Union River Band planning concerts

Friday, March 4, 2005

Union River Band, a bluegrass band from Clifton, Maine, is on a roll.

"I think we're constantly changing and growing right now.," Bill Thibodeau, co-founder and spokesman, said in a recent telephone interview. "We're looking at possibly going to Nashville in October to do a showcase, so there are lots of good things happening and we'd like all the help and support that we can muster up."

The quintet is made up of Ed "Bud" Cooper on guitar, lead and harmony vocals; Steven Peterson on banjo and guitar, lead and harmony vocals; Nancy Merrill on acoustic bass, harmony vocals; Edward Howe on fiddle and mandolin, harmony vocals; and Thibodeau on mandolin, fiddle, dobro and guitar, lead and harmony vocals.

URB plays monthly at the Tillbury Town Tavern in Gardiner as well as some gigs in Bangor, but in addition to those regular shows, the band has several performances in March, which was the first topic of conversation in a recent telephone conversation.

"The first show is at the Millennium in Newport in Palmyra. It's brand new. (The show) is going to benefit the Pittsfield Library Fund.

"I think these shows coming up are worthwhile concerts," Thibodeau said.

The last big show for the bluegrass quintet is at Slates in Hallowell on March 28 for the restaurant's Monday Night Concert Series.

The band has released two CDs so far.

"They're not with this band lineup," Thibodeau said. "The first one was with a guy by the name of Kenny Brooks doing all of the lead singing titled 'Memories.' " When it came time to do their second CD, Brooks had retired from making music so they hired a new singer/guitarist, Matt Stein.

"(He's) a Pittsfield native," the multi-instrumentalist continued. "He turned out to be a good singer and toured one year with us and did that second CD with us ("One More Day"), then went to law school."

The current lineup is pulling material together for the recording of their third CD and Thibodeau hopes that they can begin recording it in a month's time.

"Our bass player, Nancy Merrill, is a great songwriter and she has two-and-one-half originals on it so far," he said. "Steven's turning out to be quite a songwriter, as well, the banjo player. He's got one original on there and another one he co-wrote with Nancy, they've gotten together and started to put out some great stuff."

And as far as that soon-to-be-completed album goes, do they have any idea when it might be coming out?

"We have a release date of June 9," he said. "Sometimes they get pushed back depending on what's going on, but that's our hopeful date, anyway."

Lucky Clark lives and writes in Sweden, Maine.