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)