Thursday, October 26, 2000:

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From Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Sunday, June 13, 1999

William Kerns
A local music festival by any other name...

A bit of this and a bit of that, while keeping fingers crossed for a dynamic local music festival by any name ...

The major event taking place during the first week of September is the grand opening of the Buddy Holly Center. It not only will house the city's collection of Holly memorabilia and other donated items, but also will serve as expanded headquarters for what once was the Lubbock Fine Arts Center on Avenue P. The new center, located at the site of the former Depot Restaurant at 18th Street and Avenue G, will open on Sept. 3.

The debut of the Buddy Holly Center, by the way, is not connected to the city's annual music festival which, for the past three years, has been held on a weekend on or near Holly's Sept. 7 birthday.

Don Caldwell has yet to decide whether he will revive the musical ''Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story'' for a fourth consecutive year or instead debut a new play titled ''Buddy & Friends'' at the Cactus Theater. Regardless, he stressed that his theatrical venture will be held to ''help celebrate the opening of the Buddy Holly Center.

''It could be part of a city festival.''

Music historian and KDAV-AM personality Bill Griggs also called to mention that the money paid him by the Lubbock Convention & Tourism Bureau was specifically for advertising in his Rockin' '50s periodical.

His personal advertising fee did not come from the separate $3,600 fee paid by the Convention and Tourism Bureau to KDAV for advertising for the next year for a (now indefinite) Everly Brothers concert, the Miss Texas USA Pageant and other promotion projects.

Center opening may lure Crickets

Finally, it turns out that Lubbock Memorial Civic Center officials are the ones who have been trying to put together a September concert at which the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra would perform with singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith and The Crickets.

Although this concert, too, had been listed as part of a tentative Music Crossroads of Texas celebration by the Lubbock Convention & Tourism Bureau, those working on the proposed Sept 3 concert also emphasized that the show never was intended to be under the city music festival's umbrella.

Rather, this, too, will be part of the Buddy Holly Center celebration.

Holly's widow, Maria Elena Holly, said that she plans to be present at the opening of the Buddy Holly Center despite the city's recent announcement that its once annual Buddy Holly Music Festival this year would undergo a name change to the Music Crossroads of Texas - West Texas Rock 'n' Roll Festival.

Music festival events and potential concerts have not yet been confirmed.

Closer at hand, the ninth annual 4th on Broadway festivities are just around the corner Ð and a few minor changes will be noticed. The parade on Saturday, July 3, for example, will start one hour later at 10 a.m. and will move in the opposite direction.

This year will find parade entrants assembling at the parking lot west of Jones Stadium. The parade will begin at the intersection of Broadway and University Avenue, commencing east on Broadway to Avenue M.

4th on Broadway concert moved

The 4th on Broadway Street Fair, also on July 3, will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ð and the festival's concluding concert, featuring regional vocal talents, the Lubbock Youth Symphony Orchestra and a fireworks extravaganza, has been moved to an area near the Broadway entrance to Mackenzie Park. The event has outgrown the large open area north of the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, its home for the past eight years.

Take note, music fans: Aroma's Coffeehouse, located at 82nd street and Slide Road, is aggressively booking regional, state and national folk recording artists on the weekends.

In other news, Texas Tech's University Center Programs continues to work on its 1999-2000 season, with an exciting event already confirmed on Feb. 1. Actors Felix Justice and Danny Glover will perform ''An Evening with Martin and Langston'' at Tech's Allen Theater, with Justice doing readings by Martin Luther King and Glover reading from Langston Hughes' works.

February is Black History Month.

Finally, Disney's animated ''Tarzan'' opens nationwide Friday. Can't wait.

William Kerns can be contacted at 766-8712 or wkerns@windmill.net