anderson)

Face For Radio: Open Source RVA and Radio Wowsville

My two radio shows are still going strong. Thanks for asking.

Open Source RVA, the weekly news-talk program that I co-host on WRIR 97.3 FM in Richmond airs Fridays at noon. 

WRIR is available online by clicking this spot, and you can hear previously-aired Open Source RVA podcasts by going to the program's nifty Soundcloud page here. 

The Source is WRIR's omnibus news hour, where we talk to area newsmakers, politicians, community activists, artists, nonprofit leaders, musicians and, yes, pro wrestlers. Thanks to producer Krysti Albus for keeping it sounding cohesive. 

Radio Wowsville, the music show that I co-host (on alternate weeks) with Rick Clark, can be heard Sunday nights at 11PM on the mighty WTJU 91.1 FM in Charlottesville. 

The freeform, "anything goes" Wowsville has been haunting the air since 1995 (or 1996) and is, as the promo claims, broadcast live from a cave/sound lab in Grottoes, Virginia. 

Listeners can tune in to the Wow by following this link, and can listen to past broadcasts of the show -- and all of the other great WTJU music programs -- by going right here. 

It's a fascinating listen, I think. But I'm a little biased. 

 

Jazz Odyssey: Richmond Jazz Society

 

The early days of the Richmond Jazz Society were filled with Saturday-afternoon jam sessions and the aroma of fresh seafood. “We started our first programs in a fish market,” says B.J. Brown, executive director of the society, a nonprofit that promotes and nurtures jazz music in the region.  

Over the years, the scrappy organization has grown from concert promotion and music advocacy to becoming an educational resource for area youth. Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter René Marie credits the society for launching her career more than 20 years ago.  “It's hard to put into words how important an organization like this is,” she says. “You might think they're only servicing this small group of jazz musicians, but it touches so many people.” 

My Richmond Magazine piece on the 40th anniversary of the RJS is online, and can be found right here.

For more on the Richmond Jazz Society, go here.

To hook up with my previous coverage of Jazz in Virginia, click this. 

(Photo of  Rene Marie at an RJS Guest Educator concert last year, with saxophonist James "Saxsmo" Gates, by Jerrold Price)

COVID-19 and Sports Tourism

The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed one of Virginia’s growing economic drivers: sports tourism. But even amid mass cancellations and lost revenue, tourism officials hold out hope that, for the sports sector at least, there can be recovery.

“Do you remember when the Titanic was sinking, and the band kept playing?” Caroline Logan of Virginia Tourism Corps. asks. “Well, we’re the band.”

My feature on the state of Virginia's sports tourism can be found at the Virginia Business magazine website. Read "Delay of Game" by going here. 

(Photo of James I. Moyer Sports Complex in Salem courtesy Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge.)

Who's Afraid of the ICA?

In mid-March, like other area cultural institutions, the 2-year-old Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University shut its doors and canceled all remaining programs and exhibitions for the spring semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It should've been a time of celebration for the Richmond-based ICA, which was named as one of America’s “Ten Best New Museums” by USA Today earlier this year, the only contemporary art museum on the list. It also earned a rave from The New York Times, calling last year’s group exhibit “Great Force,” which examined white privilege and African American resistance, one of the art world’s unmissable events.

My in-depth Richmond Magazine feature on the ambitious Institute details its long-festering genesis, unusual design, long-term sustainability, and the reactions of the local arts community to the challenging, politically-charged exhibitions in its first two years. I talked to more than two dozen people for this article, and I hope it shows. 

Read Abstract Mission" by clicking this spot.

And for more on the Institute for Contemporary Art, take yourself here. 

(Photo of “Provocations: Guadalupe Maravilla, ‘Disease Thrower’ ” in the ICA’s True Farr Luck Gallery by David Hunter Hale courtesy ICA at VCU)

Liberated Brother: Weldon Irvine

“I wanted to give you more than you can get from reading liner notes,” says the Brooklyn-based filmmaker, Victorious DeCosta, who devoted four years to making a documentary on the enigmatic jazz-funk legend Weldon Irvine. 

“I wanted it to probe the emotions of Weldon and the emotions of artists who are forgotten," DeCosta says. "I think it’s a story that plays well because you don’t need to be an artist, or a jazz head, to dig and relate to [it].”

Digging for Weldon Irvine is a powerful and affecting look at a chameleonic talent who co-wrote "To Be Young,Gifted and Black," and whose 40-year music journey found him exploring the spectrum of African American music. The late jazz improviser was a searching soul— at age 50, he reinvented himself as a rapper, “Master Well,” and collaborated with Mos Def and Talib Kweli.

For Richmond Magazine, I recently had the chance to interview DeCosta, and talk about his excellent film. You can read the piece right here. 

