American Music

RYTHM OIL. By Stanley Booth. Vintage. 254 pages. $12.THE hellhounds finally caught up to Robert Johnson when he died of poisoning at age 26.He would be known as the greatest bluesman ever to put shaved glass on the strings. He is, as Stanley Booth puts it in his book "Rythm Oil," "the embodiment of the Faustian legend."Mr. Booth begins his wonderful little book of allegedly true stories with a fictionalized account of Johnson saying to the devil: "Teach me, I been lookin' for you all my life."

Howard Russell Simpson, a longtime Baltimore broker and bond specialist who was an accomplished hiker and canoeist, died Thursday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Roland Park resident was 83. "His physician said the cause of death was a 'failure to thrive,'" said Mr. Simpson's wife of 31 years, the former Katherine Goodman. Mr. Simpson, the son of a homemaker and a Central Railroad of New Jersey executive who joined the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931, was born in Elizabeth, N.J., where he also spent his early years.

The 10th anniversary season of the Concert Artists of Baltimore under artistic director Edward Polochick opened with an evening of American music Saturday at Le Clerc Hall at the College of Notre Dame.The orchestra-only part of the program featured two suites. The first, the Sebastian Ballet Suite of Menotti, dates from the 1940s and was once championed by conductors as important as Stokowski and Bernstein. Polochick imbued the music with fire and conviction. And although the hall's dry acoustics poorly served lyrical violin passages, making them sound sadly wiry, the conductor was also able to deliver enough of the requisite sweetness in the suite's Barcarolle.

As days lengthen and leaves unfurl on the trees, songs of spring are in the air everywhere. Tomorrow, the invigorating music of the new season will be sung in Spanish, as Columbia Pro Cantare presents an unusual and ambitious program Latin American Spring at 8 p.m. in Jim Rouse Theatre. Tomorrow's concert will feature the choral ensemble assisted by soprano April-Joy Gutierrez, mezzo soprano Cyndie Eberhardt, pianist Alison Matuskey, and an ensemble of players of indigenous and classical instruments.

As days lengthen and leaves unfurl on the trees, songs of spring are in the air everywhere. Tomorrow, the invigorating music of the new season will be sung in Spanish, as Columbia Pro Cantare presents an unusual and ambitious program Latin American Spring at 8 p.m. in Jim Rouse Theatre. Tomorrow's concert will feature the choral ensemble assisted by soprano April-Joy Gutierrez, mezzo soprano Cyndie Eberhardt, pianist Alison Matuskey, and an ensemble of players of indigenous and classical instruments.

The music world has always prized its elder statesmen, though seldom when they were alive and functioning and able to appreciate the attention.Our need for such father-figures has perhaps never been greater than at present, when there are so few around. Among the senior American composers, Leonard Bernstein and Virgil Thomson are both gone. Elliott Carter, still active at 81, and William Schuman, 80, are respected figures, although neither precisely qualifies as a household eminence.That leaves Aaron Copland.

FREDERICK -- Once you descend the stairs with Joe Bussard you're trapped.You're a prisoner of the 1920s and 30s, detained not by steel bars but by Mr. Bussard's raging exuberance and his stunning collection of 78-rpm records of traditional American music -- country, Cajun, early swing, gospel, the blues."

Common Ground on the Hill opens for its 10th season today at McDaniel College in Westminster with artists plugging into the roots of American music, potters passing on tribal arts and peace activists preaching nonviolence. The traditional music and arts organization explores diversity and builds on commonality with a cornucopia of daily courses and evenings filled with concerts. The two-week event pulls participants into fiddling, song writing, storytelling, gospel choir, African dance, Native American philosophy, Irish folklore, Icelandic poetry and Civil War history.

Marin Alsop, the New York-born conductor known for dynamic interpretations of American music and for steadily breaking through the glass ceiling in a male-dominated field, is expected to be named music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, according to sources. Though the public relations firm representing Alsop stated that a contract has yet to be signed, "everyone knows that the decision has been made," said one symphony insider familiar with the search process, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In a move that has startled Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians and staff, David Zinman has resigned his title of "music director emeritus" in protest of the BSO's current artistic direction, specifically a decline in programming of works by contemporary American composers. He also has canceled previously scheduled appearances with the orchestra in March. Yuri Temirkanov, who succeeded Zinman as music director in January 2000, has emphasized Russian and European repertoire, including several important works new to the orchestra, such as Dmitri Shostakovich's Babi Yar Symphony and Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible.

