July 28, 2023: Illuminating Sandy's thunder

Finding new things in the places we know and love is really what we're all about. So we're psyched that a Northfield singer songwriter is getting her time to shine. Sandy Bailey has spent a number of years making music, but her debut album "Daughter Of Abraham" comes out on August 18th, and she'll be performing in Northampton at Bands on Brewster on August 3rd. We invite her into the studio to talk about the links to history in her music, taking classes in Nashville, and bask in the sounds we got a glimpse of during her appearance at the Green River Festival. We find interesting and provocative theater happening at the base of the Berkshires in the Gem of the Valley: Chester. "The Light" is a production that places a focus on some of the nuances of black love that has just opened at Chester Theater. We talk with director Christina Franklin about making theater happen in western Mass as well as the importance of giving depth to BIPOC experiences in places where they can really make an impact. And we discover it in pitting two wines against each other in the Tina Turner Memorial Wine Thunderdome. For the first time ever we take the battle on the road to combine the conflict with Pizza Quest, our effort to find the best pizza in the four counties of western Mass, which lands us at Joe's Cafe Spaghetti and Pizza House in Northampton. There, we're met by Michael Quinlan, Joe's aficionado and Table & Vine Ambassador, who has us examine how one grape, in a way not unlike twins, grows to be so very different when placed on two different continents.