The Show for Aug. 27, 2026: Rise in heat deaths, Bob Corritore on the Rhythm Room and more

Heat deaths are on the rise across the Valley as temperatures continue to hit record highs. Why we’re seeing the number of deaths climb higher than this time last summer. Plus, the owner of the Rhythm Room on 35 years of blues in the Valley.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

Coming up: Why are we seeing heat deaths go up so quickly this summer? And why Bob Corritore is calling it quits at the Rhythm Room after 35 years.

But first, Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account school voucher program is controversial enough. But now, the Trump administration’s top education official is calling on Arizona to join into a federal voucher program that would allow Arizonans to redirect their tax dollars to pay for school expenses.

Here is U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon in Mesa on Tuesday.

LINDA MCMAHON: This is what real empowerment looks like, giving parents the freedom to choose the path that best serves their child, instead of forcing every student into a rigid, one-size-fits-all system.

LAUREN GILGER: The federal voucher program was included in President Donald Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill," but states have to opt into it for families to take advantage, and Gov. Katie Hobbs has yet to do that. But here’s the real trick: The dollars from this new federal program can be used for public school expenses as well.

KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky has the story from our politics desk, and he’s here now to tell us more. Hi there, Wayne.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Good morning.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so there is a comparison here to the state’s ESA voucher program here in Arizona, but this federal program works pretty differently, it sounds like. Can you explain that?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, that’s right. The state program essentially redirects the money that follows your child from their public school to whether it’s private school tuition or your homeschooling expenses. So, they’re taking that chunk of money that would otherwise be going to a public school.

In this case with the federal program, it’s a tax rebate. It’s a tax credit. So, up to $1,700 that you’re giving to one of these nonprofit organizations that would be set up that could then pay for those school expenses on behalf of a child, you’re just basically getting to take that on your taxes and get a credit to lower your tax burden. So, it’s not taking money directly away from public school funding; it’s taking it just from private donors who decide that they want to lower their tax liability.

LAUREN GILGER: Sure, OK. So the ESA program in Arizona is only for private schools, home schools, things like that. But this federal program, as I mentioned, can be used to pay for expenses for kids enrolled in public schools. Like what? What kind of expenses?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, so again, the rules are not quite finalized yet, but the Treasury has given a little bit of an indication. From education folks I’ve talked to, it could be things like school supplies, books, tutoring, after-school programs, that kind of thing. Potentially even some expenses like transportation, but again, that’s not totally clear because the rules aren’t finalized. But again, what I’ve heard from some public school people is that essentially, yeah, there’s these different categories of expenses that this could kind of take a little bit of pressure off the budget as they say, "We’ve been underfunded for years."

LAUREN GILGER: Right, ’cause this could end up back at public schools. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

So that’s a little bit about how it works. Now let’s talk about the politics of this here in Arizona, right? I mentioned Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has not opted into this program yet. You have to opt into it, and she has to opt into it by the end of the year. In fact, she vetoed several attempts from Republican lawmakers at the state Capitol last session that would have kind of forced her hand there.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, she vetoed a standalone bill that would have basically said, "We opt in," and then she vetoed some budgets that I believe also included that provision tucked in there. At this point, initially when she vetoed it, she kind of compared it to the state voucher program, saying, "We’ve seen all these problems without accountability," all these kinds of things. "We want to make sure there’s accountability in this program."

Now, more recently, she kind of built on that, and her office told me that we don’t want to opt in until we see what the rules are. The Treasury is supposed to release the final rules for the program by the end of September. So at that point, we could potentially see the governor change course. She didn’t really give any indication one way or the other where she would go on it from there.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, but she could opt in when these final rules come down. OK. And other Democratic-run states have also opted in, right, Wayne?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, I believe 30 states total have opted in at this point, and that includes New York and Colorado — so two states with Democratic governors. And again, the idea is that this is a tax credit that people can use whether they’re going to private schools, depending on the state, I believe home schools are covered, and then, yeah, public schools.

LAUREN GILGER: Let’s talk about what critics here had to say, though, right? Because critics also told you that this is just another way to undermine the public school system, funnel tax dollars into private schools. Is it?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: I mean, it’s not necessarily funneled away from public schools like the ESA program — the state program — does. Because like I said, that’s taking money that would have otherwise gone to the public school if your child was attending and then redirecting it to that tuition at a private school or to those home school expenses.

