Funmi Ononaiye, the regal, omnipresent music connoisseur, who was an inspiring ray of light in his capacities as A&R director, event producer, artist manager, performing musician, and mentor to many people, died on December 18, 2023, at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City.
I have fond memories of the Castleton Literary and Scientific Society, and I am still amazed at the broad church of their ethos and of their congregation.
I always made sure I was with artists when they were in the studio on the first day of making a record and was always trying to be with them on the first day of a tour, too, to make sure they had all they needed.
It began with Larry telling me he had been watching a music documentary series on Sky Arts about how so many black musicians and writers were paid only a pittance for their catlogues, because of signing contracts that they didn´t realise were offering royalties that were less than one per cent of what recording companies were offering to white musicans.
When Liz and Dee realised that Larry and I would be neither deterred or detoured on our musical pilgrimage of a chat, they decided to hitch their wagons to our star, and made their own contributions. Dee talked Motown, in the shape of Diana Ross & The Supremes, while Liz, to my amazement spoke of Canadian artist Robin Thicke and his huge, but controversial hit with Blurred Lines.
A major career accolade was received in 2013, as JD was inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame
And our taste is almost more than what you like. It’s what you dislike that is really important in a collaborator.
live and recorded music, live jazz and jazz on the rafio, folk music, classical music, prickly pears and lanzartote space training and a weekly art exhibition, music festivals and Peter Pearson´s Americana series,…they are all here
photo book She is just such an artist. I grew up in the same generation as Linda Ronstadt did and I love her rock and roll and country-rock songs and in an early middle age I loved her harmonies with Emmylou and Dolly Parton on the Trio releases. Then there were a couple of soul classic singles with Aaron Neville before she moved into Spanish language recordings, stage musicals and Opera.
have mentioned before on these pages that I find it remarkable that Lanzarote, its people and its government and its churches and its social services try, and succeed in doing so, to create a powerful unity of politics and religion and the arts and the artisans into almost every public event. I am sure that is what puts the smiles on the faces of those partaking and those in the audience.
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS: 7 / 12 / 25 classical, jazz, folk, rock, americana; songwriters & invisible angels7th December 2025 - 7:00 am
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS Pass It On 2/11/2025 Jenny Bray, Nash and Asher, Opus 222nd November 2025 - 7:00 am
A LITTLE BUNDLE OF SUMMER. sidetracks & detours 3rd September 2025 featuring Jazz Artist, Jenny Bray. Broadcaster and writer, Steve Bewick, Expo Folk and Sound Roots3rd September 2025 - 7:00 am