The State of Things

Ironing Board Sam has been playing rhythm and blues professionally since he was 16 years old in Rock Hill, SC. He's now 73, living in Chapel Hill and his passion for music-making is as strong as ever. Sam is part of Hillsborough's Music Maker Relief Foundation, and he's just released a new album, “Going Up.” He's performing this Sunday, January 13th at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

Tomorrow night, Concord-based folk-rock band The Avett Brothers will play in Raleigh at the Governor’s Inaugural Ball Gala. But before they do, bassist Bob Crawford will join host Frank Stasio to talk about the evolution of the band from three guys in a van playing 200 shows a year to a Grammy-nominated, chart-topping phenomenon.

It took Obie-award winning playwright Rinde Eckert three tries before he embraced the brilliance of Moby Dick. Good thing he persevered, because it’s the subject of his play “And God Created Whales,” which follows a composer trying to adapt Melville’s classic into an opera as he slowly loses his memory. Host Frank Stasio talks to Rinde Eckert, composer, writer and actor in “And God Created Whales,” being put on by Playmakers Repertory Company at Kenan Theatre on the Campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through Sunday.

Audra Ang worked as a foreign correspondent for the AP in Beijing, China for seven years. And in her time there, she covered the devastating Sichuan earthquake, SARS, floods and political dissidents. But even in the most dire of moments, she always managed eat her way through. Audra Ang now lives in North Carolina. She joins host Frank Stasio to discuss her book about her experiences eating and reporting in China, “To the People, Food is Heaven: Stories of Food and Life in a Changing China” (Lyons Press/ 2012).

During the height of the recession, The Johnson Nursery Corporation owed its bank more than $1.5 million. But a few shrewd decisions and a lot of hard work has pulled the company out of the red and put it solidly in the black — and earned the company the award of Small Business of the Year from Business NC magazine.