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Live Music – Mark Stuart – Nashville Folk, Blues, Country and Rock

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Mark Stuart is coming to the Uptown Theatre in the First Street Community Center Saturday, May 27, 2017 at 7:30 PM.  This extraordinary Nashville Folk, Blues, Country and Rock musician will be playing guitar and singing songs with a soulful voice that you won’t want to miss.

Tickets:  $15.00, Students are offered a special price of $5.00.  Questions and optional reservations: 847-256-0000.  Tickets are available at the show and online before the show via this link.

picture of Mark Stuart

What’s your favorite flavor of backstage stories and tour bus adventures? What stories do you like to listen to? How about adventures with Steve Forbert, Freddy Fender, Steve Earle, Ray Wylie Hubbard or Joan Baez?

Flashy guitar “chops” and great story-telling are just the beginning of Mark Stuart’s Americana/Folk tour. His focus in recent years is touring solo, depending on the songs he has penned and recorded, delivered with a soulful singing voice and highly memorable guitar playing. It’s hard to escape a great Nashville family name (Earle) but Mark Stuart’s rock, blues, country, and folk music roots are impeccable in their own right. And they make an exciting show!

One can find Mark Stuart on any given night in a small theater, coffeehouse, house concert, festival stage, club, church auditorium, etc. giving it his all. Aside from that, he could be instructing at a guitar clinic, songwriting workshop, or playing on someone’s recording session. As co-owner of Gearle Records he has produced or co-produced many albums. Stuart’s career has repeatedly taken him to all of the USA, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom, and, has spanned several decades.

The LilFest Series brings worldwide quality performances to intimate Iowa concert settings. Mark Stuart follows in the footsteps of other international performers like Nathan Bell, Phil Heywood, Malcolm Holcombe, Radoslav Lorković, Guy Mendilow, Claudia Nygaard, Jim Post, Eric Taylor, The Sweet Potatoes, James Lee Stanley, Lucie Thorne & The Yearlings.

LilFest searches the world for deeply rooted songs and stories of passion and power for our modern lives.

For more information about Mark Stuart, please see his website: www.MarkStuart.net

Photo of LilFest - Bear Logo

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Live Music – Malcom Holcombe – LilFest Fall Music Series

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Saturday, October 22, from 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm the First Street Community Center’s Uptown Theatre is pleased to be hosting the “real deal” North Carolina backwoods picker and songwriter Malcom Holcombe.

picture of Malcom Holcombe

It is Malcolm’s perception of the world that make his songs hit you like a gunpowder blast. His gruff and tough delivery is a primordial power full of grit, spit and anthropomorphic expression.  — Ray Kennedy

Ray Kennedy is a Nashville 5-time GRAMMY award winning producer of Art Garfunkel, Lucinda Williams, Taylor Swift, Buddy Guy, Greg Brown, Joan Baez and Steve Earle, to pick a few names from his star-studded studio.

Ray continues:  “Malcolm Holcombe is fiercely striking every time you encounter him on or off stage. You just get sucked into his extraordinary world of the twisting of words and wisdom that come from a bottomless well. The melodies and fierce rhythms wrap his narrative into an event where you find yourself at his unique musical carnival. Then suddenly he slays you with a sweet love ballad…”

Trends come and go. What is real is the ground beneath our feet, the sky above us, the struggle to earn a living. These are Malcolm Holcombe’s timeless subjects and the spin he puts on them makes our journey here more bearable.

… and that’s a pretty good nod to the effect of hearing Holcombe sing. If you’ve not seen him in a live setting, this is what you have to do. His presence is spooky and timeless, as one imagines it was like to see Son House or Leadbelly. No emotional stone is left unturned.  — Craig Havighurst, Nashville

Here is a couple of videos from his YouTube Channel:

The LilFest Series at Uptown Theatre in the First Street Community Center brings worldwide quality performances to an intimate concert setting. These artists follow in the footsteps of performers like Nathan Bell, Chad Elliott, Phil Heywood, Radoslav Lorković, Guy Mendilow, Claudia Nygaard, Jim Post, James Lee Stanley, Eric Taylor, The Sweet Potatoes, Lucie Thorne and The Yearlings. Deeply rooted songs and stories of passion and power for our modern lives.

