May 25, 2012, 8:57 amDoc Watson in Critical Condition After Fall By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.Doc Watson, the virtuoso folk guitarist, was in critical condition at a North Carolina hospital after falling down at his home in Deep Gap earlier in the week, The Associated Press reported. The 89-year-old blind musician is the winner of seven Grammy Awards and was given the National Medal of the Arts. His daughter told The Associated Press that Mr. Watson, whose given name is Arthel, had not broken any bones but was suffering from an undisclosed illness at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. She said he was “real sick.”Mr. Watson is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists and singers the American folk tradition has ever produced, a master ... Continue reading →

The guests were Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker and Daphne Rubin Vega – cast members from the rebooted production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" that includes minority actors playing roles traditionally played by white actors. "I think it is important for us as African-American people to understand that Broadway doesn’t belong to white folk only," Flake said. Broadway audiences historically have been overwhelmingly white. Last season, 83 percent of Broadway audiences were Caucasians – the highest percentage since the industry began keeping numbers in 1998, according to the Broadway League. The recent outreach effort in Queens was part of a push by "Streetcar" producers to tap into black Broadway audiences. Just 1.5 percent of the overall audience last season was African American – the lowest ... Continue reading →

DOC WATSON IS ONLY A couple of songs into his first set at the Bottom Line, and already the dark, drafty room is starting to shrink, starting to feel like a few friendly chairs pulled up to a potbellied stove in somebody's living room."I'm just as informal as I would be if I was at my house," the blind, flat-pick guitarist tells the sellout crowd. "If I had to be formal, I'd go home."He picks a bit more with his partner, the guitarist Jack Lawrence, then talks about his son, Merle, who died in a tractor accident in 1985 at the age of 36. "This was the first tune Merle learned to finger-pick, in 1964, when he was 15 years old," says Mr. Watson, who ... Continue reading →

I spent most of my journalism career at The Times-Picayune and have many friends there, so the news that its owners are slashing the staff, dismissing top editors, and cutting back publication days is very difficult to process. My heart goes out to my valiant former colleagues, and to the city itself, which will suffer from having reduced news coverage and seeing one of its signature institutions diminished. During my time at the paper I was involved in many of its ambitious and award-winning journalism efforts. Clearly I was lucky to be there during that era, and that era is now definitively over. (Ironically or not, the TP just published a great series on the Louisiana prison system. But where will the next one come ... Continue reading →