Brown County Playhouse will offer plenty of twang for your buck this month.
In fact, the venue might as well pretend to be a bit of Tennessee’s Nashville rather than Indiana’s such city, given the lineup of considerable country talent.
Asleep at the Wheel kicks off the boot-scootin’ celebration April 14 at the 425-seat venue, 70 S. Van Buren St.
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The 10-time Grammy winners return to the area after a sell-out Playhouse performance in 2017.
“This is Texas-style country at its very best,” reads the group’s publicity material, with leader Ray Benson and his full-size band. In the early days, Asleep at the Wheel landed a gig opening for Alice Cooper and Hot Tuna in Washington, D.C., in 1970.
At the height of the Vietnam War, many Americans were using their choice of music to express their stance on the conflict in southeast Asia.
“We wanted to break that mold,” Benson said on the band’s website. “We were concerned more with this amazing roots music, which we felt was being lost amid the politics.
“We were too country for the rock folks and we were too long-haired for the country folks. But everybody got over it once the music started playing.”
On April 21, the Blue Collar Bluegrass Band hits the stage. The group, which includes Columbus resident Roger Banister, consists of friends from the Indianapolis area who have been picking together for years.
Each member shares the same passion for traditional bluegrass as well as “new grass” music. Members say the group name represents the down-to-earth, hard-working attitudes that each member shares for life, work and music. The group also includes bassist and vocalist Dean Metcalf, producer of radio and TV’s “The Bob and Tom Show.”
Rounding out the shows will be country veteran Pam Tillis on April 28. The daughter of the late Mel Tillis, she will perform at the Playhouse with her acoustic all-woman guitars-and-fiddles trio.
As the child of country music royalty, Pam Tillis was determined from a young age to find her own way in music as a singer and songwriter. After many false starts with her own recording career, including a pop single on Elektra and 1984’s “Above and Beyond The Doll Of Cutey” for Warner Brothers, Tillis came to the attention of Tim Dubois who headed up the Nashville office of Arista Records.
After much soul searching, Tillis made the commitment to make a straightforward country record. The album “Put Yourself In My Place” yielded two No. 1s, two top-five singles and one Top 20 hit. And in its first year, the album was certified gold.
Tillis followed with three platinum albums on Arista.
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What: Country music concerts in April.
Where: Brown County Playhouse, 70 S. Van Buren St., Nashville.
Who: Asleep at the Wheel, April 14; Brown County Bluegrass Bash, April 21; and Pam Tillis acoustic show, April 28.
Tickets: From $15 to $50, depending upon the show.
Information: 812-988-6555 or browncountyplayhouse.org.
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