Champaign County Arts Council offers annual Concerts in the Park

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The Champaign County Arts Council is celebrating its 25th anniversary of offering Concerts in the Park. As always, this summer’s concerts are free of charge, and music lovers are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets and food to the outdoor venues.

The schedule

June 23 at 7 p.m. – Parrots of the Caribbean at Melvin Miller Park (rain site: Urbana High School). Concessions by The Hippie & the Farmer.

July 4 at 7 p.m – Hotel California at Grimes Field (rain site: Gloria Theatre). Featured sponsors are the Champaign County Memorial Foundation and the Peoples Savings Bank.

July 16 – Daniel Dye at Art Affair on the Square, downtown Urbana.

Aug. 13 at 6 p.m. – Lower London Street Dixieland Band at Harmon Park, St. Paris (rain site: St. Paris United Methodist Church).

Aug. 20 at 6 p.m. – 73rd OVI Regiment Band at Harmon Park, St. Paris (rain site: St. Paris United Methodist Church).

Sponsors

Series sponsors include Champaign County Memorial Foundation, Fonda Lou Eaton, Brett Gilbert, The Charles F. Johnson Family, Johnson Welded Products, The Medicine Shoppe, Peoples Savings Bank and Perpetual Federal Savings Bank.

The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program or organization with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

Parrots of the Caribbean

This quintet hails from Dayton and salutes the music and lifestyle of Jimmy Buffet and the coral reefer band. These musical troubadours have traveled and performed across the United States and Canada, entertaining audiences for the last 15 years with the hits and favorites loved by Parrot Heads everywhere.

Hotel California

Paying tribute to The Eagles, Hotel California has thrilled Eagles fans around the globe since the 1980s. The group has shared the stage with The Doobie Bros., Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gretchen Wilson, REO Speedwagon and others. The easy-going warmth that comes from the band onstage exemplifies the Southern California sound of the 1970s. Members of Hotel California have performed in other touring bands, such as The Guess Who, April Wine, Glass Tiger, Coney Hatch and Foot In Cold Water.

Daniel Dye

Daniel Dye, raised in Champaign County, wrote songs as he backpacked his way around the world, living in China, Germany and Poland. After returning to the United States, he began jamming with his nephews and niece, the musical Miller siblings, who were classically trained in the cello, viola and violin. The banjo, mandolin, accordion and cajon were soon mixed in and the Miller Road Band was formed.

Dye’s songs have been influenced by folk, bluegrass, rock, blues, jazz, classical, country and gospel and his tunes combine these genres. Dye and his family created the annual Madden Road Music Festival in Mutual.

Lower London Dixieland Band

The Lower London Street Dixieland Jazz Band has performed regularly for the past 40 years in the west central Ohio area.

The group can be heard every last Tuesday of the month at the historic Red Brick Tavern (intersection of U.S. Routes 40 and 42 near London) and at Mardi Gras events throughout the area as well as at concerts and at Dixieland funerals.

The band performs traditional jazz selections in the now-classic San Francisco Jazz style that emerged in the 1940s. This style was brought to Ohio in the 1950s. The signature sound is a strong two-beat tuba-banjo rhythm supporting a swinging, syncopated brassy front line of cornet, trombone and clarinet ensemble along with the traditional vocal and instrumental solos.

The 73rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment Band

The 73rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment Band is a professional musical organization dedicated to bringing the sights and sounds of military music of the American Civil War to life. Founded in 2012, and based in Waverly, the band is named after the 17-piece regimental brass band of the real 73rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a unit formed in the fall of 1861 to serve in the Union Army. The southern Ohio men who made up the regiment, and indeed the band, came from many farms and communities in the Scioto River Valley, including Waverly in Pike County, as well as the once-capital of Ohio, Chillicothe in Ross County.

Of the 21 band members, many are current or former military personnel, alumni of The Ohio State University Marching Band or other talented musician-historians from central Ohio and elsewhere around the state. The band rehearses semi-monthly in The Ohio State University Steinbrenner Band Center at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, and has online presence at their website: www.73rdoviregimentband.weebly.com and on Facebook: facebook.com/73rdoviregimentband.

Parrots of the Caribbean
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/05/web1_parrots-1.jpgParrots of the Caribbean

Hotel California
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/05/web1_Hotel-California-Lake-1.jpgHotel California

Daniel Dye is shown here with The Miller Road Band.
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/05/web1_Daniel-Dye-and-the-Miller-Road-Band-1.jpegDaniel Dye is shown here with The Miller Road Band.

Lower London Street Dixieland Band
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/05/web1_Lower-London-40-Celina-1.jpegLower London Street Dixieland Band

OVI Regiment Band
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/05/web1_73rd-regiment-1.jpgOVI Regiment Band

Submitted story

Information is from the Champaign County Arts Council and musicians’ websites.

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