Hootenanny (New Salem)
2003 · Theatre in the Park, Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site
Hootenanny was Ken Bradbury's outdoor folk-music revue at Lincoln's New Salem — "a name someone in the '60s gave to something we'd been doing for thousands of years: getting together and singing songs." Presented on June 25 and 26 at the Theatre in the Park and sponsored by The Chapin State Bank, Jacksonville Savings, and The New Salem Lincoln League, it gathered a handful of seasoned musicians for an evening of campfire favorites, Kingston Trio numbers, Irish ballads, John Denver tunes, and the great communal sing-alongs of the 1950s and '60s. As the program's mock-scholarly definition put it, a Hootenanny was "a sing-a-long first made popular by folk musicians of the 1960's" and "a good reason to sit out in the New Salem heat and sweat your blues away."
In the spirit of a true hootenanny, the players came from all over, didn't rehearse much, and simply played. The 2003 edition ran alongside Bradbury's New Salem season of Abraham! and Distant Thunder, and featured Ken at the piano with three longtime friends: Larry Diemer and Larry Kernagis — a folk-and-banjo duo who met in seminary in Galesburg and "now know enough Irish songs to choke a leprechaun" — and Chapin's Mike Post, a guitarist Bradbury had known since junior high and who had first come to New Salem to perform Cotton Patch Gospel.
Program
A 15-minute intermission divided the two sets. The repertoire was drawn from a deep well of folk and sing-along standards, including:
- Old campfire favorites: Michael Row, I'll Fly Away, Do Lord, Kum Bah Yah, Down by the Riverside
- Kingston Trio: MTA, Tom Dooley, Scotch and Soda, Worried Man, Greenback Dollar, Today
- Irish: When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, My Wild Irish Rose, Scarlet Ribbons, Gypsy Rover, Scotland the Brave, Danny Boy
- John Denver: Country Roads, Grandma's Feather Bed
- '50s and '60s: The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Try to Remember, Sloop John B, Blowin' in the Wind, Puff the Magic Dragon, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Day-O, Mr. Bojangles, Battle of New Orleans
- Finale: This Land Is Your Land, Amazing Grace, God Bless America
Performers
- Larry Diemer — A folk singer who learned his craft in the seminary in 1960 (Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, Chad Mitchell Trio), later played Chicago coffeehouses, served in the military, and picked up "a few hundred Irish songs" along the way.
- Larry Kernagis — Found his dad's banjo in the attic at 13, studied banjo and voice at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, and partnered with Larry Diemer in Galesburg, where the two found they "could harmonize and have fun."
- Mike Post — A Chapin, Illinois guitarist who met Bradbury in junior high and traveled the vaudeville circuit with him "in a converted ambulance."
- Ken Bradbury — Host, pianist, and emcee. "It was Mom's fault," he wrote in the program. "She said that if I practiced the piano I wouldn't have to dry dishes."