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Drummond comes home to show songwriting

Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:

• Dennis Drummond started getting attention for his guitar playing as a teenager.

His appearances on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2017 made folks recognize his singing ability. Now the Warren native wants to be noticed for his songwriting.

Drummond comes home from Nashville for a performance Friday at Curated Vintage Goods, 310 Elm Road NE, Warren.

“I didn’t want to do it in a bar,” Drummond said. “I thought that’d be a really cool environment for me to have a night of music. I can play what I’ve been working on, a little bit of covers that have inspired me but mostly originals that I’ve written with other people. Something unplugged with a storytellers vibe.”

Playing in bars in the Mahoning Valley when he was growing up and in college, Drummond said it was an atmosphere where people wanted to hear covers. Break out an original, and those in the crowd, “Go on a pee break or get another beer.”

He moved to Nashville seven years ago after graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston, and in that songwriting capital, creating your own material was encouraged.

“All the money and longevity comes from writing,” he said. “You can’t limit what you do. You have to use all your limbs.”

Some of the songs Drummond has co-written have been recorded by such Nashville artists (and fellow “Voice” alumni) as Adam Wakefield and Nolan Neal. Drummond frequently tours with them and writes with them.

“My stuff is all over the map,” he said. “Obviously, my roots are with blues and soul, and there’s an undertow of that in my originals. I write them with all different kinds of artists. We spend a lot of time in hotel rooms, and a lot of these songs happened over late nights trying to wind down from playing a show.”

Drummond eventually wants to record these songs himself, but making the kind of album he wants to make is expensive, and he wants to do it right.

Joining Drummond on Friday will be vocalist Hoss Jarman, guitar player Nik Killa and saxophone player Fred Burazer, and the trip also gives Drummond a chance to be home around his birthday.

“I’m using it as a reason to see the people I want to see and play with the people I want to play with,” he said.

Doors open at 6 p.m., and the music will start around 7 p.m. Admission is $10 with tickets available in advance at the shop or at the door. Alcohol won’t be sold, but ticket buyers age 21 and older can take part in a bourbon tasting.

“Roll Red Roll,” a documentary about the sexual assault of a teenage girl in Steubenville by members of its high school football team, will premiere next week on PBS.

The film, directed by Nancy Schwartzman, won awards at several film festivals in 2018 and has a perfect score with 23 positive reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes.

It is being shown as part of the PBS documentary series “POV.” According to the press release for its television premiere, “As it painstakingly reconstructs the night of the crime and its aftermath, ‘Roll Red Roll’ uncovers the ingrained rape culture at the heart of the incident, acting as a cautionary tale about what can happen when teenage social media bullying runs rampant and adults look the other way.”

The case has a local connection since Ma’Lik Richmond, one of the athletes convicted in the case, played football for Youngstown State University. Richmond, who was a minor when the crime occurred, served nine months in detention and nines months on parole.

It will be shown at 10 p.m. Monday on Western Reserve Media / WNEO-TV’s Fusion subchannel and at 10:30 p.m. June 22 on its primary signal.

• George Clinton, a 1997 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, will play a concert at the hall on July 20 as part of his One Nation Under a Groove farewell tour.

Dumpstaphunk and Miss Velvet & the Blue Wolf will open the 7 p.m. show.

Regular admission is $35 and includes Rock Hall admission that day. VIP tickets are $75 and include admission to an intimate conversation with Clinton in the Rock Hall Foster Theater at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are available now for Rock Hall members and go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Friday at ticketing.rockhall.com.

Andy Gray is the entertainment writer for the Tribune Chronicle. Write to him at agray@tribtoday .com

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