NEWS
EDITOR’S NOTE
SEE ME, FEEL ME Connecting with others makes Charlotte a better city when he caught The Wiz — the 1978 update THE FIRST TIME I ran into Oba Amitabha, of The Wizard of Oz featuring an all-black the lanky, dreadlocked party promoter was cast including Michael Jackson — on TV. hanging out with his friend Solomon Tetteh, Sheriff wondered what happened to the also known as rapper Black Linen, hovering characters after the film ended, and decided behind as Tetteh and I walked along a lush he’d write about it. path at the UNCC Botanical Gardens. I was His sequel, Be a Lion, puts the oncedoing a story on Black Linen, and Amitabha Cowardly Lion at the center of a story about was documenting our conversation on a chaos that erupts in Oz after Dorothy’s small video camera. departure. It mixes the multicolored fantasy Amitabha would become distracted at of L. Frank Baum’s classic 1900 story with times, pointing with a look of wide-eyed the realities of today’s world. “The lion is wonder to a bird or some exotic fauna, or still struggling with his courage,” Sheriff tells chattering about an upcoming group hiking Pitkin. “He has courage now, but he’s still expedition he’d organized to Morrow struggling because he never had to use it.” Mountain in the Uwharries just east of Sheriff had to make some connections in Charlotte. Amitabha carries an aura of order to get his production into Duke Energy positivity wherever he goes. He smiles and Theater, and his journey took the same laughs a lot. He’s utterly engaging, courage the Cowardly Lion had to internalize As it turns out, Amitabha is, as Creative in order to “be a lion.” The journey has Loafing writer Kia O. Moore describes been more than worthwhile for him in this week’s Music Maker Sheriff, as he’s helped forge a column, Charlotte nightlife’s new path for black theater in “King of Infinite Light,” a Charlotte. Until now, there’s “source for bringing people been Quentin Talley’s OnQ together.” He’s all about Performing Arts — and making connections in that’s about it. the city, and with his “OnQ opened that recent Funk-Shun events, door,” Sheriff tells Pitkin, he corrals wildly diverse “and we’re just opening it groups of Charlotteans to up wider.” explore and celebrate both In the music section on nature and urban spaces. MARK KEMP page 22, I talk to a 70-yearScroll through Amitabha’s old former airline pilot who Instagram feed and you’ll see has connected the birth of punk clips from a recent Black Linen video to Charlotte. Rob Lind was 17 in the shoot, a video from the perspective of a car mid-1960s when he formed a band in his driving to some unknown destination while hometown of Tacoma, Wash., The Sonics, the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” that would make a huge impact on several blasts joyously in the background, photos generations of rockers, from The Ramones of people laughing and mugging at his and Sex Pistols to the White Stripes and Funk-Shun parties, and numerous shots of numerous current Charlotte bands including elephants, birds, monkeys, lion cubs, forests, — whether they know it or not — The and colorful urban gatherings. Menders, The Modern Primitives and The His mission is to bring people together Business People. to do things they may not normally do. Lind had been living a quiet life in Like dance all night at a house party, or Huntersville for two decades when, in 2007, spend an afternoon in a forest, or gather promoters of a garage-rock festival asked for discussions about issues important to him to reconnect with his old high school maintaining positive energy among the bandmates, come out of a 40-year retirement different communities of Charlotte. and reform The Sonics. Their story since Connections. In this week’s CL, we make then has been nothing less than dramatic. a lot of them. And the icing on the cake? The Sonics will In the cover story on page 28, news perform in Lind’s adopted hometown of editor Ryan Pitkin connects with a Charlotte Charlotte for the first time ever on Friday, playwright and director who marched into May 19, at the Neighborhood Theatre. the local theater scene because he had a story If you see me out at Funk-shun event, or to tell. Rory Sheriff didn’t come to theater in the audience at Be a Lion, or watching The via the theater world; he was a radio guy Sonics blow the roof off the Neighborhood who wrote romance novels and dreamed of Theatre, make a connection. I’d love to get to know you better. getting a script green-lighted in Hollywood. In fact, he was working on a script one night CLCLT.COM | MAY. 18 - MAY. 24, 2017 | 7