Amantha Mill and Djangovers will take to the Jones House porch Friday, performing as part of the continuing 2016 Summer Concerts at the Jones House.
Newcomers to the series, Djangovers, will start the evening at 5:00 p.m., bringing their unique blend of “hot club” jazz with a southern Appalachian flavor. Featuring the gypsy jazz guitar style playing from Justin Butler and Bobby Steadman, along with multilingual vocalist and accordion player, Lauren Hayworth, Djangovers are rooted in Django Reinhart inspired string-swing jazz, although they cover an eclectic array of styles and genres.
Djangovers have also featured various fiddlers and accompanying musicians over the past two years, and Brandon Holder will be playing bass with the group on Friday.
“People are really going to enjoy the combination of quality singing and quality musicianship,” says concert organizer, Mark Freed. “They will play a great mix of music both familiar and not to start things off.”
Season regulars, Amantha Mill, will follow Djangovers, making band leader, Becca Eggers-Gryder the stalwart musician who has performed at every season of the Concerts at the Jones House.
“Becca used to play two, three, or even four times a summer for the first few years when the Watauga Arts Council was getting the series started,” Freed says. “The series is about 25 years running, and Becca has played with one band or another every year, including with Amantha Mill for the past ten years or so.”
Amantha Mill features bluegrass instrumentation and players with chops to match, but the band performs mostly original music written by Eggers-Gryder and others in the band. Other founding members of the band include guitar player Billy Helms and fiddler John Cockman. Kevin Eller plays guitar and banjo and Dustin Petrey plays mandolin. All of the band members sing, helping to fill out the rich and full stringband sound of Amantha Mill.
The Summer Concerts at the Jones House are free, and patrons are encouraged to bring their own chair or blanket to sit under the giant maple trees in the front lawn of the community center. Performances take place rain or shine. In extreme inclement weather, the concerts are moved inside the Jones House to the Mazie Jones Gallery, which can seat the first 40 patrons on a first-come-first-serve basis.
The 2016 Summer Concerts at the Jones House are produced by The Town of Boone’s Cultural Resources Department and sponsored by the Downtown Boone Development Association, Mast General Store, M-Prints, ECRS, Rosemary Horowitz, Melanie’s Food Fantasy, and Stick Boy Bread Company. For more information about the series, including a complete schedule of performances, please visit www.joneshouse.org or call 828.268.6280.
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