Nick Gold

Pretend for a moment that you're Nick Gold, owner of a small British record label called World Circuit. You should be having the time of your life--except for those nagging worries about the future. Most people don't know this, but you--not Ry Cooder--are the driving force behind the Buena Vista Social Club, the nostalgic 1997 collection of old Cuban standards that became an unlikely international phenomenon in record sales, on film and on the concert stage.

Pretend for a moment that you're Nick Gold, owner of a small British record label called World Circuit. You should be having the time of your life--except for those nagging worries about the future. Most people don't know this, but you--not Ry Cooder--are the driving force behind the Buena Vista Social Club, the nostalgic 1997 collection of old Cuban standards that became an unlikely international phenomenon in record sales, on film and on the concert stage.

Cuban percussionist Miguel "Anga" Diaz, an acclaimed conga master who perfected a dazzling five-drum technique with a versatility that allowed him to span genres from progressive jazz to traditional Afro-Cuban standards, has died. He was 45. Diaz, who was also a composer and arranger, suffered a heart attack Wednesday at his home in San Sadurni d'Anoia, a small town east of Barcelona, where he had recently moved in search of a more serene lifestyle.

It happened again Thursday: When crisis came to town, Mayor Bill Campbell took over as Atlanta's most visible spokesman to address the media and calm the populace. Campbell assumed his by-now familiar role as Atlanta's Chief Public Face once again after a shooting rampage left nine dead in two of his city's office buildings. In news conferences carried live nationally, he sedately outlined what he knew, what he didn't and even, occasionally, how he felt.

The continued rise in water temperature has helped bring bonito and barracuda to the surface in the past week. The fish have been caught off Palos Verdes, Rocky Point and Catalina Island. Anglers have been able to catch their limits on most trips. After all but disappearing last year, bonito are returning to all kelp areas with some of the legal-sized boneheads reaching eight pounds.

The continued rise in water temperature has helped bring bonito and barracuda to the surface in the past week. The fish have been caught off Palos Verdes, Rocky Point and Catalina Island. Anglers have been able to catch their limits on most trips. After all but disappearing last year, bonito are returning to all kelp areas with some of the legal-sized boneheads reaching eight pounds.

It's the incongruity that strikes you first, the contrast between the considerable ages of the musicians in "Buena Vista Social Club," the marvelous new documentary on Cuban music produced by Ry Cooder, and the vibrant, irrepressible sounds they turn out.

Joanna Newsom "Have One on Me" Drag City . . Joanna Newsom is a hard act to follow. Turn that phrase around in your head for a minute, as you would a tarnished knickknack, or one of Newsom's own lyrics, assembled from fable and casual conversation and just those kinds of clichés. It has two meanings, and both apply. In her young career, Newsom has burst free of the traditions that inspire her -- visionary California folk-rock, post-Kate Bush femme pop, fairy tales and modernist literature -- to assert a voice that seems totally singular, an end in itself.

The venue for information gathering for today's column was lunch. Your typist was a fly on the wall. Mary Kate Scandone met Dottie Rountree. That's not exactly Kobe Bryant chatting with Matt Kemp. Actually, as it turned out, it was much better. Scandone has written a book, released Wednesday, called "Nick of Time. " There may have never been a more apt title. Her husband, Nick Scandone, won a gold medal in Paralympic sailing in Beijing. That was September 2008. He died of ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, Jan. 2, 2009.

The African roots of the blues isn't an abstract concept for Ali Farka Toure. The music of the West African guitarist-vocalist, whose album "The Source" currently tops Billboard's World Music chart, has been described as the missing link between Africa and such American blues artists as John Lee Hooker. Toure's Groupe Asko makes a direct connection with the blues in its Southern California debut as a special L.A. Festival guest on a Greek Theatre bill headlined by B.B.

On a recent night in Mexico City, Ramon "Bostich" Amezcua, a founder of the Tijuana electronica collective Nortec, was surprised to see an older gentleman dancing at the front of the stage during Amezcua's live DJ set. He recognized the man as Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, the 68-year-old bassist with the Buena Vista Social Club and the nephew of legendary mambo inventor Israel "Cachao" Lopez.