The annual Summer Sunset Series returned to the Grove with a month of free, weekly concerts. The concert series, which takes place at 6 p.m. every Sunday in June, is set to wrap up on June 30 with a performance from Terry “Harmonica” Bean.
Wayne Andrews, director of the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, talked about the importance of the Summer Sunset Series.
“The series promotes the region’s music traditions through a community event that invites residents and visitors to enjoy one of the most beautiful spaces in the community,” Andrews said. “We hope people will shop local in making their picnic baskets, connect with their neighbors and enjoy the talents of artists that reside in our community.”
Bean’s upcoming performance will be sponsored by the University’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Bean hails from Pontotoc, where his name is included on a Mississippi Blues Trail marker. He has been performing his one-man guitar-and-harmonica act since the 1990s.
Performances that have already taken place set the tone for the capstone performance. This year the series opened on June 2 with live music sponsored by the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. Alice Hasen and Josh Threlkeld Trio took to the stage for opening night.
Hasen talked about her group’s music and how it felt returning to the Grove.
“We are a lot of different genres ranging from traditional folk and fiddle tunes, Irish tunes, old-time bluegrass tunes and all that traditional stuff to more R&B groovy bluesy stuff,” she said. “One of our biggest things is that we’re super improvisational and we just like to take things in different directions every time we play. I’ve been really happy to play in the Grove a lot of different times, but it hasn’t always been with the same group. This was probably one of my favorite Grove experiences because I’m just really excited about this act.”
Hasen said that her and Threlkeld’s favorite part of the performance was improvising a new song.
“We make up songs sometimes on the spot in our shows because it’s just a really fun way to connect with the audience and give them a part in the show,” she said. “We ask (the audience) for a location, a mood and one other element, which can be an animal, a situation, an object or anything like that, and then we make up a song. …They gave us the beach, a sad mood and a cat, so we wrote a sad song involving a cat and the beach. It was just a blast, and everybody was laughing, and we had a great time putting it together. And then at the end of the show we both agreed that was our new favorite song.”
Drew and Courtney Blackwell of Honeyboy and Boots, the headliner for the June 23 performance, shared Hansen’s excitement about being invited to perform.
“We haven’t played anything for them in three or four years, but (the arts council) reached out to us and wanted to know if we were interested in playing, and we said, yeah, we’d love to,” Drew Blackwell said.
The Oxford-Lafayette Chamber of Commerce sponsored the event on June 9 which featured Joe Austin and The Tallahatchies. June 16 featured music from The Yalobushwhackers, also known as the house band for Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, and was sponsored by the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
