Known as \u201cthe King of Ragtime Guitar,\u201d Arthur \u201cBlind\u201d Blake claimed Jacksonville as home, but his blues songs traced a path across the country, from West Coast Blues to Georgia Bound. By the time of his death at age 38, he\u2019d recorded an estimated 80 tracks for Paramount Records, starting in 1926. On the 100th anniversary of that musical milestone, his legacy continues as one of the most revered and distinctive guitarists of the era. Blake was known for a rhythmic guitar style defined by a \u201cthumb roll\u201d striking out bass notes while he picked alternate, complicated melodies with his index and middle fingers. His first solo record, Early Morning Blues, planted the flag for what would become known as Piedmont blues, with an uptempo guitar sound that mimicked a piano. We discuss how his local influence is remembered and listen to some of the songs Blake wrote about Jacksonville with two local historians.<\/p>\n
Guests:<\/p>\n
Adonnica Toler, museum director, Eartha M. M. White Historical Museum and GardensTim Gilmore, author, educator and historian at JaxPsychoGeo<\/a>Truth vs. trolls<\/p>\n Fighting misinformation online takes if not a village, then at least a small digital army. That\u2019s the idea behind Climate Truth Tellers<\/a>, an initiative of the Sierra Club that works to combat deceptive, alarmist or simply mistaken claims about climate change on social media. The strategy aims to both flood the zone with helpful, fact-based posts and to offer counter programming to the often dystopian drumbeat of online exchanges. We talk to the program\u2019s regional manager about tactics to take on the trolls, and her recent appearance on the Climate Connections<\/a> shortcast.<\/p>\n Guest: Jennifer McCharen, regional digital manager, Sierra Club<\/p>\n Encores and Evolution<\/p>\n An upcoming production by Bold City Opera offers a chance to both reminisce about past performances and fund future ones. The nonprofit resident chamber opera company holds its inaugural fundraiser cabaret, showcasing signature performances from its first three years of immersive opera experiences. Founded in late 2022 by locally based soprano Christine Alfano and conductor Brandon Smith, BCO has hosted free outreach performances and is known for pushing traditional operatic boundaries. Encores and Evolution<\/a> includes a two-act concert, as well as popular arias, duets and ensemble pieces featuring a mix of regional and local performers. The cabaret show begins at 7 p.m. May 16 in Taliaferro Hall at St. John\u2019s Cathedral in Downtown Jacksonville.<\/p>\n Guests:<\/p>\n Brandon Smith, Bold City Opera executive artistic director, co-founder and pianistChristine Alfano, co-founder of Bold City Opera and featured cabaret vocalist<\/p>\n Topics and guests subject to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Known as \u201cthe King of Ragtime Guitar,\u201d Arthur \u201cBlind\u201d Blake claimed Jacksonville as home, but his blues songs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-263771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}