The Affair

"Pretty Miss Norma Jean" may be best remembered as Porter Wagoner's stage partner before he was paired with Dolly Parton, but she was also well known for an often hard-edged group of songs that spoke of poverty, hard work, and the instability of romantic relationships. Although she didn't have the songwriting creativity of Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton, she was comparable to those stars in her general outlook. Norma Jean Beasler was no stranger to poverty herself, born into a hard-working farm family near Wellston, OK. As a child, she wanted to be a country star like Kitty Wells, whom she tried to emulate. She made her professional debut singing "If Teardrops Were Pennies" at age 12 on the radio in Oklahoma City. In high school, she toured with a few Western swing bands, including those of Billy Gray and Merle Lindsay.

The Eureka Stockade is the epic account of the battle for the Eureka Stockade, an iconic moment in Australian history.

One can easily argue that the Basie band, from the moment of its mid-’30s Kansas City emergence, did a great deal to set the course of American popular music as a whole. And now, long after William James Basie’s 1984 death, the band continues as a legacy institution, full of good vibes and a solid professional ethic under the leadership of Scotty Barnhart. All About that Basie mixes it up between older Basie staples (“Sent for You Yesterday,” “April in Paris,” trumpeter Thad Jones’ tart midtempo blues “From One to Another”) and fairly surprising, at times hard-to-recognize arrangements of more modern pop and R&B hits by the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Leonard Cohen, and Adele. The guests bring tons of personality to the affair, including singer Kurt Elling in top ballad form, organist Joey DeFrancesco sounding like a big band unto himself, and Stevie Wonder lending a simple and honest poignancy on harmonica.