Shorty is Pollstar's HotStar

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, a 525 client co-managed with Mike Kappus at The Rosebud Agency, are on the cover of the current Pollstar and profiled in the mag's Hotstar section.

Written by Joe Reinartz, the feature says in part: "'I saw him a few years ago at a club during Jazz Fest,' co-manager Mike Kappus told Pollstar. 'He just took the stage and the energy level shot up. It never went down. It was just constant intensity and great playing.'

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is taking his first steps of a lifelong career. He is 23 years old but he has already playedalongside U2 and Green Day at the Superdome, and traveled Europe both with Lenny Kravitz and with the New Birth Brass Band, led by his brother James.

He has an award-winning documentary based upon his music, been lauded by Wynton Marsalis, Lenny Kravitz and Allen Toussaint, and he’s played in front of audiences since the age of 4.

Meanwhile, with the guidance from co-managers Dave Bartlett and Matt Cornell at 525 Worldwide, Andrews and his band are working on their first full-length before doing the late-night talk show circuit."

Click here to access the full article.

Mavis, Booker T. Help Close Hardly Strictly

Booker T, playing with Drive-By Truckers, and Mavis Staples both played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival's closing day on Sunday October 4, 2009 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. This year, the festival's eighth, attendance at the free event was estimated at over 500,000 people. Since its inception the event has been sponsored and funded solely by Warren Hellman, a successful venture capitalist and an amateur banjo player.

Rolling Stone said, "Gospel queen Mavis Staples — in the middle of taking the Sunday crowd to church — also covered Buffalo Springfield’s Vietnam-era protest anthem 'For What It’s Worth,' striking just the right note of a promise yet unfulfilled. [It] was a rare suggestion of politics on a weekend largely free of them."

Booker closed the set with the Truckers on the Arrow Stage by, as reported by Twangville.com, "walking up to the microphone and talking about being in Monterey 40 years ago with his friend Otis Redding. He then lit into 'Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay.' The hush of the crowd gave way to a soft sing-along, and finished with tens of thousands of people whistling along. Words don’t do justice to a special moment like that."

(Mavis @ Rooster Stage pic by Nora Stratton; Booker T (on guitar) and DBT's pic by Dave Vann.