Lynch at Large

My friend, Allison Johnson, sent me this, and I know many of you will be interested. Allison is the Development Director for Oxford American and she was on my program with the editor, Mark Smirnoff. It's a great hour and is posted on my home page, lyncho.com. Yeah, we threw in a bit of Bob too.

The Oxford American and the Old State House Museum
proudly present Bob Dorough in concert

Conway, Arkansas - The Oxford American magazine is once again teaming up with the Old State House Museum in Little Rock on October 19th for a concert featuring jazz superstar and Arkansas native Bob Dorough.

Bob is one of the many featured artists in the 2006 Oxford American Southern Music Issue, but is the first artist to be featured with TWO tracks on the accompanying CD.
Opening for Bob will be Rock Creek, a bluegrass band from Conway, Arkansas. Other special guest musicians will also perform.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Advance tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at www.oxfordamericanmag.com or by calling (501) 450-5376. Tickets will also be available at the door the day of the show for $25.

Born in Cherry Hill, Arkansas, and raised in Texas, Bob Dorough played clarinet in his high school band and earned a BA in Music from what is now North Texas University. Before that, three years with a Special Services Army Band had given him loads of valuable experience in both playing and arranging.

In 1949, Dorough made a bee-line for New York, where he took classes at Columbia University, immersed himself in the city's rapidly evolving jazz scene and took whatever musical jobs he could land. For two years he toured with Sugar Ray Robinson as the ex-boxer's musical director, and often shared stages with notables like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Count Basie. Later, in Paris, Dorough spent five months as a singing pianist at the Mars Club, where he began his long musical friendship with Blossom Dearie.

His first record (Devil May Care, released on Bethlehem in 1956) caused quite a stir. The buzz has continued for nearly five decades, his recordings having been issued on a variety of labels, both large and small. Along the way, Dorough became the only singer to appear on a Miles Davis record. Among his more illustrious songwriting collaborators over the years have been Fran Landesman and Dave Frishberg. His tunes now appear on albums recorded by dozens of other vocalists, and many have found special favor as instrumentals, too.

Gen-Xers know his voice, if not his name, because they love the Schoolhouse Rock! episodes that entertained them on ABC during the 70s, 80s and 90s. Dorough handled the music for nearly every one of these little classics.
Dorough, a proud inductee into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame, is still writing timeless songs and performing them in clubs
and concert halls on several continents. As throngs of admirers worldwide can testify, he is only now reaching his prime.