This is folks choosing how to spend their money to lower their tax liability. So it’s not like if this person didn’t give $1,700 to this nonprofit that’s going to help pay for school expenses, like they would have automatically gone and given that to a public school. That’s not a given. So it is different in that sense. There were some other criticisms in terms of equity and things like that.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, let’s talk about that. But first, I want to talk about what you heard from the superintendent of the Scottsdale Public School District, right? Because he actually said he would support this — that his district could really benefit.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, ahead of Secretary McMahon’s visit, I started asking around because I was like, given that this potential that public schools could benefit, I can’t believe that all public school advocates are fully off-board with this, like we’ve kind of been hearing publicly from some of the louder groups.

As I asked around, I talked to Dr. Menzel, who I’ve known for quite a while going back to my days in Scottsdale. He said, "No, I believe if the rules come out as it’s been kind of portrayed by the federal government, that this could work to public schools’ benefit because, again, we believe we’re underfunded. We believe we’ve been underfunded for years. And so if this can take a little bit of burden off of our general budgets by covering some of those after-school expenses, covering some of those books, some of those supplies, some of that technology that we need for our students, then why is that a bad thing?"

LAUREN GILGER: Could this add up to a significant amount of money for a district like Scottsdale?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Kind of like quick estimations, what Menzel said, he’s like, "If we can just get our employees to hop into this, take it out of their paycheck as a tax credit — or I don’t know how it would work at that level, but if we can get just our employees on board, $3 million a year."

LAUREN GILGER: Wow.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: "If we could get all of our families on board, we think we can get another $10 million a year." So, not nothing. In the realm of school budgets, it’s still a relatively small chunk, but again, as Menzel kind of said to me, everything helps in this environment where they’re seeing competition from charter schools, they’re seeing competition from private schools, home school with all the ESAs. He’s like, "In this competitive environment, this is the first chance we have to maybe generate additional revenue," is basically what he told me.

LAUREN GILGER: Interesting. So that brings us to the other criticism here, though, which is that this might not be that much for every district. Like, what about rural districts? What about districts where a lot of kids are from poor families?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, Beth Lewis with Save Our Schools, one of the big public school advocacy organizations, when she spoke against this bill at the Legislature, that’s basically what she said. She said, "You know, this might work in Scottsdale where a lot of families have the extra income that they can go and give to one of these organizations and benefit from the tax credit. But once we start talking about lower-income communities, rural communities, places where a lot of the families may not even have a large tax burden because they’re not making enough money in the first place, they don’t have the money to spend extra on that, and then they’re not going to see the benefits in the tax credit." So how are we helping these groups? Essentially, she called it kind of another wealth transfer to the already wealthy communities in our state.

LAUREN GILGER: Mm, interesting. All right, well, we’ll leave it there for now. Lots to watch for as that deadline ticks closer. KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky with our politics desk, Wayne, thanks.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: This summer is proving to be, yet again, one of the hottest on record. Just yesterday, the mercury tied the record when it hit 117 degrees at Sky Harbor International Airport. And last week, Maricopa County officials announced that there have been 113 heat-related deaths confirmed so far this year, with another 584 under investigation. That’s a whole lot higher than the number of heat-related deaths we saw at this time last year, and the summer’s not over yet.

So here to tell us what might be behind this trend is Dr. Nick Staab, chief medical officer for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. Good morning, Dr. Staab.

NICK STAAB: Good morning, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so this 113 number that was announced on August 22, what does this look like as compared to around this time last year? I’m hearing reports it’s more than double what we saw at this time then.

NICK STAAB: That’s accurate. So the same time last year, we were recording 49 confirmed deaths in Maricopa County. So we are seeing double the number of confirmed deaths, and a rise in those under investigation — so 584 versus about 400 last year.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Last year, though, we should say, looked a little better than it had in the years before that. There was an improvement in the number of heat-related deaths in the county. It looked like things were, you know, we were doing better at preventing this, right? We’d seen the city of Phoenix put in a lot of cooling centers; there’s been this kind of concerted effort to get these numbers under control. What do you think has changed this year?

NICK STAAB: So that’s right. The last two summers, we’ve been seeing a decline in the number of heat-related deaths. So that was encouraging for those of us who’ve been working very hard to increase access to cooling centers and make sure that we’re getting services to those who are at highest risk.

