LUCC will host a rare opportunity to experience an afternoon of square dancing with live string band Jenny & the Stray Dogs featuring Gabriel Dansereau at the fiddle, and Randy Wilson calling the dance. All ages, all abilities welcome! Chair dancing encouraged! Dance lessons included for the first 30 minutes. Bottomless potluck dessert table for refueling.
Suggested Donation: $10 per person
Saturday, March 23
1:00-4:00pm
Schedule breakdown:
1:00-1:30: Dance lessons
1:30-3:30: Dance with live music and calls
3:30-4:00: Mingle
This dance is a part of LUCC Concert Series:
LUCC Concert Series invite Old Time, Blues, Blue Grass, Folk and Country musicians, emerging and obscure in spirit to celebrate, support and promote Americana music and musicians from all over the United States. All proceeds benefit the musicians.
About Randy Wilson & Gabriel Dansereau
Randy Wilson is a fifth generation eastern Kentuckian who served as folk arts director for 25 years at the Hindman Settlement School, an institution that has served mountain youth since 1902. He plays several different stringed instruments- guitar, autoharp, Celtic drum, and tells stories of his people in the mountains. But he specializes in banjo and banjo history, playing several different banjos from Africa to Appalachia, particularly banjo styles and tunes from Knott County. Banjo pickers, both men and women, from this region used a variety of techniques and tuning on the banjo.
Mr. Wilson also plays many original tunes – blues, children’s songs. Some are released on his CDs, Dirt Road Dark Night and Get Up You Tugboat. Randy serves the region in several different capacities. He calls dances, plays pospels and spiritual at the nursing home, advocates for miners and people affected by the coal industry, engages youth in water testing of creeks and streams, and searches of economic opportunities in a just transition from coal to more sustainable future. He has represented the region at the Smithsonian festival on the national mall and joined other mountain musicians in cultural exchanges with other communities – Bronx, NY (Puerto Rican), San Antonio, TX (Latino), Anchorage, Alaska (Native American), Dearborn, MI (Muslim), and Rome, Italy.
Randy Wilson will be joined by his son, Gabriel Dansereau, fiddler and jazz guitar player, just graduating from the University of North Carolina Greensboro School of Jazz.
Jenny & the Stray Dogs
Jenny & the Stray Dogs are seasoned musicians of old-time, barn dance, string band, contradance tunes, and country waltzes based in Tampa, Florida. The name evolves from the 35 year-old Tampa old-time jam group the Barking Dogs. The group includes Jenny James on fiddle, Ron Gilbert on guitar, Joe Donahue on mandolin, and Clay Black on banjo. They can be heard playing at contra dances and heritage festivals throughout Central Florida.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 