PHILLIPS – Roochie Toochie & The Ragtime Shepherd Kings are coming to the Phillips Area Community Center on Saturday, Sept. 23, as part of a two-week tour of Maine. This old-time novelty jazz and pop quintet, with members from Nashville, Detroit, and New Orleans, offer an evening of Tin Pan Alley hits.
While the band performs ragtime tunes around the country, this tour offers a resurrection of some old Maine songs with a special segment showcasing sheet music from the early 20th century written in and about the State of Maine. The old-time Maine medley, produced at the height of the Tin Pan Alley era, was culled from the collections at The Bagaduce Lending Library in Blue Hill.
Roochie Toochie also offers some fancy fiddling, dueling Hawaiian guitars, ukulele wizardry, brazen banjos, vocal harmonies that sound as if they were polished by hand, a menagerie of toy instruments including a musical pig “Porkestra, some ventriloquism, and what they call “scandalous dancing.” Clearly, they mix a good deal of showmanship with their lively ragtime tunes.
This group won First Prize for Best Neo-Traditional Band at the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Festival. And while their current home is Nashville, the band includes a Mainer: ukulelist Timmy Findlen hails from Aroostook County’s Fort Fairfield and called Portland home for many years.
The show at the PACC on Saturday, Sept. 23, begins at 7 p.m. Admission for adults is $10, children 12 and under, $5. Refreshments will be available for purchase.