I think what this summer is highlighting for us — and we’ve known this — is that heat is multifactorial. There are so many ways that heat is impacting our community. And a summer like this says, you know, we’re doing a lot of the same things we’ve done the last two summers, but we’re seeing a very different outcome. And so we need to continue to think about how we can increase access to cool spaces for everyone in our community, especially those who are at highest risk.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so let me talk about what some of the differences may be. We had a pretty early start to the heat this year. I remember very hot temperatures in March being frustrating to a lot of people. Are temperatures that are not 115, 117 like we saw yesterday, but maybe in the 90s or 100s earlier in the year, going to lead to some increased heat deaths?

NICK STAAB: Absolutely. So I think, you know, those out-of-season high temperatures catch people off guard, and they may not already be thinking about what they need to do to stay cool. So we are concerned for already, we have a very long heat season that we typically say runs May through September. But we know that October stays hot, and a couple two years ago, we kept a lot of our cooling centers open into October because of that. So we need to think about the changing temperatures, the changing season, and just everyone needs to have a plan for how they’re going to stay cool.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I want to also talk about homelessness, because we continue to see an increase in the homeless population here in the Valley, and that must play a role, too. I think the stat from last year was that almost half of the heat deaths were among people experiencing homelessness.

NICK STAAB: That’s correct. So we know that people who are unsheltered or have unstable housing are at increased risk, especially when we’re seeing those high overnight lows. You know, lows in the 90s, definitely, if you’re living outdoors, your body doesn’t have the opportunity to cool down.

So we are very focused on ensuring greater access to people who are experiencing homelessness, working with our homeless service partners through the Heat Relief Network, and really trying to extend hours of operation, especially into the evenings and overnight where possible, to get people a cool place for as long as the day is hot, which is all day.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. How much does this have to do with drug use, specifically methamphetamines, Dr. Staab? Like, are we seeing a rise in specific kinds of drugs on the streets, and therefore you’ll see more heat deaths?

NICK STAAB: Drug use definitely plays a part in heat deaths. So we see roughly 50% of deaths involving substances. Methamphetamines are our biggest concern because they amplify the effect of heat on the body.

And so another thing that we are looking into with our partners, poison control and the Medical Examiner’s Office, is, you know, what are we seeing in terms of these deaths that are involving substances? Is substance use becoming more potent and increasing the risk of severe outcomes? And how are we providing access to people who are using drugs to cool spaces? Because we know that that’s a barrier to access and something we need to think about if we intend to keep driving these numbers down.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, like if you are a drug user, you cannot use drugs inside a cooling center or a shelter, things like that.

NICK STAAB: That is correct.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I mentioned nearly half of heat deaths last year had to do with homelessness. But what about the other half? Like, who else is at risk here?

NICK STAAB: So we know people who have maybe substandard housing, who can’t keep their homes or where they’re living as cool as is optimal, are at risk. We’re thinking about older adults who also have other medical problems, maybe on prescription drugs that don’t allow their bodies to tolerate the heat. So there are many different populations that are at risk.

But one of the biggest points that we try to drive home every year is that everybody who is visiting or living in Maricopa County is at risk from this heat. We can all find ourselves in situations where, you know, the heat is getting the better of us, and we need to have a plan to get out of the heat and stay safe.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So talk about those measures that we should all be taking. If anyone’s at risk here, right, what should we all be doing? What maybe don’t folks know, before I let you go here?

NICK STAAB: I mean, easy things that our parents, for those of us who’ve grown up here, have always told us: You need to stay hydrated. You need to be drinking water before you get thirsty. You need to just be safe about the heat, making sure that you’re staying indoors during the hottest part of the day. And if you are doing outdoor activities, that you’re doing it wisely, thinking about both your hydration status as well as doing those activities at a time of day that’s safe.

And the last thing is, this needs to be a community effort. We need to be checking on our friends and family and those who are at high risk. I know this time of year when kids go back to school, we all start thinking about fall temperatures, but this heat is going to be with us for another month, and we need to be all working together.

LAUREN GILGER: We’re certainly not there yet. All right, Dr. Nick Staab, chief medical officer for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, joining us. Dr. Staab, thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate it.

NICK STAAB: Thank you, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I am Lauren Gilger.

