Staff Reports
Columbus singer-songwriter Russ Baum is as sunny as he is talented. But he acknowledged recently that even he battles the blues even while he may occasionally sing them.
“I’m tired of these overwhelming feelings,” he posted the other day on his Facebook page. “For me, my best foot forward is to sing and let them know that they are no longer welcome in my life. You feel me? Let’s get this day rolling right with some positive vibes to chase these hard feelings away.”
Those who click into his scheduled livestream concert at 6 p.m. July 17 on the Facebook page for the Bartholomew County Public Library can see for themselves how the restless, high-energy performer gives viewers and listeners enough warmth and smiles to break through nearly any of the novel coronavirus clouds and muck.
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He labels his music “folk energy,” and it’s doubtful that anyone has yet argued the point.
His tunes once were characterized online this way: “Put Green Day, Jack Johnson and Tom Petty in a blender and you’ll get a delicious musical smoothie straight from central Indiana named Russ Baum.”
Columbus’ Dan and Linda Mustard, who once toured nationally as a duo known as Mirror/Mirror, offer a different element of eclectic sounds, from pop-rock to jazz to ancient folk standards such as the haunting “The Water is Wide.”
At deadline, the husband-wife pair still was putting together a specific set list for their July 24 concert. But their audiences through the years have been perhaps as broad as any local artist’s, ranging from weekend crowds at the former Holiday Inn to Columbus Indiana Philharmonic fundraisers. Plus, each have performed separately at the hugely popular “American Pie” pop-rock concert at Judson Erne Auditorium locally.
And Dan Mustard has been a part of ensembles performing everything from praise and worship tunes at church to classic rock at the summertime Donner Park series shows. You’ve got to figure that a man who makes some of his own guitars is pretty serious about what he plays.
When he and his wife were new on the local music scene in the late 1990s, the former musical theater actor saw their Holiday Inn performances as a bit of a chance to role play again.
“We get to be,” he said back then, “someone else for four hours.”
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Two upcoming virtual concerts on the Bartholomew County Public Library’s Facebook page and the library’s website at mybcpl.org:
- Singer/guitarist Russ Baum at 6 p.m. July 17.
- Singer/guitarist Dan Mustard and wife and keyboardist Linda Mustard at 6 p.m. July 24.
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