And you can find out more about Digging for Weldon Irvine by clicking this spot. 

(Photo courtesy Victorious DeCosta) 

Chesterfield and the Lure of Millennials

With its shopping sprawl, vast rural stretches and sleepy suburbs with no sidewalks, Chesterfield County will never be mistaken for a dense, urban area. But county leaders are hoping that their recent proposed changes to zoning and planning will produce a close enough approximation to lure millennials. 

My Richmond Magazine feature on the changing face of Chesterfield -- and how the sleepy, conservative county is trying to attract more millennial-aged residents -- is now online. The in-depth feature shows a region in flux, as  it moves away from 70s and ’80s style of planning and development where the automobile was the de facto mode for transportation. Today's millennials want to settle down in walkable, linkable communities that have special mixed-use areas where one can run or bike -- and they crave amenities like breweries, coffee shops and live entertainment. 

It all starts with new sidewalks. Read "Because They're Young" by going right here. 

(Photo from Midlothian Mines Park: Richmond Magazine)

The Eyes Have It

Don't wait for symptoms, the experts say: When you reach the age of 40, get a comprehensive eye exam.  

When I was approached about writing a piece on getting your eyes examined, I thought my Richmond Magazine editor needed his head examined. But then I realized that my own eyes were getting a bit, uh, squinty, and that this was information that I needed to know. And if I needed to know it, so did others.

It turns out that the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends an exam by an ophthalmologist every two to four years for people age 40 to 54 with no risk factors, and every one to three years for those aged 55-64 who have no risk factors. And there are many reasons why. 

Hopefully, you can read the article just find. See "The Eyes Have It" right here.

(Illustration: Invincible_bulldog via GettyImages)

The Future of Carytown

Carytown is where you’ll find some of Richmond’s longest-running, and iconic, local businesses, starting with the historic Byrd Theatre, a restored grand movie palace built in 1928. The centerpiece of the district is Cary Court Shopping Center, the first strip mall in Richmond, which officially opened in 1938 as Cary Street Park and Shop Center. 

Bordered by Thompson Street to the west and Arthur Ashe Boulevard to the east, Carytown is traditionally known for its bustling activity and its cascade of shoppers, diners, buskers and people watchers.

My Richmond Magazine overview of this celebrated "Mile of Style" has been rendered somewhat moot by the COVID-19 crisis. But I think that this expanded feature article still offers up a vivid snapshot of a place that was already undergoing changes and experiencing growing pains before the coronavirus struck. Richmond Magazine has provided a link in the piece to an updated piece on the area. 

Click here to read "Onward Along the Mile of Style." 

(Photo of Tom Roukous, owner of Coppola’s Deli by the mighty Jay Paul)

Virginia Golf: A Good Walk Improved

Virginia has many of the country’s best, most beautiful, most demanding golf courses and, even with challenges relating to changing demographics, high maintenance costs and marketing, they are ready for their closeup. 

From the rustic charm of The Olde Farm in Bristol to the novelty tees at Meadows Farms in Orange County, where one hole is designed like a baseball diamond and another is Guinness World Records-certified as the world’s longest, the strength of Virginia golf is its diversity.

My Virginia Business feature on the state of Virginia golf is now online and ready for tee time.  This sampling of prestigious fairways includes the Golden Horseshoe at Colonial Williamsburg, Kinloch Golf Club in Goochland County, the Omni Homestead's Cascades in Hot Springs, The Highlands course at Primlands in Patrick County, and Roanoke's Ballyhack Golf Club. 

Read "A Good Walk Improved" by clicking right here.

(Photo of Ian Sikes of Ballyhack by Don Petersen.)

A Talk with J.D. Souther

One of the architects of the famed California country-rock sound, J.D. Souther is at his home outside of Nashville, where he's lived for more than a decade, offering to send me his most recent CD of jazz tunes, "Tenderness," so I'm all caught up.

"People don't know it, but Nashville has some incredibly strong jazz musicians," he says. "We went in and played it old-style, live, and I was in the same room as the band with the vocals. So everyone is really listening to each other, which is totally different from what I'm used to."

The 74-year-old Souther, a Songwriters Hall of Fame member and occasional TV actor ("Thirtysomething," "Nashville"), talked with me about his days of flying with the Eagles, how he keeps it fresh onstage, his return to jazz, and why it took four people to compose "Heartache Tonight."

The interview is at the Richmond Magazine website. Read it right here.

And for more on the music of J.D. Souther, go here.

(Photo by the mighty Jeremy Cowart!)

Metal Health: Into the Void

The new documentary, Metal Health: Out of the Pit, details the struggles that contemporary heavy metal musicians have in dealing with depression and other mental health issues.

