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• Gallery: 2007 Entertainment and Features

The Keith-Albee got a makeover and just in time for Taylor Swift and Peter Pan; Hillbilly Hotdogs was featured on CNN Headline News and had the Food Network in town; Marilyn Monroe was at the Museum of Art; local rockers Scenes From A Movie played Vans Warped Tour (before creating their own band drama) and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame hosted its first induction.

Yes, it's been quite the year.

Here's a look back at just of the few of the cool happenings in arts and entertainment in 2007.

Marilyn brings the pop art life to museum

The Huntington Museum of Art was one of only a handful of American museums to snag the German-built art exhibit, " "Life as a Legend: Marilyn Monroe."

The exhibit featured more than 240 pieces of artwork focusing on the pop legend and ranged from black-and-white photography to contemporary painting from the late 1950s and early '60s.

Photographers such as Douglass Kirkland and Sam Shaw were featured and other notable artists included Sarah Schumann, Antonio de Felipe and Volker Hildebrand.

From mid-July to early September, more than 6,000 people saw the exhibition.

Hillbilly Hotdogs unveils the Doublewide

On Thursday, July 19, Huntington attorney Kit Thornton, his wife Kathleen, and Kit's rugby team laid hands on one of the first 10-pound burgers, Big Bad Bubba's Doublewide, off the grill at Hillbilly Hotdogs, 1501 3rd Ave.

By the next day, it was the burger seen 'round the world as CNN Headline News, Fox News, AP, and just about every other media outlet got footage of the beastly burger that includes: 61/2 pounds of pure Logan's fresh beef (that will take about 30 minutes for it to cook), two heads of lettuce, at least two pounds of pickles, six whole tomatoes sliced, almost three onions, 25 slices of American cheese and ketchup and mustard.

Not to let the year go out quietly, Hillbilly Hotdogs also had Grand Ol' Opry star Little Jimmy Dickens stop in to get a grub-on in November, and also was visited by the Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-In's and Dives" and its host Guy Fieri.

Fieri also visited Rocco Muriale and his top-shelf Italian restaurant, Rocco's Ristorante in Ceredo.

Going first class with the Hall of Fame

The West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in Charleston had a rocket start out of the gate in 2007.

The HOF inducted its first 10-member class on Nov. 16, at the Cultural Center Theatre in Charleston with all of the living nominees in the theater, an all-star band that included Tim O'Brien and Don Dixon, and such illustrious presenters as Alison Krauss, Kathy Mattea, and Mike Seeger.

The ceremony was shown statewide on West Virginia Public Television.

The HOF also put together several well-received traveling exhibits including "The Art of West Virginia Music" and last, but not least, a critically-acclaimed, internationally released CD, "Always Lift Him Up: A Tribute to Blind Alfred Reed," that featured such acts as Ray Benson, Larry Groce, Kathy Mattea, Little Jimmy Dickens and Tim and Mollie O'Brien.

Go online at www.wvmusichalloffame.com.

Video art at the HMOA

The Huntington Museum of Art turned the camera on in 2007.

Armed with a $45,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Museum hosted a year-long video art series called "VIDEO: Beyond the Frame," that featured exhibitions by renowned video artists such as Lorna Simpson, Bill Viola, Peter Sarkisian and Mary Lucier whose works were up for 21/2 months each in the Switzer Gallery.

One of the first major video art shows in the Tri-State, the year-long series also sponsored the first Video Jam, a video contest that was part of the regional juried art show, Exhibition 280, a contemporary art exhibit for artists in West Virginia and from the five states that border West Virginia: Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Go online at www.hmoa.org for more information.

Mountain Stage in High Def

Mountain Stage with host Larry Groce made a valiant return to TV in 2007 -- its first new TV shows since 2003.

In August, the internationally heard radio show, premiered the one-hour special, "Bristol -- The Birthplace of Country Music,"on a 35-foot high def screen at the Paramount Center For the Arts in Bristol by a select audience.

The show then went nationwide beginning Aug. 25.

The premiere kicked off a new HD-TV series that is being seen around the country by about 65 million households watching 200 PBS stations.

Mountain Stage also showed "Bristol" and its show on the Guthrie family at the West Virginia Fall International Film Festival in Charleston in October.

National Quilt Trail conference hosted by Ashland

The idea for painting quilt squares on a barn started in 2000 in the Ohio River county of Adams by Donna Sue Groves.

There are now more than 1,000 quilt squares painted around the country creating quilt trails in Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Texas and beyond.

In the fall, the ABC Quilt Alley in Ashland and Boyd County hosted dozens of quilters from around the country for the first National Quilt Trail Conference.

Quilters came and checked out quilt displays around the area as well as the quilt blocks up in Ashland, Catlettsburg and Greenup.

Go online at www.abcqull talley.com.

