Jim Simpson

By Jim Simpson
In a small brick building on Buford Highway across from the bustling Town Center Park, Suwanee Chief of Police Mike Jones sits behind an impressive wooden desk discussing philosophy. Not Descartes, Kierkegaard or Kant, but “community policing.”

By Jim Simpson
Much has changed in Buford over the past 100 years, especially in the shoe business. The Tannery Row campus that today features the eponymous artist colony and ale house, along with office space, was originally home to the Bona Allen Shoe Factory. Built in 1919, the business became immediately successful by using scrap leather pieces from other divisions of the tanner to make and sell their footwear. By 1921 there were 521,000 pairs of shoes produced and sold from the building.

Warm weather is coming, and along with it a new brewery for Suwanee. Set to open this summer, Monkey Wrench Brewing is gearing up in a 16,000-square-foot building on Martin Farm Road, a short jog from the Suwanee Creek Greenway or a leisurely bike ride from Town Center Park.

By Jim Simpson
Gwinnett County is quickly becoming a political battleground. Recent visits by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren to a Lawrenceville high school and Trump daughter/administration advisor Ivanka Trump to a Duluth UPS training facility have put the county in the national spotlight.

Two months before the October release of her debut solo album, "Navigate the Madness," Asheville musician Eleanor Underhilll woke up at 3 a.m. in a panic. Two years of writing, recording and mixing the biggest project the 37-year-old artist had ever created came down to one dark moment of anxiety.

For The Atlanta Journal-Constituion

A mother’s worst nightmare, a daughter’s downfall and the road to recovery

Atlanta native Caroline Aiken is a world-class musician and songwriter. She’s also a gifted storyteller, and if you give her half a chance, she’ll talk your ear off. But what a delightful way to spend an afternoon or evening. There’s a reason she’s been referred to as “a timeless wonder.”

Music has always had the power to bring people together. This is exceedingly true for Eleanor Underhill and Molly Rose, the duo known as Underhill Rose. While attending Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, both met by chance over a Bonnie Raitt cover of a John Prine song.

For those who’ve never experienced a Michelle Malone live show, you’ve missed her incredible range, from hurricane-force vocals and spitfire guitar licks to sweet and soulful ballads. For those who have seen her, you’re the choir. All you first-timers, prepare to be baptised.

The beloved Atlanta born-and-bred Malone brings her dynamic vocals and slide guitar to the Train Depot on Saturday for an unplugged acoustic show with Atlanta guitarist Reno Roberts.

Following a tumultuous experience wit...

ESOEBO -- pron. e-SO-bo; acronym for Eclectic Selections of Everything But Opera. Chuck McDowell’s work can seem deceptively simple and light, hiding complex undercurrents of meaning. Or it can be dark, concealing a sly playfulness.

A benefit concert for Gwinnett County police officer Michael Duncan, who was paralyzed in a helicopter crash in September, is set for Dec. 13 at Eddie Owen’s Red Clay Music Foundry in Duluth.

Local band ESOEBO (Eclectic Selections of Everything But Opera), fronted by Chuck McDowell and Gail Burnett, will perform and all proceeds will go to the Duncan family.

Kelly Bowlin, founder of the Gwinnett School of Music, has a passion for live music.

Review of Granville Automatic album.

In three sets with three different bands over nearly three hours, Levi Lowrey showed a packed house at the Red Clay Music Foundry what he’s all about. The Dacula, Georgia, native can trace his musical roots back over thirty years when he was a twelve-year-old fiddle player working up the nerve to play at “The Chicken House” in Dacula with bluegrass legends the Skillet Lickers.

Listening to this album is akin to spending a lazy afternoon playing underwater bocce ball with Weeki Wachee mermaids, or enjoying a game of Kubb with rapacious and colorfully animated garden gnomes in a woodland meadow -- in short, playfully anachronistic yet inherently engrossing.