Sarah LaDuke

    The Ne’imah Jewish Community Chorus’ 21st annual concert will take place on June 2nd at The Linda in Albany, New York at 7:30pm.

The evening will feature guest artist Cantor Ramόn Tasat - a renowned performing artist and scholar who has devoted himself to sharing with the world the beauty of the Ladino language and Sephardic music and culture.

  This Sunday, May 26th - Club Helsinki in association with Showstoppers New York presents Judy Kuhn in All This Happiness as part of their Helsinki on Broadway cabaret series.

Judy Kuhn is a three time Tony nominee for her work in the Broadway musicals: Les Miserables, Chess, and She Loves Me. She was also the singing voice of Pocahantas in the 1995 animated Disney film of the same name, which means she sang the Academy Award winning song, “Colors of the Wind” in that movie.

In All This Happiness she weaves together tunes from the pop songwriters and musical theatre composers that have had the most influence on her.

  Jacqueline Kellachan from The Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY joins us with this week's Book Picks. 

List after the break.

    Nice Work if You Can Get It has been running at The Imperial Theatre in New York City since April of 2012 and will close on June 15th.

    The Friday before Mother’s Day in 2011, we had Dave Isay on to talk about the book, Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps. As many of you know, StoryCorps is an oral history project designed to document the fascinating lives or normal people. That Spring, Sarah LaDuke's  Mom - Carolyn - turned 70 and retired, so she copied the StoryCorps model (they encourage everyone to do so) and we aired some of her recorded conversation with her mom.

Since that conversation, Carolyn LaDuke has been through a lot. She survived a heart attack in October of 2011 and was diagnosed - for the second time - with breast cancer in late September of 2012. She has recently finished two extremely trying rounds of chemotherapy and should begin radiation soon. This Friday before Mother’s Day - today - we wanted to share a new interview with Sarah's Mom.

    NY Times best-selling author and lifestyle expert Bruce Littlefield’s latest book is his most personal to date. In Moving In: Tales of an Unlicensed Marriage, he takes readers on a wild and often hysterical ride through the first year spent fixing up a historic old house with partner (and unwitting handyman) Scott Stewart, one of Manhattan’s top real estate brokers.

  This segment begins with audio from an episode of the 1980s television series, Fame. In the clip, Carol Burnett performs with the eldest of her three daughters, Carrie.  Carrie was a series regular and Carol joined the program as a guest star.

In 2002 - at the age of 38 - Carrie died of cancer. 

The new book, Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story is Carol Burnett’s poignant tribute to her late daughter and a funny and moving memoir about mothering an extraordinary young woman through the struggles and triumphs of her life. Sharing her personal diary entries, photographs, and correspondence, Carol traces the journey she and Carrie took through some of life’s toughest challenges.

    Comedian and multi-media powerhouse, Mo’Nique, will perform four shows at Levity Live in West Nyack, NY this weekend - two on Friday and two on Saturday.

In 1999, Mo’Nique’s career took a quantum leap once she landed the starring role as Nikki Parker on UPN’s hit television series, “The Parkers.” Mo’Nique was also the first female to host NBC’s nationally televised program, “Showtime at the Apollo” in 2002. She carried the legendary torch for three consecutive seasons. In 2010 she won the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for the film, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

    In 1983, Huey Lewis and The News released their third album, Sports.

The songs on Sports are "The Heart of Rock & Roll," "Heart and Soul," "Bad Is Bad," "I Want a New Drug," “Walking on a Thin Line," "Finally Found a Home," "If This Is It," “You Crack Me Up," and "Honky Tonk Blues" (of course, a Hank Williams song). The band aimed each song toward becoming a radio single - during a time in the music industry when that what made the difference between sales and slipping into oblivion.

    Aziz Ansari will be at The Palace Theatre in Albany, NY on Tuesday, May 14th at 8pm as part of this leg of his Buried Alive tour. This tour will result in his third hour-long stand-up special - the previous two being Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening and Dangerously Delicious.