Sounds Good

Paducah Symphony Orchestra Executive Director tells Kate Lochte on Sounds Good that this is the first-ever Symphony performance at the Lower Town Arts & Music Festival which occurs Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the Main Stage. Admission is free to the Festival and there's no parking fee. Click here to see more about the LowerTown Arts & Music Festival. 

Over 50 guest artists will be showing their works on the streets of LowerTown, Paducah, and many of the resident galleries will be open extended hours during the Arts & Music festival there Friday through Sunday. As you listen to the upcoming interview with one of these artists, selected by jurors, you might want to log on to the website patinainpaducah.com. Their doors will open for you to enter the site and see the works of today's Sounds Good guest, Darrell Martin. See more interviews on our LowerTown page.

His voice is called lonesome, yearning, urgent and tender. Rounder Recording artist James King is 12 time and reigning traditional male vocalist of the year of the Society for the Preservation of Blue Grass of America. Singer of such hits as "Echo Mountain," "Bed By the Window," and "Thirty Years of Farming," James King and Band performs next Friday, May 17th at 7 p.m. at Lakeland Jamboree, 61 Jefferson Street, Cadiz. Mr. King spoke with Kate Lochte about his music and we'll hear that interview.

Utica, Kentucky, based watercolorist Carole Gordon is among 65 artists who will display and sell a variety of works at the LowerTown Arts and Music Festival in Paducah this weekend. She's a 2001 graduate of Owensboro Community College with a lifelong interest in painting and in horses. Ms. Gordon is an exhibiting member with the Kentucky Arts Council's Kentucky Crafted and Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen.

Tracy Ross speaks with JD Wilkes whose band The Dirt Daubers are Friday night's headliners at the LowerTown Arts and Music Festival. Wilkes has a new CD in the works for The Dirt Daubers; he's writing a book on Kentucky Barn Dances; and he has a 7" vinyl record of 14 banjo tunes out now called "Kitchen Tapes." Click here to see more of our interviews ahead of the LowerTown Festival.

Click here to see the complete LowerTown event schedule.

See more about The Dirt Daubers.

 "The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children" is an exhibition of the infant-toddler Centers and Preschools of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Italy, at the Henderson Community College Fine Arts Center. This Thursday through Saturday there's a conference featuring speakers from the schools of Reggio Emilia, and it's still open for attendance. Kate Lochte asked Murray State College of Education's Dr. Jo Robertson, Chair of Early Childhood and Elementary Education to explain what the Reggio Emilia philosophy of Education is about. See more about The Wonder of Learning.

The May first edition of the Wall Street Journal included an article by Stephanie Banchero entitled "Learning Goals Spur Backlash." To find out about if there's been any backlash from adopting the Common Core standards in Kentucky schools, we sought an overview from The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, the state's private, non-profit advocacy group for all levels of public education. Kate Lochte speaks with its Executive Director Dr. Stu Silberman. 

LowerTown Arts & Music Festival in Paducah comes up the weekend of May 17 through 19 and one of the artists coming to show and sell her works is Lexington-based Marti McGinnis, whose work you can see at happyart.com. She's among over sixty artists coming to LowerTown. See more about the festival's artists, concerts, and food at lowertownamf.com. 

We continue our occasional series previewing good reads for young adults from Katherine Farmer, Coordinator of the Racers Children's Preview Collection at Murray State University. This week's recommended read is The White Bicycle, by Beverly Brenna, a 2013 Printz Honor coming-of-age adventure told from the perspective of Taylor Jane, a young woman with Asperger's Syndrome. Booklist calls this story, for ages 14 to 17, a "finespun gem" that would be "a shame" to miss. 

Murray Attorney Mark Blankenship joins Kate Lochte on Sounds Good to discuss how youths need to realize that what used to be pranks now lead to involvement with the courts.