Get ready!
Sonny Burgess & the Legendary Pacers will celebrate Burgess’ 85th birthday with an Arkansas Sounds concert at the Ron Robinson Theater at 7 p.m. Friday (June 20).
They will be joined by Rodney Block, Bonnie Montgomery, Kevin Kerby, and Brad Williams and Nick Devlin of the Salty Dogs.
Burgess, a native of Newport, is a rockabilly guitarist and singer. He and the Pacers have played boogie woogie music in dance halls and bars from Arkansas to Europe since the 1950s. From their first record, “We Wanna Boogie” released by Sun Records in Memphis in 1956 to their most recent record, “Still Rockin’ and Rollin'” released in 2000, the band has continued to entertain listeners and audiences with their high-energy rock and roll and enthusiastic performances. The group was inducted in 2002 to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
Block, a classically trained instrumentalist from Dumas, will be among the lineup at the birthday celebration, along with Searcy native Montgomery. As a classically trained composer and opera singer by day and country queen by night, she has been featured by publications such as the New Yorker, The Economist, Huffington Post and the London Daily Telegraph.
Little Rock’s very own Williams and Devlin of The Salty Dogs will also rock the house. They have played with artists such as Junior Brown, Hank Williams, Jr., Old Crow Medicine Show, Pete Anderson, David Rawlings, Kinky Friedman and more.
Kerby, a native of Texas and longtime resident of Little Rock, performed with rock band Ho-Hum and country band Mulehead before beginning a solo career as a vocalist and guitarist.
This concert is presented by Arkansas Sounds, a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies focusing on Arkansas music and musicians both past and present.
Tickets are $10 general admission and are available at www.arkansassounds.org and at Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock.