The diva gods are not being kind to Durham Performing Arts Center this month, with Adele and Aretha Franklin calling off dates. And now country legend Loretta Lynn's show is off. She was to play DPAC Sunday night, but the date has been scotched due to illness according to a post on Lynn's website:

Loretta regretfully must cancel her shows for Ashland KY, and Durham, NC for this weekend, due to illness. Doctors have diagnosed her with the beginning stages pneumonia, and will continue to need rest. Loretta is doing well and is disappointed but feels confident she will be ready for upcoming November dates.

DPAC management hopes to reschedule the date.

UPDATE (10/24/11): Hot dog, they did reschedule it -- to Jan. 8.

Durham Performing Arts Center has been on a major booking binge this week, announcing shows by everybody from Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly (Feb. 3) to "This American Life" sage Ira Glass (March 24). But they saved the best for today: Paul Simon, in his first Triangle show in many a moon.

Simon will play DPAC on Dec. 1. Tickets start at $59 and "officially" go on sale Oct. 21; but start prowling around online now to check for pre-sale action.

Well, it was bound to happen: Aretha Franklin has stood up the Triangle yet again, for the fourth time. Franklin's Oct. 16 show at Durham Performing Arts Center has been postponed, to Feb. 9.

Franklin's track record on local cancellations gives no reason for optimism that the show will happen then, either. But at least this time, there's a plausible excuse. The Queen of Soul was to sing last month at a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C., an event scuttled by Hurricane Irene. That was rescheduled for Oct. 16, necessitating postponement of Franklin's Durham date.

In 2005 and 2006, Franklin was scheduled to play Cary's Booth Amphitheater. Both shows were canceled after tickets went on sale, as was a 2007 date at UNC-Chapel Hill. Maybe the fourth time will turn out to (belatedly) be the charm.

The show is sold out, and tickets will be honored. For details, see dpacnc.com.

So this is kinda cool. Four tickets, parking and food and drink vouchers will be awarded Monday, Sept. 26, to the first team that is able to solve the clues and find Frank’s fedoras hidden throughout the American Tobacco District and surrounding area.

The scavenger hunt will involve four stops all within walking distance of the Durham Performing Arts Center.  The event will begin at the DPAC Box office with check-in at 11:45 a.m. and challenge beginning at noon. All participating teams will receive a special ticket offer to purchase tickets for "Come Fly Away," a new Broadway musical conceived, choreographed, and directed by Tony Award-winner Twyla Tharp and by special arrangement with the Frank Sinatra Family and Frank Sinatra Enterprises.

The event will be limited to the first eight teams to register. Register at dpactrivia@yahoo.com. You must be 18 years or older to participate.  Teams are limited to four participants.

Doom 'n' gloom is very much the norm these days, and it's easy to see why. In Dolly Parton's world, however, there is cause for hope no matter how dire things seem. On-record as well as in conversation, the woman somehow still exudes an optimism that is as refreshing as it is unusual. Trust me, you could use a dose of it. So check out the interview, previewing her upcoming show in Durham.

Well, you've got to give Durham Performing Arts Center's management credit for nerve. Aretha Franklin has been announced for Oct. 16 at the DPAC, with tickets going on sale next Friday, July 29.

This isn't the first time the legendary queen of soul has been scheduled to play the Triangle, but maybe it will actually happen this time. In fact, she's been scheduled three times this decade -- at Cary's Booth Amphitheatre in 2005 and 2006, and at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007 -- only to cancel all three shows after tickets had gone on sale.

Fingers crossed it really happens this time. In an ironic bit of timing, her show falls the same week that another performer with a shakey track record of keeping his dates will play the NC State Fair: George "No Show" Jones, penciled in for Oct. 18.

Here's a look at today's local headlines:

MISSION MEETING: (which makes me think of 'Missionary Man,' which makes me think of the Eurythmics, a bright spot of otherwise forgettable '80s pop music, but I digress). The expansion of the Durham Rescue Mission has raised concern among some in the Golden Belt neighborhood. Now at least the two sides are talking.

HOMELESS CONTRACT: It's not a lot of money, but should the city be paying a worker up to $1,000 a month in expenses to work at home when original plans called for a government desk and phone? City Councilman Eugene Brown doesn't think so.

BEHIND THE CAMERA: Deirdre Haj is taking the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival to places it hasn't been before. Correspondent Matthew Milliken reports on a new camp that is training the next generation of filmmakers here in the Bull City.

Bob Wilson says DPAC's proof is in the profits, David Sterling say patience really is a blessing, and Marshall Lewis, son of former Senate candidate Ken, is back from a revolutionary ride.  

Hey, we're on Facebook now.  You can friend me for more local news and like our Chapel Hill News and Durham News pages for even more.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

Here's a look at today's local headlines:

DPAC ATTENDANCE UP: 15 percent, they say. And later this summer we'll learn what that means for Durham's city coffers. The city-owned theater contributes 40 percent of net earnings back to a building improvement and maintenance fund.

BIGGER, BETTER CENTERFEST: But will it stay on that Foster Street parking lot? Sure, it makes sense for vendors (electrical hook-ups, easier security), but arts on the asphalt. Really?

WEST ELLERBE PATH PICKED: That greenway connection/extension up by the North Pointe shopping center? Staff writer Jim Wise says It's taking the scenic route.  

Bob Wilson says Becky Heron has given her all. Self-Help says it has and will keep seeking public input in East Durham, and an autopsy shows a woman at the center of a triple murder-suicide in June was shot 13 times. Tragic.

Thanks for reading,

Mark   

Chalk up another righteous booking for Durham Performing Arts Center, which will play host this fall to Adele -- the young British neo-soul singer who has had the top of the charts locked down for much of this year with her album "21." Adele's label just released her latest tour schedule with six new dates, one of which is Oct. 8 at DPAC. Ticket details are not yet available.

UPDATE (6/24/11): Tickets will go on-sale Friday, July 22.

By David Menconi
Staff writer
DURHAM -- Back when he made his bones doing standup comedy, Steve Martin used to demonstrate why the banjo is the happiest of all instruments. He'd plunk out a tune on his banjo while crooning, "Oh death and grief and sorrow and murder" -- and yeah, it came out sounding kinda joyful.

But that was nothing compared to his Saturday night show at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Backed up by the Brevard bluegrass quintet Steep Canyon Rangers, Martin was musically and comedically droll from the moment he strode onstage in the white suit that has long been his trademark.

"Thank you and good night," he said in response to the audience's standing ovation, drawing the first of many laughs. "We're going to start with a song we have completely memorized!"

Almost all of the 22 songs they played during the two-hour-plus set were Martin's originals, including the opening "Pitkin County Turnaround." Everyone on the front line took a solo, including Martin himself, establishing his musical credibility right off the bat.

Martin is more than solid as a banjo player, although he's not as technically polished as the Rangers. The main difference comes across more obviously live than on-record, in that he's more self-conscious and less at-ease. He spent a great deal of time between songs tuning and struggling with capos on his four different banjos ("Because I have four very small penises," he quipped at one point).

"I'm out of tune," he said at one point. "No, I am in tune -- I was just playing badly!"

No, he did just fine. And the good part about the tuning intervals was that they gave Martin ample time to tell jokes, often with the Rangers as collective straight men. Introducing the breakup song "Jubilation Day," Martin asked rhetorically if they'd ever had anyone in their midst they desperately wanted to get rid of; the Rangers' wordless postures made for one of the best jokes of the night.

Other highlights included "Wally on the Run," a song about a game of fetch that concluded with an actual dog running onto the stage; Martin's recurrent jokes about Rangers guitarist Woody Platt's name (which he said sounded like it came from a "Bluegrass Name Generator"); "Atheists Don't Have No Songs," a gospel-style a capella tune sporting what might be the greatest terrible vocal in music history; and an encore version of "Orange Blossom Special" featuring virtuoso fiddle work from Nicky Sanders, who worked in flourishes of everything from the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" to Handel's "Messiah."

"A dilettante is someone who dabbles in things he knows nothing about," Martin said at one point. He might be a wild and crazy guy, but Martin ain't no dilettante.

david.menconi@newsobserver.com or blogs.newsobserver.com/beat or 919-829-4759