Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the summer-warmup B9:
- He lived to be 94 years old, and nearly every one of those years was devoted to celebrating people’s lives through song. Locals come together to honor the great Pete Seeger.
- You can hear the hard, flinty, flat-as-a-tabletop landscape of West Texas in the dust-covered voice of the great singer-songwriter James McMurtry.
- One more weekend for the laugh-out-loud fun of “Becky’s New Car” at Mountain Community Theater.
- The Santa Cruz Symphony’s annual Pops concert is essentially a monument to the legendary film composer John Williams (“Star Wars,” “ET,” “Harry Potter” …).
- Who has collaborated with musicians as diverse as Snoop Dogg, Herbie Hancock and St. Vincent? Yes, it’s sax man Kamasi Washington.
- Take a deep dive into “The Deep Dark” with graphic-novel author Molly Knox Ostertag and her literary world of secrets.
- I don’t think I’ll ever get over the dark melancholy beauty of the Cowboy Junkies’ 1989 masterpiece “The Trinity Session.” All hail Margo Timmins!
- Wait … 15 local bands, $10, almost 8 hours of live music? Wow, the Santa Cruz Scene Celebration delivers bang for the buck.
- If you love the banjo, you can’t help but be thrilled at all the new directions that virtuoso Alison Brown has taken it.