Latest From Heart Of Gold Entertainment!

Hi John,

Hard to believe that two years have passed since we met in Hollywood for our young artist showcase. Fredrik Strand Halland is trying to make some in-roads in the United States. He attended SXSW in Austin, Texas and continues to make progress with singing in English. It is hard to watch great talent struggle while some with little talent get packaged and find success. Grant Austin Taylor finally got his Gibson endorsement and is leading a younger band called Holly Road while still performing with adults as the Grant Austin Taylor Band. A few other young ones to watch are Tyler Dow Bryant not a kid but not yet 21) and Levi Platero.

Rather than curse the darkness that is the music industry these days, I am lighting a candle. I was fortunate to meet an amazing young man who had his own internet radio show that featured young artists from all over the world. Brent Albert led a tragic life but he was relentlessly positive in his attitude and always encouraged others that came across his path. Brent's lost his twin brother to leukemia and lived with his dad apart from his drug addicted mom. Music was his refuge and inspiration. In April of 2008 he went to a doctor for the chronic headaches he was having and after some tests, was diagnosed with a PNET brain tumor. Rather than retreat into his own world, Brent saw teens and kids in the pediatric oncology department at Hershey Medical Center who were scared, isolated and in constant pain. He knew that music could help them as it had helped him throughout his life. Brent would call me, often late at night when he couldn't sleep and we would talk about how to bring music into the lives of these kids. We read up on music therapy and discovered that this was an area of concentration at some of the better music schools like Berklee College of Music. It is so much more than just having musicians come in and play for patients. Our next task was to find an existing nonprofit that would "sponsor" our idea of bringing music therapy and a library of music to hospitals and infusion centers everywhere. We found Rock Against Cancer (www.rockagainstcancer.org) and I wrote a proposal. Lisa White and her Board welcomed us and Brent was overjoyed. I remember sending Brent 10 iPod nanos packaged in Apple Computer bags with stuffed animals. Brent was so excited in handing them out at his hospital with his dad. He let us know that he wasn't going to see this project all the way through and it was harder for us to accept this than it was for him. He had a strong spiritual (not religious) connection through his partial native heritage. In January he seemed to be rallying from an emergency surgery so I went to NAMM as he demanded I do. On my way home to the Bay Area, around 8 p.m. after a magnificent sunset just two hours earlier, I felt a warm and peaceful feeling come over me. About two hours later I arrived home and checked my computer. There was an email from Brent's younger brother Shane telling me that Brent had passed away around 11 pm eastern time, just an hour before his 16th birthday on January 19th.

So now Heart of Gold Entertainment is focused on making the Soulshine Project (named after the song written by Warren Haynes and performed by the Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule) a fitting legacy for Brent and a new resource for young people in treatment for cancer and other life altering conditions. We began our fund raising in May with the first of many small benefits hosted by young artists. We are documenting their efforts and will approach larger donors soon. We are in a position where all funds raised by the young artists will be double matched. We are pushing to raise $12,500 by year end. This will be matched by a wealthy private donor and then this total will be matched by Hot Topic. If all goes according to plan, we will have $50,000 which is what we need to start a comprehensive music therapy program at Hershey Medical Center (Penn. State University) where Brent was treated. If you have any suggestions or can give Soulshine Project a mention, let me know. We also have a compilation CD in the works that has a strong line up of donated tracks from young artists worldwide.

Warmly,

Bill Boyrer

(650) 444-1277

bill@heartofgoldent.com

Memphis Musician Jim Dickinson Dies At 67!

By Bob Mehr (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal

The North Mississippi Allstars have lost their father, Bob Dylan has lost a “brother,” rock and roll has lost one of its great cult heroes and Memphis has lost a musical icon with the death of Jim Dickinson.

The 67-year-old Dickinson passed away early Saturday morning in his sleep. The Memphis native and longtime Mississippi resident had been in failing health for the past few months and was recuperating from heart surgery at Methodist Extended Care Hospital.

Ebet Roberts

Iconic Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson has died at age 67.

Lance Murphey/The Commercial Appeal

Musician and producer Jim Dickinson listens in May 2006 to the new 5.1 surround sound mixing console at Young Avenue Sound recording studio with engineer Jennifer Lee.

Ardent Studios

Jim Dickinson in 1965. Dickinson, a musician and producer who helped shape the Memphis sound in an influential career that spanned more than four decades, was 67.

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“He went peacefully,” said his wife, Mary Lindsay Dickinson, adding that her husband remained in good spirits until the end. “He had a great life. He loved his family and music. And he loved Memphis music, specifically.”

During the course of his colorful half-century career, Dickinson built a worldwide reputation as a session player for the likes of Dylan and The Rolling Stones, a producer for influential groups including Big Star and The Replacements, a sometime solo artist and the patriarch of a small musical dynasty through his sons, Cody and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars.

Just last weekend, a tribute concert headlined by singer-songwriter John Hiatt and featuring a host of Memphis musicians was held at The Peabody Skyway to help defray Dickinson’s medical costs.

Dickinson’s earthy musical approach resonated with his peers: Bob Dylan, who was a longtime friend and collaborator, acknowledged him as a “brother” while accepting a Grammy award for 1997’s Time Out of Mind; The Rolling Stones, ever wary of outsiders, brought Dickinson in to add his soulful piano touch to their classic Sticky Fingers ballad “Wild Horses.”

As a producer, Dickinson was a studio alchemist in the tradition of such great Memphians as Sam Phillips and Chips Moman, for whom he worked. Dickinson was willing take on any role, acting as a protector, parent or prankster for his artists — thus helping him forge creatively rewarding relationships with difficult talents including Alex Chilton, Paul Westerberg and Ry Cooder.

Dickinson’s reach and impact on Memphis music over the last four decades is significant; perhaps more than anyone, he was uniquely connected to the city’s historic past and its present.

In addition to being one of the key forces behind the rise of Memphis’ Ardent Studios, Dickinson’s deconstructionist roots-rock band Mud Boy & the Neutrons proved a seminal influence on several generations of local acts.

Dickinson remained busy during his final years, continuing to produce local artists, including the breakthrough CD for Memphis roots chanteuse Amy LaVere, as well as several projects for his sons. He’d also been writing and performing with a crew of musicians half his age in the garage bands Snake Eyes and Trashed Romeos in recent months.

Born in Little Rock on Nov. 15, 1941, and briefly raised in Chicago before settling in Memphis, the young James Luther Dickinson came up in a musical hothouse, influenced by his piano-teacher mother and mesmerized by the sounds permeating from the radio.

“There was something about the voice coming out of the box that got me. That’s where it all started,” Dickinson recalled in his final interview, given to The Commercial Appeal in May.

As a student at White Station High School, Dickinson formed his first band, The Regents; he later had the distinction of singing on The Jesters’ 1966 garage-rock nugget “Cadillac Man,” the last great release on Sun Records.

After a stint in college in Texas, Dickinson returned to the Bluff City, where he began a career as a session player, eventually forming The Dixie Flyers, a group that became house band for Atlantic Records, and backing artists such as soul queen Aretha Franklin and R&B belter Little Richard.

In 1972, Dickinson released his first solo record, the cult classic Dixie Fried. The LP would prove the apotheosis of a kaleidoscopic musical vision he dubbed “world boogie.”

Significantly, starting in the mid-’70s, Dickinson made an almost seamless transition from working with mainstream major label acts to punk and indie artists. Beginning with his work on the seminal Big Star album Third/Sister Lovers, Dickinson’s “anything goes” aesthetic made him a favorite choice to produce numerous alternative acts in the ’80s and ’90s.