Go Out: Bonnie Raitt, Blind Boys of Alabama, etc.
Happy Friday! It's almost time for another busy fall weekend, featuring big events like the RiverArtsFest, the Memphis Comic Expo and the Big River Crossing. There's plenty more too, so here are the latest entertainment recommendations courtesy of our GoMemphis writers and editors.
FRIDAY
Amid her enormous pop success, Bonnie Raitt’s work remains deeply connected to a wellspring of Mississippi and Memphis blues. The multiplatinum-selling recording artist and 10-time Grammy winner Raitt returns to the region for a concert at the Orpheum. In 2012, Raitt finally resumed making music after a seven-year self-imposed studio hiatus, releasing the Joe Henry-produced “Slipstream,” which netted her another Grammy win (for best Americana album) and became one of the best-received projects of a five-decade career that has seen her enshrined in both the Rock and Roll and Blues Music halls of fame. Earlier this year, Raitt followed up with a new disc, “Dig in Deep,” which finds the 66-year-old Raitt in typically fine form. Only a handful of tickets remain.
8 p.m. Tickets: $59.50-$99.50; available at all Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com or (800) 745-3000. orpheum-memphis.com
The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art host an opening reception for the exhibition “Laura J. Lawson: Dépaysement.” This is the artist's MFA thesis exhibition, which includes paintings and works on paper that address her three years living in Memphis contrasted with her recent residency in Marnay-sur-Seine, France. The work will be displayed through Nov. 4.
5-7:30 p.m.. 3715 Central, Art & Communication Building, University of Memphis. Visit memphis.edu/fogelmangalleries.
DeSoto Family Theatre presents the powerful drama “The Diary of Anne Frank,” directed by Lindsay Roberts Daniels with Sydney Bell in the title role. This version, a new adaptation by Wendy Kesselman that vividly captures the terror and claustrophobia of the families hiding from the Nazis, also shows a girl growing into a woman who is finding a way to deal with the strengths and failings of humanity.
Through Oct. 30 at the Landers Center, 4560 Venture Drive, Southaven. 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, and 2 p.m. Oct. 29. Tickets: $15-$30. Info: dftonline.org and 662-470-2131.
It’ll be a big bill of ‘90s jam-rock and alt-pop favorites as Blues Traveler, Blind Melon and Soulhat play the BankPlus Amphitheatre at Snowden Grove. The show, originally scheduled for August, had to be postponed due to health issues with Blues Traveler frontman John Popper. After successfully undergoing surgery, Popper and company are back on the road headlining the package tour.
Gates open at 5 p.m., show starts at 7. Tickets: $20 for lawn, $25 for reserved seats, and $29.50 for pit. Available at all Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com or (800) 745-3000.
Jason Miller mounts a third group show, “Circuitous Succession Epilogue III,” at Masonic Contemporary in the Scottish Rite Building, opening with a reception tonight. Works of a highly diverse nature by 18 artists — many well-known locally and some new discoveries — will be featured in settings that range widely throughout the stately old edifice. The exhibition will be on view through Dec. 3.
6-9 p.m. 825 Union. Visit masoniccontemporary.org.
Legendary gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama comes to the Levitt Shell at Overton Park for a free concert. Led by founding member Jimmy Carter, and fellow vocalists Ben Moore and Eric McKinnie, the seven piece group — whose formation dates back to the late 1930s — has won a new generation of fans with multiple Grammy-winning LPs over the last decade-plus.
7 p.m. levittshell.org
Tops Gallery hosts an opening reception tonight for an exhibition by renowned portrait photographer Judith Joy Ross. She works in black and white, using a vintage 8-by-10 view camera. Best known for the images she made at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the early 1980s, Ross will be showing portraits she did of members of the U.S. Congress in 1986 and '87. The photographer, who lives in Bethlehem, Pa., will be present for the reception. The images will be displayed through Dec. 3.
6-8 p.m. 400 S. Front (entrance on Huling). Call 901-340-0134, or visit topsgallery.com.
Pittsburgh hip-hopper Mac Miller is touring in support of his fourth album “The Divine Feminine,” which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts. The disc — which features guest appearances by Kendrick Lamar, CeeLo Green, and Miller’s girlfriend Ariana Grande — finds the 24-year-old rapper ruminating on growing up and falling in love across its 10 tracks. Miller headlines an all-ages bill at Minglewood Hall that will also feature LAKIM and DJ Clockwork.
