Dave Read

June 18, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Earth, Wind, & Fire, a band that practically embodies as many musical genres as Tanglewood’s Popular Artist Series represents, made its second appearance at the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra June 18, 2016. By scheduling them in between concerts by Dolly Parton and Brian Wilson, Tanglewood presented us the opportunity to enjoy a geographically inspired sampler of American music ranging from country, to city, to beach over a single weekend.

Maurice White and Philip Bailey form Earth, Wind, & Fire in 1971

Since their 1971 founding in Chicago by Maurice White and Philip Bailey, Earth, Wind, & Fire has scored six Grammies as a group and been inducted nto the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; founder White, who died in February, Bailey and several other members of the band also are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. White’s brother Verdine is the group’s bassist, and at the other end of the sonic spectrum are the horn section, Gary Bias on saxophone, Bobby Burns, Jr. on trumpet, and Reggie Young on trombone. Besides all the oh-so-danceable funky music, straight-out R & B, beautiful harmonies and thrilling falsetto singing, EWF puts on a show for your eyeballs too with pulsating lights and streaming digital graphics. After this show, you would think the Koussevitsky Music Shed would need some down time, but that won’t happen until September!

Tanglewood photos Earth, Wind, & Fire concert

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

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Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.

Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

June 17, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Dolly Parton opened the 2016 Tanglewood season on her Pure & Simple tour, attacting an impressive audience on a picnic-perfect June evening; watching her fans stream into the Koussevitsky Music Shed was the closest we’ll ever get to seeing a Mardi Gras parade in Lenox. In a show that lasted 2.5 hours and included 28 songs, she also told so many stories that you wish you’d brought along a stenographer. Dolly Parton emerged some fifty years ago onto a fairly cloistered country western scene which she helped bust loose into a dominate place in pop culture, becoming head of a global entertainment business while maintaining her charm, her artistic integrity, and her figure!

Dolly Parton’s Pure & Simple tour

Ms. Parton’s Pure & Simple tour is organized around a CD, to be released in August, which contains a suite of love songs she wrote to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. Love seems to be Dolly Parton’s organizing principle, and much of her patter relates to her love of her own family, her childhood home in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and then to the family all of us comprise. After that, she talks alot about her rhinestone costumes and her boobs. But perhaps the most remarkable thing she talked about is the Imagination Library, which she established in 1995 for the benefit of children in her childhood home, as a tribute to her illiterate father. Since then, it has given away 100,000,000 books, many to children.

Making up Dolly’s band were Richard Dennison, Tom Rutledge, and Kent Wells (and a drum machine) and besides displaying her beautiful vocal technique, Ms. Parton also played a half-dozen instruments, including banjo, which she played backwards on one number! Especially endearing was a medley of ’60s songs, including The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down, mentioning her affection for Levon Helm and The Band, and announcing that his daughter, the musician Amy Kelm, was in attendance.