Friday, June 12, 2009
The annual Summer Brown Bag Concert series kicked off Thursday as The Lonesome Hobos, a country-folk band with deep roots in the community and the University, performed downtown in front of a crowd of about 100 people.
Blankets were stretched along the concrete area with moms and their children as the band plugged away with original folk-country songs and cover songs by artists such as Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Green and yellow folding chairs were lined up in front of the parking meters, courtesy of the city, as passer-bys stopped and settled down to watch the show.
Brown Bag Schedule
June 18 - Key West Jazz Quartet
June 25 - Two Much Fun
July 2 - Borderline Country
July 9 - Lonnie Ray Blues Band
July 16 - Billy Elbing & the Late for Dinner Band
July 23 - Paul Gray
July 30 - Good Ole Boys”
Organized by the City Parks and Recreation Department in conjunction with Downtown Lawrence Inc., the Summer Brown Bag concerts invite citizens to bring their lunches and relax to a variety of homegrown music. Every Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. until the end of July, a different local band will perform in front of the US Bank on the corner of 9th and Massachusetts Streets.
Duane Peterson, parks and recreation special events supervisor, said the Summer Brown Bag concerts had been a Lawrence tradition for more than 30 years.
“The community really cares about this,” Peterson said. “Music has been what this town is built on.”
Maria Polonchek, English graduate teaching assistant, has the summer off from the University, and said she enjoyed being able to bring her 4-year-old twins to an event like this in the daytime.
“I think it’s nice and casual, which is the point,” Polonchek said. “I’m very glad that Lawrence does this.”
Kate Meyer, Lawrence graduate student, works at the Spencer Museum of art as a curatorial assistant, but moonlights as a guest singer for The Lonesome Hobos and sang a few songs during yesterday’s concert.
Meyer said she first met Dalton Howard, guitarist and lead singer of The Lonesome Hobos, at the museum because he works there as a security guard and would bring his guitar to play every now and then during downtime.
Meyer said she heard Howard playing the guitar in the galleries on a quiet day over the winter and told him to play something she knew.
“And so that’s how I became a part of the Hobos,” Meyer said. “I’m like a part-time Hobo.”
Chesney Buck, Lawrence High School sophomore, offered a different reason for the concert series’ significance. Buck said the first time her mom saw her stepfather, Lonesome Hobos’ washboard player Cotter Mitchell, and fell in love with him was at one of the Brown Bag shows years ago.
Mitchell later corrected Buck’s story, and said that he first met his wife at a benefit show he played with a different band for the Social Service League 13 years ago. She showed up to his band’s Summer Brown Bag concert the next day, which he said he took as a good sign.
Deb Rowden, Lawrence resident, said she’s been coming to the concert series for the past three to four years. Rowden said she was afraid the city was cutting back on the parks and recreation budget, and said she was happy that the community still had this event.
“It’s one of those great little things that let’s you know you’re in Lawrence,” Rowden said.
— — Edited by Brandy Entsminger
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