Coming up, a Phoenix blues club is winding down after 35 years.

BOB CORRITORE: We made it so the stage was right in the center of the room. We put various sections, a nice dance floor, all the things. Took out the kitchen so we’d have more space for people to just enjoy the music. Made it nothing but a music venue.

LAUREN GILGER: We’ll hear from the owner of the legendary Rhythm Room.

But first, water is a precious commodity in the desert, and especially so for our next guest. Gary Paul Nabhan is a desert ecologist and ethnobotanist. His new book, a memoir, is called Water in the Desert: A Pilgrimage. It includes stories from his childhood as well as his career, often surrounded by bodies of water from around the world. Nabhan spoke with my co-host Mark Brodie about his book, and they started with what it is to him that is so special about water. What does water represent to him?

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Well, those of us in the desert regions of North America don’t take water lightly. [Laughter] It’s more than a commodity. We crane our necks during the summer months looking up at the sky, hoping that clouds will build up and drop some rain on us.

And we are delighted whenever we see water, whether it’s from an artesian spring or a seep or the little potholes in the mountains called tinajas. And it’s so essential to life that we don’t take it for granted, as other people do in regions beyond the deserts.

MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting because it sounds as though you are not someone who’s really ever taken it and its role in sustaining life for granted. I mean, you tell these stories about being a really little kid and sort of being in your yard and almost like communing with nature before you could almost communicate with humans.

GARY PAUL NABHAN: That’s right. I had a sense of belonging that I was connected to other species, whether it was the birds singing above me or the worms and larvae in the sand dunes that I was sitting on and the little beetles that made their tracks across the dunes. I just felt that they were part of my family or even part of me.

Now we have a word for that in science. That word, we’re not individual animals, we’re holobionts, which means that the community of microbes and other organisms in our guts and on our skin and in our ears really change our perception, nutrition, and they’re part of who we are.

MARK BRODIE: Do you think that those experiences as a child helped inform what you do now as an adult, like what you’ve done for your career?

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Well, obviously, I didn’t know the word holobiont when I was 4 or 5 years old. Of course. But I would say that I felt such a strong, pervasive sense of wonder whenever I was out in the dunes or on lakes or oceans that when I chose a career, the only real criteria I had was it had to be something to keep me outside as much as possible, so that it was either becoming a field biologist, a geologist, or a land surveyor, because I just couldn’t see how I could survive if I were captured in a room all day long.

MARK BRODIE: Ah, so interesting. And was there something about working on and around water that was particularly appealing? Mean, the book is sort of organized into different bodies of water around which you’ve had these sort of formative experiences.

GARY PAUL NABHAN: I think that’s the throughline of the book, that people may not think that the dunes along Lake Michigan are anywhere like a true desert, but I had a Lebanese grandfather who told me stories of going out toward Mount Hermon, picking anise seed from wild anise plants in the dunes at the base of the sacred mountain. And where he lived wasn’t sandy in his orchard or field, but he told those stories like that are part of oral histories of any immigrants that made deserts loom large for me, and the Indiana dunes was about as close to a desert as we could have in the Midwest.

So I think it was a setup for what I did later on. By 17, I was visiting the North American deserts and just felt completely won over by them.

MARK BRODIE: What won you over about them, especially coming from where you did?

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Oh, I think it’s the funniest things, because it isn’t what most people think of with a desert. Rather than thinking of it as barren, I saw little clusters of plants that were in elegant little formations. It seemed uncluttered rather than completely chaotic because one plant had broken branches that obscured the other. It just seemed like there was space between the plants that gave me a chance to see each one as an individual being.

And so that the elegance and sparsity and spaciousness of deserts, and the sounds and the scents that came with it, just riveted me.

MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting, it sounds like where some people look at the desert and see sort of a barren landscape, you see it as uncluttered and giving you an opportunity to really see and appreciate each individual plant.

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Well, you know what’s funny about that is I co-wrote a paper in 1976 with a great desert botanist, and we called it "Deceptive Barrenness." [Laughter] Ha! And now we know that all deserts are deceptively barren because 20 times the amount of above-ground structure of a plant — what scientists call the biomass — is below ground. So a mesquite that’s 30 or 40 feet high above ground might have 160-foot-deep roots.