BYOB with purchase of Uptown Theatre Sippy Cup.

HOW MUCH:   Suggested contribution for the Concert $20.00.
Subscription Sponsorships for the series, @ $100 each ensure center front section seating.

TICKET/SPONSORSHIP QUESTIONS: Nancy Emrich Freeman, 847-256-0000

For further information, additional photographs, interview arrangements: http://www.MalcolmHolcombe.com or mail to: [email protected]

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Live Music – Dan Colehour – Benefit for South-East Linn Community Center – Saturday, May 7th.

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Dan Colehour

The First Street Community Center of Mount Vernon, Iowa has the distinct pleasure of hosting a former resident now an award winning singer-songwriter living in Nashville, Dan Colehour.

This is Dan’s second time playing in the Uptown Theatre, he was here last year in May as well.

This year Dan will play one night only in the Uptown Theatre on Saturday, May 7th at 7:00pm.

This is a FREE concert.  The organizer asks that you bring a non-perishable food item to benefit the South-East Linn Community Center.

Dan has pursued music with a passion ever since he was a boy. He started composing at age 16. As a student in the Mount Vernon school system he was a member of the Mount Vernon Marching Band as a percussionist. After graduating from high school, Dan attended North Texas State University for two years. Shortly thereafter, he followed his parents to the central Texas hill country (Austin, San Antonio) with its rich musical diversity and the home of many of his favorite singer/songwriters.

Within a few months, Dan had established himself as an emerging artist, performing at many acoustic venues throughout the area and subsequently signing a publishing contract with Lighthouse Music in Austin. Three years later would find Dan moving to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue his musical career. After a handful of publishing contracts and developmental recording deals with two major labels, Dan signed a recording contract with Dream Works/UMG/Carnival. In the fall of 2008, Dan’s first record, “Straight to the Highway” was released to much critical acclaim.

Dan has written and performed numerous songs, with songs like “Quarry Town” written with Stone City in mind, some of which have been recorded by artists such as: Montgomery/Gentry, Tricia Yearwood, David Nail and Tommy Shane Steiner, to name just a few. Currently, Dan and his band “The Corndodgers” are working on his next record, which is slated for a fall release of this year (2015).

He is described on Pandora.com as:

“A country roots rocker with a heartland vibe in the vein of Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, Dan Colehour was born and raised in the very heart of the Midwest in the small town of Mt. Vernon, IA…”

Join us, and bring your friends, as we welcome him back home Saturday, May 7th when he will perform a live concert with NO COVER charge!

Here are a couple of videos you can check out to hear him yourself:

Quarrytown:

Father’s Son:

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Fox and Branch – Family Folk Music – Kids Show

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Fox-and-Branch
Photo by Jen Husz

The Uptown Theatre in the First Street Community Center in Mount Vernon, Iowa is bringing another day of great entertainment for the whole family with Fox and Branch.

These wonderful and versatile performers are bringing a show specifically for the kids on June 13th at 11am.  They will have a family-friendly show for Grownups later that night.

From their website they describe their kids show as:

“A Fox and Branch family show is all about audience participation. In fact, we try to make the entire idea of there being “an audience” disappear: we are just a big group of people having fun. The kids get to sing, clap, dance and play rhythm instruments. Adults get to enjoy the music, clap and sing along.

Some of the music we present will be familiar to many families, but we also try to introduce new material that will surprise and amuse children and adults alike. We draw our material from American roots sources and from world traditions.”

Cost: FREE!
Location: Uptown Theatre in the First Street Community Center in Mount Vernon.

Learn more about Fox and Branch at their website.

This show is brought to you by:

MVAAC_LogoTitle Sponsors:
First Street Community Center
Cornell College

Contributing Sponsors:
Bauman & Company
Iowa Physical Therapy
Lynch Ford & Chevy

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