The Strand Theatre congratulates to our friends at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on the premier of the newly restored Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ at the Hilbert Circle Theatre!

The console was placed on stage so the audience could see the organist.    The inaugural piece was Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3.   The full orchestra  and organ gave the audience a aural sensation not heard in the Circle in many years.   The sound of a theatre pipe organ, albeit doing classical duty, coming from the chambers on the right and left.   Martin Ellis did a fine job in bringing the organ into its place as a noteworthy instrument in this country.

The restoration by Carlton Smith, Justin Nimmo and many others made this Wurlitzer a versatile and tonally magnificent instrument.    The audience gave a standing ovation to the performance and the instrument.

The above picture was taken at 9:10 PM just before the end of the intermission and before the premier, which took place on the second half of the program.

Many people from the years gone by are remembered tonight as this instrument plays once again.    Special friends from the past including Dessa Byrd and Tom Ferree  are looking down smiling at the seed they help plant.

There will be plenty of opportunities to hear this instrument.  Contact the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Box Office to inquire about upcoming concerts and tickets.

The Strand is excited for that day when we premier our theatre pipe organ!

The Complete Unknowns will take the Strand stage this Saturday night at 8:00pm.   Come out and hear the music of The Band and Bob Dylan played by this dynamic local group.

The southern mountains came to Shelbyville as “The Cobbler Gobblers” brought their entertaining, enlightening and educational review of toe- tapping, fiddle-wailing, and vocally resonating Appalachian music to The Strand Theatre Thursday night.

It was a musical tour-de-force — a tune-full, tonal journey across decades and centuries of musical experiences, emotions and explorations of the traditional, old-time songs of the hills.  The band’s magical, almost mystical, 28 –song extravaganza inspired both the musicians involved and their audience, who gladly showed their appreciation in a prolonged standing ovation.

“The Cobbler Gobblers are the real deal,” said local musician Dean McNamara. “They are entertaining, educational and talented. It was the best all-ages show of the year.”

As a point of fact, this historic walk through of the traditions of Mountain music opened with sole banjo player, Joey Neal of North Carolina, sitting in a chair on stage (think front porch) picking in “clawhammer style” the iconic song of his rich genre: “Cumberland Gap.” In the next song a fiddler entered to highlight the progressive evolution of the musical history and complex cultural variations Appalachian song.

Onward into the night the education fused with entertainment as “the Cobbler Gobblers” expanded to a full 5-piece string band and then contracted back down for smaller ensembles dictated by tune, style and format of each melodious, harmonious exploration of the expressiveness of mere strings and voices.  Lament mixed with longing and joy as the band triumphantly strolled through the complex, often circular, simplicity inherent in the music and repeatedly built to crescendos of extraordinary proportions. At times the music seemed to sing and dance by itself while in other songs the 3-part vocal harmonies lilted across and through the hall like the dewy echoes and reverberations of the hills and hollers from which the songs sprang.

Spring like, (think babbling brook) the banjo, bass and guitar readily and continually built the rhythms for the fiddle led, often double fiddle inspired, songs which hauntingly  wrapped the nasal twang of the voice into the lilting wails of bows dancing  across fiddle strings.  This is a band which really enjoys playing off each other and it comes out in the sheer joyful musicality of their ethereal, epic playing.

“Mountain music is often a real joyous music where everybody playing joins in on the edge of the tune,” band leader Kent Lockman, explained to the crowd.

This ebullience was quite evident in the numerous small children bouncing and hopping in their seats– just biting at the bit to get up and shake, dance and thrash about to the rhythms and harmonies cascading from the stage during this down-home, string jam-session.

Equally participatory, was the call-and-response percussion supplied during several tunes by the clapping hands and stomping feet of the crowd, both young and old. Also quite poignant and touching was the somber and reverential silence that fell over the hushed theater as the band opened the second set with a somber ballad to showcase the blues fused social- protest songs of mountain music: specifically the trials, tribulations the tragedies of workers in the coal mines.