And so it is like we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg, that there’s a richness below ground and seasonally when the rains come that we don’t see year-round above ground.

MARK BRODIE: So you mentioned that, you know, this is a place where a lot of us crane our necks to the sky, you know, to see if there’s going to be rain coming, especially this time of year. And as we are in monsoon season right now, I wonder if that holds a particular meaning for you, given the work you do, given your family background, given your childhood and your life so far. Like, does this time of year have any special significance for you?

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Oh, it’s the most spiritually uplifting part of the year. I look at those clouds, and I feel lifted up into the heavens. It’s my favorite time of the year.

I live part of each year with the Comcaac, or Seri, indigenous community in Mexico, and of course, I’ve had the benefit for working with the Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham, too. And all of those peoples are reverential toward the coming of the summer rains.

I wrote a book called The Desert Smells Like Rain over 40 years ago, and I only think now, after four decades, I’m beginning to understand that that fragrance we feel as the first rainstorm comes in is sort of this divine moment in the desert where we’re overwhelmed by the same fragrances that churches and synagogues and Buddhist temples have used for thousands of years, fragrances that are full of antioxidants and just rivet our attention with their healing aromas.

And so to me, the wait for the rains is like the wait that people feel when they’ve fasted for Lent, and then there’s a big celebration for Easter or Passover. It’s just this beautiful, beautiful time of the year that makes me so happy to be an Arizonan. I would not want to live anywhere else except where there’s those summer thunderstorms that really rock our boats and open our eyes and noses.

MARK BRODIE: Wow. All right. Gary, thank you so much for the conversation. I really appreciate it.

GARY PAUL NABHAN: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Gary Paul Nabhan is a desert ecologist, ethnobotanist, and author of the new book Water in the Desert: A Pilgrimage.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5, I am Lauren Gilger.

The Phoenix music world is losing an institution. The Rhythm Room, which has been a stage for the blues in the Valley for more than three decades, will close its doors in May after one last rockin’ season.

Owner Bob Corritore announced his plans to close the legendary venue this summer and was met with an outpouring of love for it. But he told me he’s been planning his exit and the end of the Rhythm Room for a long time. It will close after 35 years and the year he turns 70. He’s ready for a new chapter.

Corritore is not just a venue owner; he is an internationally renowned, Grammy-nominated harmonica player. And if you tune in to KJZZ religiously on Sunday nights like I do, you know he is the longtime host of Those Lowdown Blues.

And he’s going to keep doing all of that. He came into our studios recently to talk to me more about this decision, and we began with where the Rhythm Room began before he was ever involved in it: in an old Phoenix bar called the Purple Turtle. And it’s today’s deep dive.

BOB CORRITORE: The very first gig I ever booked in Phoenix was at the Purple Turtle. Louisiana Red had come into Phoenix and was staying with me, and I booked Louisiana Red and myself to play at the Purple Turtle, and that became kind of a regular gig for us. So, it was just a nice little bar, and we always had a fun time playing there. Little did I know that years later I would become the owner of that particular venue.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, so talk about that. When was it when you took over and made this kind of a standalone club?

BOB CORRITORE: It all happened in 1991. I got a phone call from the guy that owned the property, that was the landlord for the Purple Turtle and a couple of subsequent, you know, small businesses that came and went, and he says, "Bob, I’m very familiar with your work, and I would like to talk to you about doing something I probably shouldn’t do, but I’m thinking about opening a blues club on this property. Would you help me develop that business?"

So, next thing you know, I went from being a musician to becoming a club person. I had already done some bookings and things over at Cheuvront’s and some things over at the Mason Jar before that, where I’d bring in some of the blues acts that I loved and found places for them. So, I had a niche of doing that.

We came up with the name the Rhythm Room, we redesigned the room. We made it so the stage was right in the center of the room. We put various sections, a nice dance floor, all the things. Took out the kitchen so we’d have more space for people to just enjoy the music. Made it nothing but a music venue — no pool tables or darts or any of that other extracurricular stuff. It was all about music.

LAUREN GILGER: You’re here to listen to the bands play.

BOB CORRITORE: And people really responded to it. From the day that we opened, it seemed like it occupied something that was missing here in Phoenix. And so, it became kind of an overnight success, and I’m like, "OK, well, I guess I kind of have a handle on this." So, it was a, you know, pretty fantastic experience. So, we opened the Rhythm Room on September 18th, 1991.

