Forward 2012

| July 6, 2012

A vague post today, like Obama’s 2012 campaign “slogan.” But forward nevertheless, if by fits and starts. I missed posting a blog Tuesday though I’d sworn to post one every Tuesday. Have to remind Siri, my iPhone helper, to remind me to do that, not to mention other tasks. We spent the last week of […]

Soul rising

| June 19, 2012

Last Friday, I sent off a chapter about Motown and its relationship to Cleveland soul music. It went to an editor at an academic press in the South who said he’d get back to me about it first week in July. Here’s hoping. Motown’s Fateful Shadow is the longest chapter I’ve written yet, and it’s […]

The pressures of reinvention

| June 6, 2011

I’m in Dallas working on two Hilton hotel stories, occupying a lovely, 19th-floor suite at the recently refurbished Hilton Anatole. It’s nearly 100 degrees, so I’m staying in, thank you. A month ago, I was in Shanghai on another Hilton story: Profiling the first Waldorf Astoria in Asia, recently opened on Shanghai’s Bund. I’ve been […]

Signs of spring

| March 30, 2011

It’s March 30, and it snowed. Just a few inches, but still. Goes against what I’m doing, which is reviving, getting a full head of steam: writing for Lodging Hospitality again, rejoining the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra board (there are some wrinkles to work out) and producing a lot for ohioauthority. I’m also developing a proposal […]

Getting better all the time

| January 29, 2011

I went to a show at Beachland Ballroom Jan. 22 that made me think there are second chances, ways to start all over again. It starred the Hesitations, a nine-piece soul group from Cleveland’s 1960s. The singing Hesitations are in their 60s and are prime exponents of Northern Soul, a variant of Motown with a […]

Music 2010 and before

| December 30, 2010

I didn’t want the year to end without mentioning the Horse Flies, an upstate New York band I’ve been following for 20 years. The band played at Beachland Ballroom Dec. 17 and generated a gang of encores. They worked through material from “Until the Ocean,” their latest album, and they’re beginning to focus on a […]

Random thoughts

| November 7, 2010

Musings of a peripatetic thinker. Ponderings without a point. Catching up. Intellectual laziness. Call it what you will, I figure I should capture some mind wanderings, given the week past, last night’s entertaining Cleveland Jazz Orchestra concert “The Cleveland Scene,” and upcoming travels. I’ve never been great at headlines. I’m depressed about the elections, though […]

Stimulated

| March 29, 2010

I just started Week Two of mental stimulation marked by seeing six movies at the dazzling Cleveland International Film Festival, a great, too-short concert by John Zorn’s Masada Sextet (here’s my preview) and, this morning, reading “Atomic Age,” Martin Benjamin’s first, long-overdue book of photography. Karen and I went to the film festival for the […]

An apology to my website

| February 10, 2010

I’ve been neglectful of my website. It’s been nearly a month since I updated. I’ve been very busy, but it’s time to catch up. In mid-December, my wife suggested I e-mail as many people as I could think of to tell them I wanted to engage more. Being semi-retired can be lonely, even when there’s […]

Leonard Cohen: in the zone

| November 6, 2009

Weird to think of “Leonard Cohen Live in London” alongside “Allman Brothers at Fillmore East,” but both are paradigms of the live album, capturing artists at the peak of their powers. Cohen’s was recorded in 2008 when he was 73, near the start of his nearly two-year-long tour; the American leg this fall was his […]

About the author

I'm a veteran critic and business writer who reads and listens and writes about music, books, hotels and travel. I've been in the business for many years and still enjoy it. My pride and joy is my book, Cleveland Rock & Roll Memories. Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CarloWolff
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