The tone of this lament, however, was transformed as the band romped through a series of songs where harmonic wails of joy coexist among life’s troubling times. These were and are celebratory ballads to highlight and describe how Appalachian musicians often used song, dance and sheer musical bravado to mentally and spiritually escape the grinding poverty of their daily existence.

“The Cobbler Gobblers,” themselves, typify this spirit soaring through and within music both in their otherworldly vocal harmonics and via the brilliance of strings– plucked, bowed, picked and strummed.

Repeatedly, throughout both sets, I could hear instruments not present on the stage. I could, and can, understand how a double bass can mimic the sound of a jug; but for the life of me I am still baffled as to how and who on stage channeled the raspy, rhythms of a washboard from a stringed instrument. It was a mystery which neither Lockman, nor his bassist wife Marianne, nor any musician in the audience could explain to me. I think, but cannot prove, that this ghostly musical effect was created by the banjo playing of Linda Cabe, another visiting Carolina native.

“This has been a ball for us,” Kent Lockman told the crowd standing in a hearty ovation as the night ended and silence descended on the Strand Theatre.

In fact, several audience members raved in the lobby after the show, including local musician Laura Harmon. “This was a fantastic show,” she said. “Old-time music feels good to the ear. Please (Cobbler Gobblers) come back here again.”

This guest review does not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

Editor’s Note:  The Cobbler Gobblers will return to the Strand Theatre on Friday October 22, 2010.

The Cobbler Gobblers with Kent Lockman will perform on Friday October 22, 2010 at the Strand.   The performance will start at 7:30pm.   Tickets are available at Mickey’s T-Mart,  Blue River Printing, and the Strand Theatre Box Office.   Tickets are $5.

Dishpan Pie has been performing traditional American folk music for 22 years. Band members Kent and Marianne Lockman, Dee Capozzi, and Craig Moorman performed publicly for the first time in a small dinner theater in February 1987 and then again at a folk festival in June of the same year. They all decided they liked the music and each other and remained the Once In Awhile Stringband until summer 2008. Craig Moorman’s busy schedule as a doctor forced him into semi-retirement.

Dee, Kent, and Marianne tightened up their old tunes and songs, added fresh new ones, and chose a new band name…Dishpan Pie. Dishpan Pie is an old southern chicken pot-pie recipe where one uses an enamelware dishpan as their baking dish. It’s definitely a delicious recipe that matches the old time flavor of Dishpan Pie’s music. For the recipe, email the band and they will get a copy to you. Let them know how your dishpan pie turned out!

Dishpan Pie performs with banjoist Linda Cabe and fiddler Joey Neal from North Carolina three or four times a year as the band… The Cobbler Gobblers. The musicians met in Norris, TN for six years before becoming a part-time band. They have appeared in Huntington, WV and played at the Mt. Airy, NC Fiddlers’ Convention for several years, and performed here in Indiana in October 2008.

In June 2008, The Cobbler Gobblers recorded a CD at Eastwood Studio in Virginia. The recording entitled Eat More Cobbler/Play More Tunes has 18 old-time mountain fiddle tunes and traditional songs. Kent, Marianne, and Dee did all the harmony vocals on the recording and usually perform them when in concert. CDs are available from Dishpan Pie for $13 postage paid. Just email or call the band to order your copy.

Dishpan Pie features both high energy instrumental dance tunes led by hammered dulcimer and fiddle, and songs with tight close harmonies that range from old to new, ballads to modern country. Dishpan Pie performs with spirit and humor expressing their respect and love for this old-time genre of American roots music. And they have as much fun performing the music as their audiences do hearing them play it.

The Cobbler Cobblers performed on Thursday October 22, 2009.   They filled the Strand with down home Mountain Music.   The large audience had a great time listening to music of an era gone by.

The crowd packed the lobby even before the doors opened!

Smashed Productions brings another great show to the Strand on November 7, 2009.   Bustin Loose will perform their country/rock show starting at 8:00pm.

All tickets are $5.

Tickets are available at:

• Mickey’s T-Mart
• Blue River Printing
• Smashed Productions

The Cobbler Gobblers will perform TONIGHT at 7:30!!