LAUREN GILGER: What was the first show?

BOB CORRITORE: The first show was Big Pete Pearson. That was on a Wednesday. Second night was Junior Watson, Lynwood Slim, and then we had Chico Chism on the Friday and Saturday.

And we started booking some of the national acts: Jessie Mae Hemphill, John Hammond, Charlie Musselwhite, a lot of these really cool acts. Next thing you know, we were the stop. I kind of figured that we would be anyway, because there’s a lot of bands that were touring, and at that time, gas was cheaper, bands were still going in vans to various locations, and there were enough clubs in every town that they could basically dot their routing going from one place to the other.

So, somebody was heading to California or some Californians were heading out east or whatever, and they needed a stop, and the Rhythm Room became the stop.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, so you got lots of amazing acts through.

BOB CORRITORE: Right. And on top of that, I was really keyed into the blues, so I knew all the people, and we quickly had the reputation of "the stop," you know, for blues and some of the roots rockabilly and some of the jazz things that we were embracing. So, it really worked.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, so let me ask you: 1991, the Rhythm Room is, you know, it’s hot, you’re opening in this city that’s kind of up-and-coming, very different from the Phoenix of today. You’ve been there 35 years. I mean, one of the things I think that’s notable about the Rhythm Room is that it hasn’t changed that much in that time, right?

BOB CORRITORE: For better or for worse, yeah. [Laughter]

LAUREN GILGER: As the city has changed massively.

BOB CORRITORE: Well, it has changed a lot, but you know, I think everything grows. Of course, the population has grown quite a bit, different businesses have come and gone. You know, we’ve just been who we’ve been, and that’s just who we are, so I don’t really want to change.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, lots of reaction to your decision, your announcement to close the Rhythm Room, lots of memories coming forth. Let me ask you about your favorite memories, right? I’m sure you’ve been having a lot of these conversations with people over the last couple of weeks since you made this announcement, but what’s top of mind for you?

BOB CORRITORE: There’s so many, it’d be really impossible to pinpoint. I mean, I could just list tons of amazing shows that have moved me to my core.

But I think when we were able to book Jimmy Rogers, who was like one of my heroes, having him come and become a good friend, and he would make a regular stop at the Rhythm Room, and that was just something that was seriously a dream come true. And in our Rhythm Room mural, Jimmy Rogers is one of the characters on our wall, you know, so...

But I used to listen to that record — his record Chicago Bound — and dream about it at night in high school. [Laughter] And so, that was how important that record was, and to have him come to my club, and for us to — I knew him a little bit from Chicago, but yeah, we became really good friends, and sat together, and I always bought him a Cognac, and enjoyed some laughs and smiles with him. But it was a great experience.

LAUREN GILGER: What about some moments you’ve had on the stage there? ’Cause you play still, obviously.

BOB CORRITORE: Well, I got to play with Jimmy. I got to play a lot with Pinetop Perkins and Henry Gray. I’m working now with Jimmy Primetime Smith and Carley Denise, and we play once a month at the Rhythm Room, and we have a blast getting together.

And there’s nothing better than getting on your stage that you’re comfortable with, with your amp, in a room that’s filled with your friends and fans, and just to play your heart out to all those people, and to have an audience that comes out regularly to see that. So, of all the things that I’m going to miss, that’ll be the thing I miss the most.

LAUREN GILGER: It’s almost the regularity of it that you’ll miss, like the place to be and the people who come.

BOB CORRITORE: Yeah, the Rhythm Room has definitely been part of my self-image, and so in the process — and I had been planning on this retirement for a while. I wanted to retire at age 70, and this — it just felt like the right time to make the announcement, and to have a final season, and to make it a celebration.

And I think every story has to have a beginning and an end, and I think 35 years is a perfect time. I’ll be 70 years old, and it just feels like the right time to say, "OK, this was a fantastic chapter. Let’s open up the next chapter."

So, I’m happy about that, but in the process of getting ready for that, I went through different stages of grief. [Laughter] You’ve known 70 was coming for some time here, OK. [Laughter] I was like, "Oh, what am I going to do without this part of me?" It’s like one of my appendages.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, absolutely. You said your self-image is wrapped up in this place, right? Like people know you for this place and for, you know, being the Phoenix institution that’s part of this Phoenix institution.

