The Columbia Association’s Lakefront Summer Festival is sponsored by the Columbia Association and held on the lawn at the Columbia Town Center Lakefront off Little Patuxent Pkwy. No admission fee is charged. Parking is free. [Map]
Sunday concerts begin at 6:30 pm and all other concerts begin at 8 pm and end by 10 pm.
Movies begin at dusk (about 8:30 pm). All films are rated (G) unless otherwise noted.
No glass containers or alcoholic beverages are permitted.
Rain Cancellation: 410-715-3154
| July 27, 2008 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp met in the spring of 2005 while Jeni was working on an album called Jewell Ridge Girl. One of the songs cut for Jewell Ridge Girl, “Back Then”, a letter written by a wronged woman to her ex-husband in prison, caught Billy’s attention and he suggested that he and Jeni consider a songwriting collaboration. Jeni brought him the lyric for “Willy Rasnake Meets His Maker”, the story of one man’s escape from the holler and his fatal return on a Harley. The lyric seemed to fit a melody that Billy had knocking around in his head for years and a songwriting duo was born.
Jeni & Billy write original songs in the Traditional Country, Old-time, Appalachian and Folk styles. They call it new old music. Jeni was born in the coal mining town of Richlands in Southwestern, Virginia. She spent summers with her MawMaw up around the Jewell Ridge Coal Camp and spent the school years moving with her family from city to city, from Boston to Nashville, Las Cruces to Omaha. Billy is a Baltimore native with East Virginia roots who grew up dreaming of hills and hollers while learning to play guitar on the front steps of a little white church in Oella, a Baltimore community of mill workers transplanted from Appalachia. Together, Jeni and Billy share a love of songwriting and, in particular, a love of Country music with its stories of true life blues and unexpected grace.
Jeni’s haunting and mournful vocal style is complimented by Billy’s accomplished instrumental work. His flat-pick and fingerstyle playing combines syncopation and melodicism to convey the mood of the songs. He also adds character to the performance with his fine duet and harmony vocals. Jeni’s dark and striking lyrics draw you into captivating narratives of heartache and hard living. Images of coal & crowns, trash & trailers, and glass and gasoline recur, and Jesus and the Great Speckled Bird are never far off.