
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 8, 1994                   TAG: 9401080177
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE COLUMN

Alabama, the country band that has performed across the United States and Canada for 14 years, won't entertain outside the South this year.

"As we all get older, there's a desire to be home as much as you can," said Greg Fowler, a publicist for the four band members, who range in age from 38 to 44. "They wanted to take advantage of this opportunity."

The band, which dominated country music in the 1980s, plans 105 concerts at Nashville's Opryland USA entertainment park, about 20 at the group's own theater in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and one benefit in Fort Payne, Ala., the group's hometown.

"We could be back doing full tours in 1995 or in the year after that," Fowler said.

\ Jack Nicholson donated 60 acres to the Santa Monica, Calif., Mountains Conservancy to protect an unspoiled wildlife corridor from development.

"It's so wonderful that he did this. You have no idea how vital this small plot is. It's the only way wildlife can migrate in that area," said Judy Marx, president of the nonprofit L.A. Urban Wilderness Coalition.

The 60 acres is 10 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Previously, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, Peter Strauss and Don Henley have donated property to the conservancy.

\ American opera star Barbara Hendricks, who gave a New Year's concert in Sarajevo, made an appeal Friday to President Clinton to "stop the barbarism" in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Hendricks, an Arkansas native who sang at the Clinton inaugural festivities, urged the president to visit Sarajevo to see for himself conditions including cold, hunger and lack of electricity.

"One can never be prepared for the reality of everyday life here," she said in an "open letter from Sarajevo" to Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. "You must see it with your own eyes."

Hendricks, who performs widely in Europe from her base in Switzerland, said images of what she had seen were still vivid, including gaunt faces of musicians who had lost an average 30 pounds since the war started.

by CNB