BOB CORRITORE: Well, and it’s been an honor to be that to Phoenix, you know, to be a place where people gather. So many people have said, "Oh, I met my husband" or "I met my wife here," "I saw this great show here," "This moment in time changed my life."

People have come in and I’ve maybe had in-depth conversations with them at tough times in their life, and then five years later, they come and say, "Bob, remember that time that you sat down and talked with me?" You know, it’s nice when you can make a difference. And to have a place where people gather is a very powerful thing. I’m going to miss that a lot.

But at the same time, I’m working like five jobs right now! [Laughter] Between the radio show, the nightclub, I produce records, I’m a touring musician, and in the last couple decades, I’ve really gotten into education. I’ve been giving harmonica lessons, and the last couple of years, I was the harmonica instructor over at the Pinetop Perkins Workshop Experience, which happens in Clarksdale each year.

So, a lot of things are going on. I’m going, "OK, can I really deal in my 70s with the complete frantic multitasking that happens every day at the Rhythm Room?" It’s pure chaos! [Laughter] Which I love, but at the same time, it’s probably not the pace I want to have to maintain.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. It’s a younger man’s game.

BOB CORRITORE: It’s a younger man’s game.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, yes, in a way, and no one would fault you for that, right? Like, it’s OK to close the door and to open a new chapter in your life and semi-retire at least from five jobs to four jobs, right? [Laughter]

But what do you think about like the loss of this place for Phoenix? I mean, what do you think will be lost for this city?

BOB CORRITORE: Well, nobody will run it the way I ran it. But maybe somebody will take that concept and roll with it. I think those same bands are going to need to come through Phoenix, and I’ll redirect them to whatever the next venue is that would want to have that.

I think that it will go on, and it’s too strong of a music to ever die. And I also, you know, I plan on still bringing some things in. It might be that I’ll rent another venue or small theater and bring in some of my special shows. I won’t be doing it on the daily basis I’m doing it now, but I plan on still bringing in some of the zingers.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, you’re hoping to be able to continue having that kind of presence in the city, right? And I know you’re going to still be here on KJZZ hosting Those Lowdown Blues, you’re still going to play music, all these things that you’ll still be doing. What do you hope for the venue itself? Are there plans for that particular space, that building?

BOB CORRITORE: Well, right now, everything’s kind of up in the air, but I am in talks with somebody who is a developer. And people go, "Oh no, that room is iconic," which it is. And I feel kind of bad about it, but right now everything’s up in the air, Lauren, so I can’t really say which way it’s going to go. I think that it’s just fair to say that wherever this takes me, I’m open to it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And it sounds like you’re OK if this is the final chapter for the Rhythm Room.

BOB CORRITORE: Oh yeah, I mean, 35 years! I’ve done so much there, I don’t think I have anything left to prove, but at the same time, there’s always more to do. But I think I could probably accomplish some of those things that are yet to do, but without having to have the complete responsibility and the pace of running a nightclub.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So let me ask you about a couple of things. What about the door of the Rhythm Room, right? Like people are going to want that! Where are you going to put that? That’s got to go to a museum somewhere! All the stickers!

BOB CORRITORE: That’s true. You know, I hadn’t really thought about that, but that is a good point, but... [Laughter] I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to put that in storage, because that front door is like famous for its weathered stickers, you know.

LAUREN GILGER: Yes, it is! How many years of stickers and layers of stickers on that door?

BOB CORRITORE: Layers of stickers, yeah. It’s like if you go down a few layers, you’re like, "Oh, there’s that great band under these other three great bands!" [Laughter] So, it’s kind of amazing if you look at it that way, too.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so final question for you then, Bob. What do you want — not your legacy, because you’re not done — but what do you want the legacy of the Rhythm Room to be in this city?

BOB CORRITORE: Well, it already is what it is. It’s a place where so much great music has been played, history has been made, live recordings have been made there, memorable shows that have literally just fed people’s souls.

That’s the legacy. It’s my offering to the city, and I’m proud of that. I feel like I was able to make a difference. And if you’ll let me, I’d like to, you know, have a different stage in my life now! [Laughter] So, I just really enjoyed the ride, but I feel like we’re leaving with a perfectly scripted end.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right. Well, Bob Corritore, thank you so much, and congratulations on this new phase.