Doors at 6:30 p.m., showtime is 7:30. Tickets: $30. Available at the box office (1555 Madison), minglewoodhall.com or (901) 312-6058.
SATURDAY
Presented by Black Lodge Video and filmmaker Craig Brewer, the "Pandemonium Cinema Showcase" at the historic Cossitt Library continues with a family-friendly early afternoon-through-early evening two-day screening that has been dubbed "Spooky Cinema: A Kids Halloween Movie Marathon." The lineup of films includes "Monster House" (2006), "Hocus-pocus" (1992), "The Addams Family" (1991), "Gremlins" (1984) and "The Monster Squad" (1987); "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and episodes of "Goosebumps" will be shown between features. Also, the second floor of the library will be transformed into an interactive haunted maze, and Halloween games with prizes for even the youngest tykes will be played.
1 p.m.-11:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Cossitt Library, 33 S. Front. Admission: free.
A veteran of the underground rap scene who has sold more than 2 million copies on independent labels including his own Strange Music, Tech N9ne is known for a rapid-fire lyrical flow that recalls the firearm that inspired his name. The Kansas City-bred MC brings his "The Calm Before the Storm" 2016 Tour to the New Daisy Theatre with opening sets from fast-rising Memphis rappers Marco Pavé and Preauxx.
Doors at 6 p.m., showtime is 7. Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 day of show. 330 Beale. newdaisy.com
Canadian world music star Loreena McKennitt is marking the 25th anniversary of her classic 1991 album “The Visit” — which has recently been released on vinyl through McKennitt’s Quinlan Road label — with a U.S. tour of trio dates backed by Brian Hughes and Caroline Lavelle. Exploring Celtic history throughout the world in song, and the cultures of “Sufis in Istanbul, the Berbers in Morocco, Delphi in Greece, the poetry of Yeats and classical writers such as Shakespeare and Tennyson,” McKennitt will appear in concert at Minglewood Hall. This will be a fully seated show.
Doors at 6:30 p.m., showtime is 7:30. Tickets: $39.50 to $70. Available at the box office (1555 Madison), minglewoodhall.com or (901) 312-6058.
The adventurous Project: Motion dancers are back this season with “Tiny Dances/Hidden Spaces,” an inspired collaboration of movement with photography. The dancers and choreographers — some of the best in the region — include Travis Bradley, Jonathan Matthews, Erin Kenny Walter, Louisa Koeppel, Erin D.H. Williams and others. The are interpreting the imagery of FindMemphis, a photographic documentation of the city with Carla McDonald, Courtney Oliver and Rory Dale. This event is where you want to be to experience excellence in modern dance.
7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday at the Jay Etkin Gallery, 942 S. Cooper. Tickets are $10. Info: 901-214-LEAP,projectmotiondance.org and findmemphis.com.
The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art begins a Halloween season mini-festival of Alfred Hitchcock films with "Vertigo," the 1958 masterpiece that in 2012 dethroned "Citizen Kane" from its longtime perch as the "Greatest Film of All Time," according to the international critics' polls conducted by Sight & Sound magazine.The movie stars James Stewart as an ex-detective obsessed with a woman (Kim Novak) who resembles his dead wife.
2 p.m., Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $9, or $5 for museum members and students. Visit brooksmuseum.org.
SUNDAY
The Memphis Symphony Orchestra’s Paul and Linnea Bert Classic Accents chamber music series offers plenty of traditional comfort, including Copland’s popular “Appalachian Spring” and Dvorak’s Serenade for Winds. But it’s also going a step beyond with Brett Dietz’s powerful composition “Headcase,” which was inspired by a stroke the composer had in 2002. The composition and percussion faculty member at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge was in his 20s when he had the stroke, and he decided to chronicle the experience from onset to recovery. MSO principal conductor Robert Moody, who leads the concert, has worked with the composer several times.
2:30 p.m. at the Germantown Performing Arts Center, 1801 Exeter. Tickets: $25, $10 for students/children. Info: memphissymphony.org or call 901-537-2525.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, the 2011 film "5 Broken Cameras" makes its Memphis public screening debut in an event hosted by Memphis Voices for Palestine. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, the movie presents a first-hand account of five years in the life of an occupied West Bank village near the Israeli barrier wall. Palestinian food and libations will be available during the screening, and a discussion will follow the film.
4 p.m. (doors), 5 p.m. (screening), Amurica, 410 N. Cleveland, Suggested donation: $10.