NORWICH – The restless fingers of experienced guitar players will strike out their talents this weekend at the Chenango County Council of the Arts, playing chords found only after a lifetime of musical pursuit and passion.
The Arts Council benefit will take stage at the Martin W. Kappel Theater at 7 p.m. Saturday, with some of the area’s most experienced guitar artists featured in the “Chenango Guitar Heroes” show.
Long-time musicians will start with the acoustic sounds of jazz, folk and the classics from soloist Tom Rasely, followed by the “jazzy” guitar duet of Ron Palmer and Mark Sherwood. The Eric Porter Trio – with Eric Porter, Jim Kolet and Robert Tousignant – will then hit the stage with their electrified guitar, bass and drums, reaching closer to the rock and roll side of the evening’s performances.
Rasely engineered the fundraiser for the Arts Council as a way to give back to the institution in hard economic times and credited the nonprofit for helping “to feed local starving musicians throughout the years,” he said.
Rasely said the council had awarded him artist’s grants in the past and had indirectly aided performers in the area with financial programs that allowed businesses to recruit entertainers for local events.
“The arts are some of the first things dropped in tough times, but I believe there’s never a better time for them. I made some calls to the Eric and Ron, a couple of local legends who’ve been playing for, I don’t even know how many years, and asked them if they’d be willing to do this show. I then returned to the Arts Council and offered them a show of real substance, that I hope will help them out during these tough times,” said Rasely.
“The show is basically these guys who’ve been playing all around the area for most of their lives. I don’t think I’d exactly classify us as ‘heroes,’ but we’ve been around and we’ve learned how to play,” said Palmer.
Rasely said he invited Porter and Palmer to the show because they had the most extensive resumes and had established themselves as icons in the Chenango County music scene.
Porter picked up his first guitar when he was 13 in 1971, after hearing “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.
