Saturday June 1, Bucky Halker will be performing at the Bishop Hill Folk Music Festival. His free concert will start at 1 p.m. by the village park gazebo in historic Bishop Hill, IL.
Bucky Halker is a songwriter, performer, and historian with over 15 albums to his credit, including Wisconsin 2-13-63, a two-CD project of original songs, Anywhere But Utah: Songs of Joe Hill (2015) honoring martyred labor songster Joe Hill, and The Ghost of Woody Guthrie (2012), an original music tribute to the legendary folksinger. Halker, a Ph.D. in U.S. history, has lectured and published extensively on music in America and has regularly toured Europe since 1990. He is the author of For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895 (University of Illinois Press) and the scholar-producer for the five-volume Folksongs of Illinois CD series. Bucky also received the Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress – American Folklife Center in 2012. Bucky’s most recent project has joined the talents of kids (ages 4-18) and adult musicians and resulted in an illustrated book and musical CD entitled Chicago Kids Play and Sing Hoagy (2020). The CD features children’s songs by the legendary composer Hoagy Carmichael, the author of some of America’s most notable jazz and pop standards.
After Bucky Halker, the Bucktown Americana Music Show will be performing at 2 p.m. in the park. The Bucktown Americana Music Show has been bringing the best in traditional music to the Midwest for going on two decades. Featuring fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo playing, and vocal harmonies, Bucktown showcases roots music’s rich heritage. If you’re a fan of bluegrass, folk, Celtic, Americana, or old-time music, you’ll love the Bucktown Americana Music Show. Their music is lively, energetic, and sure to get your feet tapping.
To finish off the day, Barry Cloyd will be performing at 3 p.m. Barry Cloyd is a Midwestern based, award-winning, touring singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/historian who typically performs more than 125 shows of all types per year. Barry is also a recording artist with 10 CD’s, the last of which, the all original “Southland”, won an award for best Americana album in 2016 which resulted in his tracks “Spirit Dance” and “Know This River” being placed in international radio rotation. Barry combines his original songs with traditional songs, well-known and not so well known covers. An Americana artist, Barry sticks a musical toe in all types of Folk/Roots Music waters: bluegrass and mountain music on 5-string banjo, the Delta slide of Riverboat music on Dobro, all manner of acoustic guitars, including 4-string, 6-string,12-string, high-strung, altered tuned instruments, mandolin and other things acoustic. In addition, he is a strong vocalist and a prolific songwriter. Barry Cloyd has been earning a living by touring, concerts, song-writing and performing original edu-tainment programs for the past 24 years.
This event is funded in part by the Illinois Arts Council, the Galesburg Community Foundation and the Geneseo Foundation. For more details, you can call 309 927-3899 or email bhha@mymctc.net.
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