By Staff
NILES – This weekend marks the opening season of Sunday concerts in the park.
Organizer Tom Majerek is excited about his opening headliners the Kenny and Amanda Smith Band.
"We are lucky to get this popular and well-known band for our first night," he said.
Kenny, who is originally from Nine Mile, Ind., lists six years with the Lonesome River band among his many credits. He is a two-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitarist of the Year award.
In 2003 the group won the International Bluegrass Music Association's award for Emerging Artist of the Year.
A look at the group's website at www.kenny-amandasmith.com reveals the band combines gutsy, heartfelt vocals, brilliant instrumental talents and a powerful, contemporary sense of song choice and arrangement into one of the most compelling new sounds in bluegrass today.
Born of the intensely personal musical and romantic connection between Kenny and Amanda Smith, the band shares an all-too rare sense of intimacy and cohesion where each musician feels an almost telepathic connection. Musicians call it being in the groove, where the group collectively accents each beat in precisely the same way. Whatever it's called, this band has it in spades. Amanda started playing guitar in high school to accompany herself and soon discovered bluegrass music through female artists such as Claire Lynch, Rhonda Vincent and Alison Krauss.
She met her future husband at a Lonesome River Band concert, and the couple began dating and playing music together almost immediately.
All concerts are held at Niles Riverfront Park Amphitheater in downtown and start at 6 p.m. with an opening act. The headlining act begins at 7 p.m. All concerts are free to the public.