Reckoning with family legacy is often a fraught process. That has been particularly true for blues musician Shawn Amos. Musically known as “The Reverend” Shawn Amos, he has attempted to reconcile his troubled family history throughout his creative…

Traveling to the United States for the first time can spark excitement and trepidation in equal measure for artists. But for U.K.-based Americana-folk duo the Black Feathers, aka vocalist Sian Chandler and guitarist Ray Hughes, any negative…

By Bliss BowenPhoto by James Freeman In 2011, blues artist Shawn Amos — musically known as “The Reverend” Shawn Amos — posted a four-part series of gritty essays on Huffington Post titled “Cookies & Milk: Scenes From a ’70s Hollywood Childhood.” Six…

“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” —Octavia E. Butler, “Parable of the Sower” Committed to the principle that “every human being has a story to tell,” TheatreWorkers Project has been…

For its final play of the 2021-’22 season, A Noise Within is resurrecting Mary Zimmerman’s Tony-nominated “Metamorphoses,” whose title refers to the physical and emotional transformations experienced by the numerous Greek gods whose stories it braids…

By Bliss Bowen Acclaimed roots artist Jake Blount to perform at McCabe’s in Santa Monica Hearing “The Man Was Burning,” an obscure spiritual recorded in 1936, sparked excitement and a sense of recognition in multi-instrumental roots musician Jake…

Like millions of others, I turned to music for solace and communal connection during the height of the pandemic, seeking release from deepening isolation. Music from West Africa has long occupied a healthy chunk of real estate in my personal library,…

A desire to investigate exactly how climate change is impacting the ocean — the least examined aspect of the climate crisis — prompted Toronto-based science journalist Alanna Mitchell to make 13 expeditions over three years to dead zones, coral…

By mid-April 2020, former Angeleno Julie Christensen could see that the pandemic was going to last for some time, keeping millions of people working from home and artists off the road. “I wanted to make something with my compadres,” the veteran…

Gary Phillips’ savory new novel “One-Shot Harry” is a noir mystery positioned at Phillips’ familiar intersection of crime, politics and race. The time is 1963 and the place is Los Angeles, a city buzzing with anticipation of Dr. Martin Luther King…

At the top of “Ann” — actress and first-time playwright Holland Taylor’s acclaimed one-woman show about legendary Texas Gov. Ann Richards — the politician is seen addressing the 1998 Democratic convention. At the time, she was Texas’ state treasurer.…

At the top of “Ann” — actress and first-time playwright Holland Taylor’s acclaimed one-woman show about legendary Texas Gov. Ann Richards — the politician is seen addressing the 1998 Democratic convention. At the time, she was Texas’ state treasurer.…

Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer “Food and music,” veteran songwriter Marty Axelrod mused. “What could be more communal?” The prompt for Axelrod’s comment was a lengthy discussion about late mutual friend Jimmy Yessian — so beloved as “Muffin” in…

Cue up the opening bars of Texas blues guitarist Sue Foley’s album “Pinky’s Blues,” and listeners will be hit with that feeling of opening a nightclub door and being swept up in the music of a live band and the sense of dancers and barflies letting…

The titular “Ghost Stories” of the Whitmore Sisters’ luminous new album are not spooky Halloween fare but rather melodic recollections of beloved friends and inspirations that have died in recent times. Bonnie and older sister Eleanor Whitmore have…

By Bliss Bowen Pasadena Weekly Contributor When Altadena resident Lisa Finnie wrote a “COVID Christmas song” for her daughter in 2020, she believed it would be out of date by this year. But the virus had other plans and, well, as she puts it, “here…

By Bliss Bowen Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer Jodi Siegel is a bona fide working musician — an endangered breed even before the pandemic shut down stages and pushed artists off the road. The respected guitarist and singer-songwriter postponed…

By Bliss Bowen, LA Downtown News Contributing Writer This year has been rich in music that’s emerged from the pandemic to offer catharsis and healing, from the likes of Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra, Allison…

By Bliss Bowen Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer During and after the pandemic shutdown, as live theaters scrambled to support their communities from behind shuttered doors, the Glendale-based Antaeus Theatre Company reached to the past to find a…

With his engrossing, sometimes chilling book “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA 28) examines tumultuous events of recent years in historical context while alerting readers to current…