GOING FOR GUMBO: BCTMA makes move, hosts concert at the Turnage Theater

Published 8:13 pm Thursday, January 22, 2015

GUMBO LILY | CONTRIBUTED  LOWLANDS TO BADLANDS: Gumbo Lily, featuring (left to right) Rex Hawkins, Rebecca Marks, Pegie Douglas and Bobby Chandler, will perform in the Turnage Theater gallery Saturday night.

GUMBO LILY | CONTRIBUTED
LOWLANDS TO BADLANDS: Gumbo Lily, featuring (left to right) Rex Hawkins, Rebecca Marks, Pegie Douglas and Bobby Chandler, will perform in the Turnage Theater gallery Saturday night.

Beaufort County Traditional Music Association has moved, and with it, the organization’s first concert of the new year.

Gumbo Lily, a Carteret County-based quartet, will play Saturday night in downtown Washington’s Turnage Theater, in the theater’s gallery. It’s the first concert in the new venue, after a move from the recently foreclosed upon Inner Banks Artisans’ Center and its performance space, the Union Alley Coffeehouse.

“It will be a sort of small intimate feeling like we had at the Coffeehouse, but we’ll have a lot more room,” said BCTMA President Linda Boyer, of the move to the Turnage. “The Beaufort County Arts Council very generously offered use of that room and I can’t thank them enough.”

Saturday’s concert represents a return to Washington for Gumbo Lily — they played Union Alley Coffeehouse last year to a very receptive audience, Boyer said — and they are known across eastern North Carolina for the bands unique style: a mix of the sand and salt water of coastal Carolina with the western badlands, where singer/guitarist Pegie Douglas has spent a lot time.

“They play folk songs, traditional songs, diferent bluegrass music—really, a variety of music, but she especially loves her western songs,” Boyer said.

In addition to Douglas on vocals and guitar, the band features Bobby Chandler on dobro and banjo, Rex Hawkins on bass and Rebecca Marks on vocals and guitar.

“The band has a warm, energetic sound and brings many of your favorite traditional tunes to the stage,” Boyer wrote in a press release.

While Gumbo Lily won’t be taking the Turnage stage, they will be taking over the gallery, where BCTMA also will be hosting its Thursday night and Saturday morning jams each week. The move has prompted more than just a change in location, but a name change, as well. Now the events aspect of the non-profit will be referred to BCTMA at the Turnage.

Boyer said playing in the lobby where passersby can see and hear the music is perfect for what the BCTMA is trying to do: keep the tradition of playing music, but especially traditional music, in the spotlight.

“We’ll still be playing around town. We’ve just moved from the Coffeehouse to the Turnage,” Boyer said.

Saturday night’s show begins at 7 p.m.; tickets are $5. The Turnage Theater is located at 150 W. Main St. in Washington. For more information about BCTMA and their current membership drive, visit BCTMA.org.