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Inqlings: Welcome America adds some soul

One main entertainment piece of the Welcome America festivities is to be announced this week, and it's soul singer Angie Stone, who will headline a free 8 p.m. show, followed by fireworks, at Penn's Landing on June 27. It will be part of the food festival "A Taste of Philadelphia."

Actress Jane Seymour (left), in a return visit to the Mural Arts Program's Wall Ball, chats with the program's Jane Golden and Margelle Liss (right). The annual fund-raiser was Thursday at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel.
Actress Jane Seymour (left), in a return visit to the Mural Arts Program's Wall Ball, chats with the program's Jane Golden and Margelle Liss (right). The annual fund-raiser was Thursday at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel.Read moreHUGHE DILLON / For The Inquirer

One main entertainment piece of the Welcome America festivities is to be announced this week, and it's soul singer

Angie Stone

, who will headline a free 8 p.m. show, followed by fireworks, at Penn's Landing on June 27. It will be part of the food festival "A Taste of Philadelphia."

Rocker Sheryl Crow will headline the big July Fourth show on the Parkway. Opening acts for Stone and Crow have not been signed yet. The rundown for Welcome America is at www.americasbirthday.com

Meanwhile, changin' times and all that: Up at the Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville, one of the main acts at this summer's Philadelphia Folk Festival will have a contemporary bent: The Decemberists, riding the concept album The Hazards of Love. They played last night at the Tower Theater, and they'll return for the Folk Festival on Aug. 15. The rest of the festival's weekend lineup has many more contemporary acts sprinkled in, including the just-booked Derek Trucks Band and Saturday night's headliner, Iron and Wine.

Jesse Lundy of Point Entertainment, which last year started booking the festival (this year's is the 48th), said more contemporary sounds were intended to appeal to the children and grandchildren of the founders, the next generation of festivalgoers.

Tony time

Huntingdon Valley's

Jarrod Spector

and fellow Broadway cast members from

Jersey Boys

will perform a number tonight on the Tony Awards telecast.

Havertown native Rick Fisher is up for a Tony as lighting designer for Billy Elliot, which has 15 nominations. Fisher, based in Britain for 30 years, regularly comes home to visit.

Good deeds

Publisher-philanthropists

Kal and Lucille Rudman

are now up to $332,000 in scholarships over the last 13 years to the St. Christopher's Hospital Health Tech, a mentoring program that steers at-risk kids into the medical field. (Kal Rudman says the program's graduation rate is 98 percent.) Tomorrow, 25 students will get their degrees at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.

Kennett Square's Nathan Egan, a social-media consultant who's worked with such companies as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, got a taste of the power of this technology. On a train bound for Philly on Wednesday, he came upon a wallet stuffed with $350, eight corporate cards, and a driver's license. Name: Sally Smith Clemens. Egan, of Freesource Agency L.L.C., booted up his laptop, found her on Facebook, and shot her a message. Clemens says she called him five anxious hours later, after she decided to check her Facebook page to calm herself down. Egan, who sent the wallet to Clemens' Florida home, says: "I see a lot of the liability in cyberspace, but it can be a space for good work and humanity."

Sports sorts

Eagles QB

Donovan McNabb

will pick up a Father's Day Council father-of-the-year award Thursday from the American Diabetes Association. McNabb and his wife, Roxi, have daughter

Alexis

, 4, and 6-month-old twins

Sariah

and

Donovan Jr.

(For some reason, the babies' names have been a state secret, but here you are.) Also getting awards will be Campbell Soup's

Douglas Conant

, PricewaterhouseCooper's

Anthony Conti

, and UPS's

Thomas E. White Jr.

A Viv Pickle-designed handbag that Harry Kalas autographed on the inside shortly before his death sold for $2,100 at the Career Wardrobe's annual fund-raiser, "A Perfect Fit," at the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue on Wednesday. Buyers were Linda and Cleve Corner. Also fetching $2,100 was a bag signed by Bill Clinton. Buyers Steve and Katharine Elek, who picked up the Hillary and Chelsea Clinton bag at last year's auction, now have a collection. Career Wardrobe provides professional attire, networking, and training to women.

Briefly noted

The smash-and-grab thieves who hit Boyds on Chestnut Street not only got away with pricey watches. They forced producers to relocate during the first day of shooting for

The Best and the Brightest

, a comedy starring

Neil Patrick Harris

and

Bonnie Somerville

as humble parents trying to get their child into a posh Manhattan private kindergarten.

Wedding bells rang last weekend for former Eagles punter Sean Landeta, 47, and Northeast Philly native Donna Bretzel, 45, who works for a nutrition company. The voice of the Eagles, Merrill Reese, had introduced them when Landeta joined him for a radio appearance sponsored by Bretzel's company. Reese did one better: He also introduced them to family and friends as a married couple at the reception at Del Frisco's steak house.

Cuba Libre, the lively Latin resto-club that started on Second Street in Old City and branched to Atlantic City and Orlando, is adding an outpost in Washington. Owners Barry Gutin and Larry Cohen last week signed a lease for an outpost in a U.S. Mint building at Ninth and H Streets. Opening is up for spring 2010.

Club hopping

A whiff of old Philly intrigue surrounds the Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co., a bar opening to the public June 18 in the subterranean space at 112 S. 18th St. Showcase will be pre-Prohibition-era cocktails. Consultants from the East Village gin joint Death & Co. helped set it up but will not run it, says owner

Chris Doggett

. The bar borrows the respectable-sounding name from a South Philly booze ring in the 1920s fronted by

Max "Boo Boo" Hoff

.

Dancers at Christine's Cabaret, a strip club opening Wednesday on Passyunk Avenue near the Auto Mall in Southwest Philly with a private party, have a perk: a tanning booth in the dressing room. Christine's also is home to the plush Rare Italian Steakhouse, whose chef-owner, Joe Polutro, formerly ran Mio Sogno restaurant. His patrons don't have to venture into the club. The menu does, in fact, have strip steak.

Erratum

Chickie's & Pete's sports bar trademarked "Crab Fries" in 1999, more than 20 years after first serving them. The trademark date was incorrect in last Sunday's column.