The State of Things

Sun Records founder Sam Phillips discovered music legends like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, but Phillips said the greatest talent he ever met was Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin’ Wolf. The University of North Carolina will honor the Delta Blues great with a symposium and tribute concert on Monday. The event includes a talk by music scholar Peter Guralnick, who had the opportunity to see Howlin’ Wolf in concert. Guralnick is also writing a book on Phillips. He joins host Frank Stasio to talk about how Wolf’s talent and Phillips’ business sense helped shape the blues sound in the 1950s and 1960s.

Grammy-nominated blues artist Ruthie Foster grew up on gospel music. Her family sang and performed religious tunes and touches of that tradition are found in Foster’s sound. But she is also heavily influenced by folk and that combination gives her blues an authentically soulful sound that earned her the title of Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year at the Blues Music Awards last year. Foster performs at North Carolina State University’s Stewart Theatre tonight at 8 p.m., but first she plays live in the studio and joins host Frank Stasio to talk about her path to discovering the blues.

When Victor and Sarah Lytvinenko started making jeans in their downtown Raleigh apartment four years ago, they had no way of knowing where their project would take them. They went from being denim makers with a small presence in North Carolina to high style designers with products being sold across the world.This weekend they will be at fashionSPARK, part of the SPARKcon festival in Raleigh.

Just about every bluegrass musician has been directly or indirectly influenced by Wade Mainer. Mainer, a master of the banjo, taught himself to play his instrument of choice as a child and developed an innovative two-finger picking style. That style, combined with Mainer’s strong vocals earned him popularity as a performer and recording artist in the 1930s and 1940s. He is credited with bridging the gap between old-time music and bluegrass music and artists like Doc Watson and Bill Monroe have cited Mainer as a major influence. Mainer died earlier this week. He was 104 years old.

Last year's earthquake turned the eyes of the world to Haiti. In the aftermath, thousands of aid workers rushed to help Haitians whose homes and lives had been devastated, but some types of help are more effective than others. How does understanding the culture and history of a place make it easier for outsiders to aid the people in need? Host Frank Stasio poses the question to Reina Galjour, a Saxapahaw native recently returned from working as a midwife in Haiti; Bonnie Elam, president of the Raleigh-based group The Haiti Connection; Deborah Jenson, professor of French and Romance Studies at Duke University and co-Director of Duke's Haiti Lab; and writer Madison Smartt Bell, author of a trilogy of novels on Haiti's 1791 slave revolution.

James Augustus McLean was a powerful force in North Carolina's art world for most of the 20th century. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and turned down an offer to teach at the prestigious school to return to his home state. His fledgling art school in Raleigh fell victim to the Great Depression, but McLean continued to create and inspire other artists throughout North Carolina until his death in 1989.

North Carolina voters will be asked to consider same-sex marriage in the next primary election. A bill that allows people to decide at the polls whether to ban gay marriage in the state constitution passed the Senate today and was approved in the House yesterday. WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief Laura Leslie joins host Frank Stasio to talk about the language of this legislation and how it was debated in the General Assembly.

Ten years ago, Enron became the ultimate symbol of corporate malfeasance. The company robbed Americans of billions of dollars, helped destroy accounting giant Arthur Andersen and caused rolling blackouts across California. Burning Coal Theatre Company in Raleigh is revisiting this dark chapter in American corporate history with the play, “Enron,” on stage now through September 25th.

District Court Judge Craig Brown retired in 2008 after working for decades in the Durham judicial system. He was first a criminal defense attorney, then took the bench as a district court judge. Brown's career was not without controversy. He often spoke out against the inequities he saw in the judicial system, and some of his decisions drew criticism. Throughout his career, Brown battled an auto-immune disease that eventually left him blind.

When the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in 2006, the team had a young, Czech player on the ice named Josef Vašíček. “Big Joe,” as ‘Canes fans called him, was drafted by the team in 1998 and before his career in North Carolina was over, Vašíček was a key member in the Hurricanes’ success. The 30-year-old player died in a plane crash in Russia on Wednesday, along with 26 members of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, the hockey team Vašíček joined in 2008.