"Cam Henderson Story" released

Huntington-based Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmakers Deborah Novak and John Witek ("Ashes to Glory") presented their next big project, "Cam Henderson: A Coach's Story" that debuted in March on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

"Cam Henderson" looks at the life of one of West Virginia's greatest coaches, who invented basketball's zone defense and fast break and who racked up a record 362 basketball wins during a dual coaching career (basketball and football) from 1935 to 1955 at Marshall.

Witek and Novak visited 25 libraries and conducted dozens of interviews with former Henderson athletes, acquaintances and historians. What emerged is a vivid portrait of a stoic and misunderstood man who died from complications brought about by diabetes.

A DVD complete with four bonus features is now available.

Marshall professor's book named as one of the best

No surprise here, but The Washington Post in its Dec. 2, issue named Jean Edward Smith's 880-page biography, "FDR," about Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the top five non-fiction books of 2007.

In reviewing FDR, Jonathan Yardley, book critic for the Post, said FDR is "a model presidential biography. Now, at last, we have the book that is right for the man."

"FDR" was released in Spring 2007. Smith was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his biography of Ulysses Grant.

Local rock on the road

The Tri-State may be all about the Country Music Highway, but in 2007, several locally-based rock acts were making a joyful noise.

Mason County-based metal act, Bobaflex released its sophomore TVT Records release, "Tales From Dirt Town," and was out on the road nationally.

Scenes From A Movie (made up of some ex-MU students) got booked on the summer-long Warped Tour, and dropped a major label CD, "The Pulse," on One Big Spark.

They were named SPIN's band of the day on Sept., 14, but soon after had a band breakup when two guys left the band.

Tri-State native Christian rock act, Our Hearts Hero dropped its first CD produced on Gotee Records on Sept. 18, and then hit the Punk The Halls tour to end the year. The band has been compared to Switchfoot and Jimmy Eat World.

Huntington-based rockers, Jeff and Julie Westlake took their metal-built music machine, Hydrogyn to Europe for a couple tours, including a November stint of 15 dates in 19 days that included sold-out shows in Italy.

Spaulding making A scene

Denise Spaulding and friends made a real scene in Catlettsburg in fall of 2007.

Spaulding and her crew of Make A Scene Murals (fellow artists Melanie Osborne and Gary Preston), finished up a 15-foot-high and 120-foot-long mural that included Virginia Point and the mouth of the river with a coal barge passing in the background.

A boat in the foreground of the mural that is filled with about 200 passengers including many local personalities such as the late, drummer Keith Justice.

For more information about the murals, call Spaulding at (606) 325-9482.

Highlands receives $160,000 gift

The Highlands Museum and Discovery Center, 1620 Winchester Ave., Ashland, had a busy 2007.

The museum, which had undergone a $300,000 renovation in 2006, opened the new Discovery Cavern in 2007.

In November, Highlands unveiled "Coming Home," a new exhibit by Ashland native painter Joyce Williams, a Lexington resident who donated 72 paintings to the museum valued at $160,000.

Arena gone wild

The Big Sandy Superstore Arena went part of 2007 without a concert but more than made up for it the last half of 2007.

Just some of the acts that played the Arena from August on were: Willie Nelson, Ray Price and Merle Haggard, American Idol on Tour, ZZ Top, Ne-Yo and Lloyd, Kidz Bop, Three Days Grace, Seether, Red and Breaking Benjamin and last but not least CMT on Tour with Sugarland, Little Big Town and Jake Owen.

In '07, the Arena also got a much-needed landscaping makeover in its plaza, which also received the art installation that had been formerly set up in 9th Street Plaza.

Paramount hosts Nickel Creek farewell

The three amazing amigos of acoustic music: brother and sister, Sean and Sara Watkins, and Chris Thile, have blazed a brave new musical trail since they met up as pre-teens in a San Diego pizza joint in 1989.

Burning up the road for more than 100 dates a year since 2000, and hitting such wide-ranging fests as Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Merlefest, The Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Austin City Limits Music Festival, and the Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK, the Sugar Hill Records recording artists have decided to take a well-deserved breather.

And in July, the Grammy Award-winning group brought its "Farewell For Now Tour," to the historic Paramount Arts Center and made everyone misty-eyed.

Yes, of course, they stayed outside in the parking lot, hanging and kept on picking long after the lights were down.

Greenbo opens amphitheater

Greenbo Lake State Resort Park near Greenup, Ky., opened its $650,000 amphitheater and didn't wait a minute to pack the schedule with a dizzying array of talent.

The hills of Greenup County were alive with the sound of plays, dancing, arts camps, symphonies, battling bands, Shakespeare and more arts than you could dream.

The amphitheater, which has fixed seating for 400 people and a second tier of lawn seating, hosted the Col. Bill Williams Music Heritage Festival and Greenup County High School's presentation of Jesse Stuart's "The Thread That Runs So True."

Howie McCormick/The Herald-Dispatch

Community members came together to revamp the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center, making it a showplace for area concerts and theater productions.

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