Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades

A Nostagic look at Tucson from the 1950s through 2000s

Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades Volume OneThe local entertainment scene in Tucson, Arizona during the 1950s into the 2000s was vibrant.

"Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades" is a comprehensive three-volume set that revives that period of Tucson local entertainment with articles, interviews and stories about the hundreds of musicians and entertainers who performed in Tucson nightclubs and theaters across 50 years. Read sample pages about Tucson's entertainment nightlife.

These stories and interviews are compiled from articles published in several local newspapers that covered the Tucson entertainment scene over those decades. The first volume of this series, published by EMOL.org, is now available soon on Amazon.com.

Step back into time and live, or relive, Tucson’s local entertainment scene over the decades.

Book Index (Find your name)

Read Excerpts from
Volume 1: 1950s-1985

Entertaining Tucson
Across the Decades

Table of Contents
The Compilation

Volume One:

Entertaining Tucson from 1950s through 1985

Read sample articles republished in the first volume.

Within these pages are the memories, and the experiences of those people and places. These are the original articles and interviews published in several local newspapers that covered the Tucson entertainment scene over the decades. Follow their stories through the years– the big breaks, record releases, hot performances and duds, break ups, tragedies, personal insights and struggles.

This new book is in recognition to all of the Tucsonans who kept us entertained over those decades and to those reporters and photographers who contributed their work and time to keep Tucson informed.

Purchase copies of Entertaining Tucson Across the DecadesTucson entertainment on amazon.com.

Volume 2 carries on the entertainment from 1986 through the early 2000s.s

Original Entertainment Magazine Video 1991

Statesboro Blues Band

Statesboro Blues Band

Dean Armstrong and Billy Burkes

1991: Dean Armstrong and Billy Burkes

Neon Prophet

1994: Neon Prophet

 
If you enjoyed listening to local Tucson musicians, or performed in Tucson, anytime between the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s through early 2000s, then you probably will be familiar with many of these people who performed music, theatre and comedy and nightclubs where they played.

Tucson's nightlife ranged from country, western, folk, rock and roll, reggae, Swing, Big Band, jazz, blues, new wave, disco, alternative and punk. Popular musicians like Giant Sandworms, Statesboro Blues Band, the Pills, Rainer, Dean Armstrong and hundreds of others.

Tucson is well known for producing such great national artists as Linda Ronstadt, Rex Allen and Garry Shandling.

"Entertaining Tucson" is a compilation of the Entertainment Magazine, Newsreal, Tucson Teen and other local tabloids which published during the 1980s.

The Index (volume 1: 1950s through 1985) provides a valuable print search tool to locate more than a thousand people, places and events that were recorded during those decades.

The Youth Alternatives, Youth Awareness Press, Tucson Teen & Entertainment Magazine

The first newspaper published for youth in Tucson was the summer 1979 edition of the Youth Alternatives, which became Youth Awareness Press the following winter. The Tucson Teen newspaper continued the concept of a youth newspaper in 1981. The Entertainment Magazine first published in 1981 (it was titled The Magazine until 1985).

The Entertainment Magazine ceased the print edition in January 1995 when it became one of the first Arizona newspapers to go online as EMOL.org. The monthly tabloids were published through the Tucson YWCA until 1981 and then through Southwest Alternatives Institute, Inc., a non-profit organization founded in 1977 to support community projects, like the Foundation for Creative Broadcasting which later became KXCI-FM radio station, and dozens of other Tucson groups. Robert Zucker served as director, editor and publisher of all of the newspapers.

Mountain Newsreal & Newsreal

The Mountain Newsreal started in 1974 as a monthly alternative culture tabloid by Jonathan L. It evolved into the popular music magazine, Newsreal. Jonathan L. His radio career began in Tucson, Arizona in 1982 at KLPX-FM with a show "Virgin Vinyl" which predates Alternative radio. He left Tucson in 1986 to start up alternative radio station KEYX-FM. Jonathan L is an American radio presenter, programmer, and entertainment media publisher who now lives in Berlin, Germany for the past four years.

Jonathan L organized his first large music festival for alternative station KUKQ in Phoenix, Arizona in 1989, years before the launch of festivals like Lollapalooza and the KROQ Weenie Roasts. For this reason, he is often called the “father of all radio festivals.” In 2005 he returned form Los Angeles to create "Lopsided World Of L" which ran on Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings on KUPD-FM until he moved to Germany in 2010. The "Lopsided World of L" is produced and presented internationally every week by Jonathan L from his flat in Berlin, Germany.

Street Pajama

1985: Street Pajama


"Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades: Volume One"

ISBN-13: 978-1-939050-06-9
ISBN: 19390500065

2014 © Southwest Alternatives Institute, Inc.
2014 © Entertainment Magazine and BZB Publishing, Inc., Robert Zucker.
2014 © Newsreal, Jonathan L.

All rights are reserved. These are the compiled works of contributed materials from writers and photographers previously published in the Tucson Teen, Magazine, Entertainment Magazine and Newsreal newspapers, and from Entertainment Magazine On Line (EMOL.org). No part of the material protected by this copyright may be reproduced or utilized in any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher.

Permission is granted to use quotes and cite references to the contents in this book with proper credit noted: “Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades,” © 2014 Entertainment Magazine.”
First Edition: 2014

From 1978 through 1994, Robert Edward Zucker published several Tucson, Arizona-based tabloid newspapers– Youth Alternatives, Youth Awareness Press, Tucson Teen, The Magazine and Entertainment Magazine. Robert Zucker, publisher

Published by BZB Publishing, Inc.

Email: publisher@emol.org
Web: http://emol.org/

Printed in the United States of America by Kindle, an Amazon.com company.

Available for sale through Amazon.com and other outlets, including Antigone Books and Mostly Books in Tucson, Arizona.

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