- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock /news-archive/tag/mary-ellen-kubit/ ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Thu, 26 May 2022 20:08:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Public Radio to Air 100th Episode of Arts & Letters /news-archive/2022/05/26/100th-episode-arts-letters/ Thu, 26 May 2022 20:08:34 +0000 /news/?p=81647 ...]]> The episode, which features writer, director, and producer Harry Thomason, will air at 7 p.m. Friday, May 27, and 9 p.m. Sunday, May 29, on K��Vlog��ýR 89.1. “We are so happy to be able to present our 100th episode filled with true tales and Arkansas adventures,” said J. Bradley Minnick, executive producer and host of Arts & Letters and an associate professor of English at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “This milestone show is dedicated to retired ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Joel Anderson and is in memory of former K��Vlog��ýR station manager, Ben Fry.” In the 100th episode, Thomason discusses his memoir, “Brother Dog: Southern Tales and Hollywood Adventures.” Thomason shares stories from his childhood in Calhoun County, Arkansas, and his start in directing and producing. Told with humor, grit, and an open heart, Thomason’s memoir shares his small-town, working-class childhood in the late 1940s, 50s and 60s. Since the early 1970s, Thomason has been one of the best-known Southerners working in Hollywood. He has directed, written, or produced 11 films and eight television series. His credits include “The Shining Season,” “The Blue and the Gray,” and “The Fall Guy.” Together with his wife, Linda Bloodworth Thomason, he also produced the hit CBS TV series, “Designing Women” and “Evening Shade.” Founded in 2014, the award-winning Arts & Letters is in its eighth season and celebrates contemporary humanities work from Arkansas, the mid-south, and beyond. Over the years, the show has featured popular and controversial Arkansas historical figures like John Gould Fletcher, Orval Faubus, Sue Cowan Williams, Helen Spence, Sen. Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Johnny Cash, and Albert Porter. Music is also at the heart of Arts & Letters. Their partnership with amazing musicians and sound engineers helps bring the stories to life for their listeners. Over the years, they’ve worked with musical groups Still on the Hill, Folk Family Revival, the Mallet Brothers, Radio Birds, and Handmade Moments, and many more. The Arts & Letters crew includes Minnick, Mary Ellen Kubit, story editor and producer, and Joseph Fuller, sound engineer. The Arts & Letters staff will celebrate with a Zoom event, “From Arkansas to Hollywood,” at 8 p.m. Friday, June 10. The Zoom event will feature live music from Jesse Wells of Welles, a visit with Harry Thomason, and the technical wizardry of Joseph Fuller of Orchestra of One. “This has been a fantastic journey that continues to engage and inspire us with story and music,” Minnick said. “We’re just getting started.”]]> ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Public Radio honors prolific Arkansas songwriter Rose Marie McCoy /news-archive/2020/01/22/public-radio-honors-rose-marie-mccoy/ Wed, 22 Jan 2020 22:12:19 +0000 /news/?p=76044 ...]]> McCoy was recently highlighted in a two-part episode, “,” of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Public Radio’s award-winning program, “Arts & Letters,” hosted by Executive Producer J. Bradley Minnick. “We learned about Rose McCoy when she was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 2018,” Minnick said. “Arlene Corsano, McCoy’s friend and neighbor, wrote this great biography about McCoy. When I looked on the internet, there wasn’t much material on McCoy except for Arlene’s book and an entry in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. I was very surprised there wasn’t more information on a woman who wrote more than 850 songs that were recorded by so many famous people.” Born in the small town of Oneida, Ark., in 1922, McCoy moved to New York in 1942 and began singing for small clubs in Harlem after learning to love the Blues in Helena. “Helena was the place people went to hear a lot of the big name Blues people,” Corsano said. “Rose never got to hear the Blues until she went to Helena in high school and lived with her grandparents. Her parents were very churchy, and Rose was taught that listening to the Blues was a sin. She would stand outside the door so that no one would see her. She did have a scholarship to Philander Smith College, but she left Arkansas to become a singer.” On a visit to Arkansas in 1943, she married her former high school sweetheart, James McCoy. The couple were married for 57 years until James McCoy’s death in 2010. “They ran into each other on a bus, and he was getting ready to be shipped off to Germany to fight in World War II,” said Mary Ellen Kubit, producer and story editor of “Arts & Letters.” “They got married within a few weeks of getting reacquainted. They didn’t see each other for several years until the war ended, but they were together until he died. They later owned a club together in New Jersey.” By 1946, one of McCoy’s songs, “After All,” appeared on the Dixieaires’ record. In the early 1950s, she partnered with songwriter Charlie Singleton. Their first hit, “It Hurts Me to My Heart,” was recorded by Faye Adams in 1954. During their six-year partnership, the duo wrote songs individually and as partners for top artists of the time, including Elvis Presley, “I Beg of You” and “Trying to Get to You;” Ruth Brown, “Mambo Baby;” Nappy Brown, “Little by Little;” Nat King Cole, “If I May” and “My Personal Possession;” and Little Willie John, “Letter from My Darling.” McCoy continued to write and publish independently, turning down opportunities to work for major record labels including Motown, Stax, and Atlantic. She wrote “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” which became Ike and Tina Turner’s first top 20 hit and their first Grammy nomination. She wrote her final songs with Billy Joe Conor, and they appeared on his 2013 country music album. Since McCoy passed away in 2015, the person who has worked the hardest to preserve McCoy’s memory is Corsano, who Minnick interviewed for the “Arts & Letters” episodes and provided never-before-heard recordings of McCoy’s music. “I first met Rose at a party that Maxine Brown, a soul RB singer popular in the 60s, was having,” Corsano said. “I had written a song for Maxine called ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues.’ I was retired from teaching, so I was interviewing famous people. Maxine told me that I should write an article about Rose. When the article came out, we started hanging out, and Rose started telling people I was going to make her famous.” McCoy’s words from long ago have held up to the test of time as Corsano has made it her mission to make McCoy’s story known. She wrote a biography chronicling McCoy’s life, “Thought We Were Singing the Blues But They Called It Rock N’ Roll.” Corsano has also written a one-woman play about McCoy. She’s currently working on educational materials to bring McCoy’s inspirational story into the classroom. Though McCoy has been inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 2018, Corsano has always been surprised that McCoy has yet to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. “Rose belongs in the Songwriters Hall of Fame,” Corsano said. “It was quite a different world when she entered the music business. It was really a white man’s world. To be an African American on top of a female, it was very important for her to break into the songwriting business. She was a pioneer.” Corsano has previously started a petition to garner support for McCoy’s induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. After the release of the “Arts & Letters’ episodes focused on McCoy’s life and music, Minnick and Kubit also started a that they urge people to sign.]]>