NETFLIX PICKS: Alaina Blake & Dylan Hawf, a married Eureka Springs music duo, got an unexpected gift before their wedding last month.
From Netflix.
Hawf says, "We received an email from [an executive]. And he said he had researched a lot of musicians in the Ozarks and thought Alaina's voice would best fit the bill and wanted us to cover Frank Sinatra's 'Summer Wind' for the series Ozark."
Yes, that Ozark -- the popular drama about money laundering set around Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks that stars Jason Bateman and Laura Linney.
Hawf says they already were acquainted with Ozark: "We're big fans of the show, actually."
So when they received the email, he says, 'We kind of thought, 'Yeah right.' ... But she called him the next day and it turned out to be real. This was actually the day before our wedding. ... He wanted it in about a week."
They recorded the song at Homestead Recording in Fayetteville; owner Eric Witthans helped them find musicians and produce it.
"We recorded in about an hour really, so it flowed pretty well and everyone worked very professionally. ... It just worked," Hawf says, describing the final product as "bluesy" and "lonesome."
They don't know how the song will be used. Still, Hawf says they are "excited for the opportunity to represent the music of the Ozarks on a global platform."
Netflix recently announced that Ozark's second season will drop Aug. 31.
So expect to hear their "Summer Wind" this summer.
OFF-BROADWAY PLAY: Little Rock has opened in The Big Apple.
"History called it heroism. They called it high school. Little Rock tells the riveting true story of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend their city's formerly segregated central high school," says the description of the play on the website of New York City's Sheen Center for Thought & Culture where the show is being performed. Six surviving members of The Little Rock Nine attended the June 14 debut, according to Playbill.com.
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is the writer and director of the off-Broadway production. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he has directed several shows (like Dreamgirls and Intimate Apparel) for Little Rock's Arkansas Repertory Theatre. His play It Happened in Little Rock, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1957 desegregation of Central High School, opened the 2007-08 Rep season.
Maharaj told the Democrat-Gazette back in 2007: "I went to Central because like most Americans, Central was really just kind of a footnote in my Black History Heritage Month studies. As I walked down the halls, I could feel so deeply the history of it."
And now Sheen Center audiences can experience that history through Sept. 8.
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