TERRE HAUTE — Terre Haute is not Bob’s Country Bunker.
That fictional bar, as the Blues Brothers once learned, featured “both kinds of music — country and western.”
Here, there is no western.
All kidding aside, this city’s musical reputation helped shift the entertainment choices for this year’s Fairbanks Arts and Music Festival, which begins its 10-day run tonight. For the first time since the festival started booking national music acts in 2005, the headliner will not be a retro pop-rock artist.
Veteran country band Sawyer Brown will take the amphitheater stage at 9 p.m. May 29, preceded by opening groups Don Morris and the Vagabondos at 6 o’clock, and the Corey Cox Band at 7.
“Terre Haute, and the surrounding area, is definitely a country town,” said Eddie Bird, city parks superintendent.
In explaining the change in genres, Bird said information gathered by a festival committee indicated that country music was the way to go. A year ago, the festival bill was topped by Monkees singer Davy Jones. In the change of city hall administrations, Bird replaced Greg Ruark as superintendent just days before Jones’ appearance was finalized.
The diminutive Brit played to a large crowd at the park last May, as did Gary Puckett and The Association in 2007, America in 2006 and Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits in 2005.
That was then, and this is now.
The 2009 festival’s country flavor isn’t limited to May 29. The popular Colgate Country Showdown, sponsored by WTHI-FM 99.9, kicks off its talent-contest lineup at 5 p.m. Monday, May 25, followed by Indianapolis’ Eastern Wing Band, a country group that also plays some old-time rock ’n’ roll. Four nights later, Don Morris — a versatile Terre Haute performer — leads off, followed by Pendleton native Corey Cox — who’s hit the country Top 10 singles chart with “The One That Got Away.” Then Sawyer Brown takes over.
That five-man group from Apopka, Fla., formed in 1981, and got their big break three years later by earning $100,000 in prize money and a recording contract with a first-place performance on the TV show “Star Search.” Between 1985 and ’98, the band — named for a street in Nashville — scored 21 Top 10 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles charts, including three at the No. 2 spot and three at No. 1.
The group should be familiar to Terre Haute country aficionados. Sawyer Brown played Hulman Center five times in the early 1990s, including 1994 when Toby Keith served as their warmup act. Hobie Hubbard, keyboardist and a co-founder of the band, remembers those previous trips to the city. “I do recall eating at Steak ’n’ Shake,” Hubbard said last week by telephone from Nashville.
Bird saw one of those Sawyer Brown shows in Hulman Center, where he also performed as an Indiana State University basketball player from 1987-91. He’s also well acquainted with the band’s lead singer and guitarist Mark Miller, who shares songwriting duties with Hubbard. “He knows my brothers, Mark and Larry,” Bird said, “and he’s been a friend of the family for years.”
Bird had hoped the tickets, which are $25, would be gobbled up within a couple of weeks after going on sale in March, but that hasn’t yet happened. A sellout would cover the $35,000 contract for that night’s show, Bird said.
“I think Sawyer Brown is a big draw for us, even though they haven’t released an album lately,” he said. “They’re still very active.”
Country is the safest choice in the Terre Haute music market, where Hi-99 dominates the radio competition and country artists dominated Hulman Center’s concert offerings in the 1990s and early 2000s. Its fans are loyal listeners and ticket buyers. But the effort to reach outside that box at previous Fairbanks festivals by bringing in ’70s FM radio icons such as America also was successful and appreciated.
“I really hate to see that [festival] go country,” said Dave Sabaini, who follows local music trends as an electronic media instructor at ISU. “Not that there’s anything wrong with country, but we get plenty of that.”
The Noone-America-Puckett-Jones pop-rock run at Fairbanks Park hasn’t been the only outlet for lovers of other contemporary styles. The Blues at the Crossroads Festival draws thousands to Seventh and Wabash each September. And last month, Hulman Center broke a long concert dry spell in admirable fashion with Skillet, an alternative rock and Christian band that filled half of the 2,000-plus seats in the building’s theater-wedge configuration.
“We were thrilled” with the turnout, said Jennifer Cook, Hulman Center’s ticket manager.
Likewise, Sabaini thought “Skillet was a perfect choice for this market.”
By contrast, country at the Fairbanks festival is a tried-and-true choice. “It’s a known quantity,” Sabaini said.
Hopefully, backers of the Nashville sound will deliver their usual strong turnout for Sawyer Brown, even in this rough economic year. The chance to hear nationally known musicians — of any background — puts some fun in this community’s life. The festival needs good music. The May 29 show is worth the cost, Bird said.
“The way I see it is, we’re giving a service to the public,” he said.
For those who like country, that means you.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
The show: National country recording act Sawyer Brown performs at 9 p.m. May 29 at the Fairbanks Park Arts and Music Festival, on the amphitheater stage. Don Morris and the Vagabondos open the show at 6 p.m., followed by up-and-coming country singer Corey Cox at 7.
Rain or shine: The show will go on, regardless of weather conditions. In the event of rain, the concert will move to the Indiana Theatre at 683 Ohio St.
Tickets: They cost $25 each and are available through the Terre Haute Parks and Recreation office in the lower level of the Girl Scout Building at Fairbanks Park, or at First Financial Bank locations in Terre Haute, West Terre Haute and Brazil.
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