BOB CORRITORE: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: The actor and singer Tim Curry died on Tuesday. The Show contributor Robrt Pela recalls how and why Curry’s career matters to a generation of fans.

ROBRT PELA: When I heard that Tim Curry had died yesterday, the day after the death of Dolly Parton, my first thought was as tacky as Dolly’s rhinestone bustier, or for that matter, as cheap as the one Tim Curry wore in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I thought, “Wow, two famous drag queens in two days.”

Dolly referred to herself that way for decades, but Tim Curry might not love being remembered just for having played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Richard O’Brien’s globally beloved rock musical.

Although we all first met him in “Rocky Horror,” Curry had, of course, gone on to an estimable stage and screen career. He famously played the fast-talking butler in the mystery film “Clue,” Rooster Hannigan in the movie version of “Annie,” and of course, his terrifying Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the screen adaptation of Stephen King’s “It.”

On stage, he had leads in Broadway productions of “Amadeus” and “The Pirates of Penzance.” And there was his brief foray into rock and roll with a trio of delicious albums on A&M Records in the ’70s and ’80s.

A lot of us who came of age in an era of “don’t ask, don’t tell” needed an icon. Keep in mind that this was at a time when no one was coming out of the closet. No one was standing up for gay kids — or gay adults.

And then, all of a sudden, twice a week in the 1970s at midnight, there was Tim Curry in fishnets and a Merry Widow, singing joyfully about being a weirdo and marrying a guy in a tiny gold bathing suit.

Kids in the ’50s who needed an excuse to cut loose had Elvis to help make that OK. In the ’60s, it was the Beatles who nudged a new conversation about race music and race relations by covering Motown and Chuck Berry.

In the ’70s, young gay people had Tim Curry, singing Richard O’Brien’s songs about how it was OK to be yourself, no matter what that was.

Like Dolly Parton and all of the other late greats we’ve lost, Tim Curry has left us the gift of his work — songs and performances we can cherish for however long we get to stay here.

But he’s given us another, more rare gift. It’s something that few famous people who are forever linked to one breakthrough performance ever give us: He never distanced himself from Frank-N-Furter. Tim Curry never once refused to speak to a journalist about “Rocky Horror,” never rolled his eyes when he was asked by a fan, for the 7 millionth time, about having played an intergalactic transvestite with four pounds of face makeup on.

What a pleasure it was to always find Tim Curry being kind and respectful about this thing he had created and that still meant so much to us.

As a militant gay man who came out to the “Rocky Horror” soundtrack, I would have preferred it if Tim Curry had finally told us if he identified as gay or not. He joked about it in his recently published memoir, saying that the British never discuss such things.

If I’m giving him a pass for keeping his private life to himself, I suppose it’s because Tim Curry gave us so much else, and so generously: memorable performances, magnificent rock records and — most importantly — permission to be who we are.

LAUREN GILGER: Yesterday on The Show, we heard from a Valley dining critic about the potential for Arizona to pick up its very first and very prestigious Michelin star. Michelin inspectors have been secretly eating their way across the Southwest for an undisclosed amount of time, evaluating some of the best that Arizona cuisine has to offer.

Michelin inspectors have been secretly eating their way across the Southwest for an undisclosed amount of time, evaluating some of the best that Arizona cuisine has to offer.

Well, the results came in Wednesday night — and Arizona restaurants got no Michelin stars. But that’s just the highest honor that Michelin gives out. And Arizona restaurants and chefs were recognized on many other fronts.

At a glitzy ceremony in Las Vegas Wednesday night, FnB chef Charleen Badman took home the first-ever Mindful Voices Award from Michelin. Badman is a James Beard Award winner and the founder of the Blue Watermelon Project, which teaches kids about where food comes from and how to cook it.

René Andrade, who’s brought in countless accolades for Bacanora and Huarachis Taqueria, was honored with the Young Chef Award.

And a solid list of Arizona restaurants were honored as so-called Bib Gourmands, recognized for offering high-quality food at great value. That list includes Huarachis and FnB, as well as Pizzeria Bianco, Kid Sister, Little Miss BBQ, Lom Wong and Valentine.

Even more were recognized as selected restaurants. So congrats to all the chefs and restaurateurs who were honored last night, and maybe we’ll get a star next time.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.