If American music had to be defined in only two words, these would do nicely: George Gershwin. As the composer of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and a trove of inimitable popular songs from his scores to musical plays and films -- with lyrics by his brother Ira -- Gershwin defined the Jazz Age. But he also transcended his time. That timelessness will be celebrated in a theatrical program of words, music and visuals that the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra is presenting at its home base and three other venues this weekend as part of its first regional tour.

It's probably easier to define almost any country's music more easily than ours - so many idioms, so many influences, homegrown and imported. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's latest program on its Explorer Series sensibly focuses on just three elements in American music, creating an entertaining mix. Marin Alsop, one of the best musical tour guides in the business, covers our rich folk and hymn tune traditions with the help of Aaron Copland's timeless...

ROGER M. KING, 63 Television executive Roger M. King, the CBS and King World Productions executive who helped bring stars including Oprah Winfrey, Alex Trebek and "Dr. Phil" McGraw to television, died Saturday at a hospital in Boca Raton, Fla., after suffering a stroke. Mr. King was chief executive officer of CBS Television Distribution. He joined the network in 2000 when his groundbreaking company, King World Productions, merged with CBS. Under his guidance, King World became the industry's leading distributor of first-run syndicated programming, bringing to television such programs as The Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil.

Thirty-eight years ago, during the Haight-Ashbury heyday of West Coast pop music, a gleefully visionary guitarist, Jerry Garcia, couldn't contain himself. Already the creative force behind the Grateful Dead, the multitalented Garcia kept trying new instruments and forms. He even built a new band - the New Riders of the Purple Sage, nowadays better known as NRPS - around his fascination with one of the most difficult stringed instruments, the pedal steel guitar. "Not to idolize the man, but he was the hippest guy, the most musically dedicated person I've ever been around," says Buddy Cage, who replaced Garcia as NRPS steel player in 1971 and has been in the band, more or less, ever since.

When it comes to having a vision, Jeffrey Sharkey, the new director of the Peabody Institute, doesn't fool around. "He believes that music will eventually save the world," says Doreen Falby, a faculty member of the school's preparatory division and director of the Peabody Children's Chorus. It's easy to get a sense of that faith as Sharkey takes a short lunch break one afternoon at the institute, located in the shadow of Baltimore's Washington Monument on Mount Vernon Place. "It may be a cliche that music bridges boundaries, but it's true - and it needs to be true.

The last whiff of Yuri Temirkanov's Christian Dior aftershave had barely faded in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall when the Russian conductor's successor as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, arrived this week to get the official last word of the 2005-2006 season. Technically, Alsop doesn't assume full duties until September 2007, but in practical terms, she's at the artistic helm now. And, in case you missed the point somehow, she's going to be very different from Temirkanov.

Musically, I was brought up on opera, chamber music, the grand symphonies. My father, among other afflictions, wrote a regular column in the late 1930s and early 1940s about serious recorded music for The New York Times. One of my earliest memories is sitting happily on a canvas stool in the stage wings of the Metropolitan Opera during a performance of Walkure. I don't know why I fell in love with American country music. But I do know how: I happened upon WWVA, the Wheeling, W.Va., clear-channel country music station that came through, crisp, late at night in New York and New Jersey.

Marin Alsop, the New York-born conductor known for dynamic interpretations of American music and for steadily breaking through the glass ceiling in a male-dominated field, is expected to be named music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, according to sources. Though the public relations firm representing Alsop stated that a contract has yet to be signed, "everyone knows that the decision has been made," said one symphony insider familiar with the search process, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two organizations wrapped up their seasons last weekend with a saving-the-best-for-last burst of expressive energy. On Sunday night at Goucher College, the Baltimore Choral Arts Society reveled in Anglophilic pursuits. To get everyone in the mood, the Peabody Children's Chorus, carefully honed by Doreen Falby, offered a prelude that started with the quintessential English anthem Jerusalem (I will not cease from mental fight ... Till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land)