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Eiler to Perform At Coffeehouse Series

 ArtsLink’s 2017 Summer Coffeehouse Series continues on Thursday, June 29, with Wetzel County native Gary Eller, who sings and plays guitar, five-string banjo and bass.

The free show will begin at 7 p.m. on the lawn of the Francis Creative Arts Center at the corner of Maple Avenue and Washington Street.

Eller was born and raised in West Virginia and lived in Ohio and Georgia prior to a 30-year career in nuclear science and engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico. In 2004 he retired to Pickles Butte near Nampa, Idaho.

These diverse experiences have strongly influenced his musical contributions to many musical groups including Atomic Grass, Crossroads and a number of duos and trios. Eiler won the 2005 Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, banjo contest with two original compositions, and placed second in the 2006 competition. 

His Wetzel County region project contains songs about events ranging in time from the days of Lewis Wetzel in the late 1700s to an autobiographical song written in the 1990s by Knob Fork’s Pansy Yoho, who has been singing her heartfelt ballads for more than 70 years. “Johnny Gamble’s Ghost” is about one of West Virginia’s most famous ghost stories and trials, a story that began near the Wetzel/Tyler line in 1853.

“Ballad of Frank Jennings” concerns the last vigilante killing in West Virginia, which occurred on Tarpon Ridge a few miles from New Martinsville in 1873. “Sistersville Airship” relates to a famous UFO sighting in 1897. “Benwood Coal” is about one of West Virginia’s worst mining disasters in 1924.

The audio tracks were recorded by Gary Eller and friends from Idaho and Utah, and Wetzel County region musicians Terry Sands, Ron Hoskinson, Gay Schwing (deceased) and Pansy Yoho, and Fairmont’s Leigh Ann Hood.

Summer Coffeehouse series is sponsored by Doolin Security Savings Bank. Light refreshments will be served, with thanks to West Virginia Northern Community College. For more information, call 304-455-2278.

 

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