Director Bruce Moore, a former music engineer who has become something of a heavy metal lifestyle chronicler, produced “Metal Health: Out of the Pit” at his home studio. He says that he first started thinking about depression and its effects on musicians after the 2017 suicide deaths of Linkin Park's Chester Bennington and Soundgarden's Chris Cornell. A year later, a friend of Moore's, Jill Janus, singer for the band Huntress, took her life. “I realized that metal artists are suffering, too.”

The film features 17 singers, musicians, journalists and fans talking about their battles with depression and how they've learned to cope with tragedy. Adorned in piercings and leather, affiliated with outfits that have names like While Heaven Wept, Fall and Resist, Exmortus, and Exhumed, they confess their personal — as opposed to theatrical — dark thoughts.

Moore also produces a regular podcast and YouTube show, "Brutally Delicious," which showcases hard rockers in the kitchen, cooking their favorite meals. He's also directed several documentaries on heavy metal, including "Metal Missionaries" -- about the polar opposite worlds of Christian metal and Satanic rock -- and "Women of Metal."

My feature article about Moore and his new documentary can be found at the Richmond Magazine website. Read "Into the Void" by going here.

For more on Metal Health: Out of the Box, and to watch episodes of "Brutally Delicious," take yourself here.

(Photo of Patrick Donovan of Toy Called God courtesy Bruce Moore)

Bourbon and Beef: Ragged Branch Craft Distillery

It was the best hamburger I ever ate... and the bourbon wasn't bad either.

For Savor Virginia Magazine, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at the Ragged Branch Craft Distillery in scenic south Ivy, near Charlottesville. I came for the bourbon and stayed for the burgers and hospitality.

Here, on the 92-acre Ragged Mountain Farm, Alex Toomy and his team grow and grind their own grain; malt, mash and distill it; and finally age and bottle Ragged Branch label bourbon. They also feed the bourbon mash to their cattle, and damned if it doesn't produce the tenderest beef you've ever encountered.

Go to the Savor Virginia website and read my feature article on Ragged Branch, and learn how the late bourbon master David Pickerell helped Toomy launch the brand.  The link is here. 

And for more on Ragged Branch Craft Distillery, go right here.

(Photo of Bootlegger courtesy of Ragged Branch Craft Distillery)

Talking to the Trees: The Chesterfield Arboretum

In all of Virginia, there are nine accredited arboretums — botanical gardens of trees — listed in the official Morton Registry. Some of them you might figure, like Colonial Williamsburg and Richmond's Hollywood cemetery, but the newest one is in a strange place indeed. It's at the Chesterfield County government complex.

For the groundskeepers at this massive, multi-huilding campus, obtaining this official designation isn't  just about showing off all of the trees they've planted around the complex in recent years. "It was also to have some protection of the trees here from future construction,” says horticulturalist Lisa Ferrel, who led the initiative to turn the park into a tree sanctuary.

Read my feature article on this new venture -- which involves something called "Tree Diapers" -- by going to the Richmond Magazine website and clicking this spot. 

For more on the Chesterfield Arboretum, you can go here.

(Photo of Horticulture Shop Supervisor Tom Tuttle with horticulturalists Lisa Ferrel and Doug White by the mighty Jay Paul)

One School, One Book: Everybody Reads

The nonprofit family literacy organization Read to Them, with its “One School, One Book” program, enables entire schools — or districts or cities — of elementary school students and parents to read and explore the same book. The idea has grown in 20 years from a modest, one-parent initiative at Richmond’s Fox Elementary to a network of more than 3,000 schools nationwide.

Finding the right book for readers of multiple grades can be a challenge, founder and executive director Bruce Coffey admits. “Can you read it aloud to a first-grader, who may not be able to read it themselves, but [is it] still stimulating enough for a fourth or fifth grader who can read it themselves at home? Can you explore it at school?”

My feature article on Read to Them, and their incredible success in getting kids (and parents) to read together,  is now online at the Richmond Magazine website. You can read it right here.

And for more on Read to Them, go here.

(Photo by the mighty Garnette Ransone!)

Covering the Business

You've find my byline in Virginia Business Magazine these days. Look for it.

The monthly Virginia Business bills itself as "the only publication dedicated to covering economic activity in every sector and every region of the state," and is an independently-owned venture. So far, VB's editors have kept me busy with all kinds of interesting features and shorts -- like my recent interview with Julie Timm (pictured), the CEO of the Greater Richmond Transit Company [GRTC]

I've also covered The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, the different ways Virginia companies team-build, Virginia Tech's expansion to its new Innovation Center, Shenandoah University's investment in Esports, and the Richmond golf-gaming showdown pitting TopGolf against Drive Shack.

Read 'em all at the Virginia Business website by going right here.

(Photo: GRTC)