Street music booked and ready for weekend Pigs and Swigs Festival
Berchtold and Stear, Danny Tackett and the Chicken Pickin’ Orchestra, Twang, Unstable Tables, and Elvis

[May 30, 2019]  Just as every good street festival begs for a little street music, so does a barbeque festival hunger for a little blues and bluegrass thrown in for good measure.

Take heart, fans of this weekend’s Pigs & Swigs celebration unfolding Friday and Saturday on the downtown Lincoln square. Street musicians will be among the crowd offering blues, bluegrass and other genres.

Taking the lead on Friday evening will be Berchtold and Stear, a duo who perform a variety of material for their repertoire. Piedmont-style fingerpicking is Dave Berchtold’s specialty, which he incorporates into folk, rock and blues. A resident of Minier, Berchtold also writes much of his own material. Brian Stear, his picking pal, is a multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Los Angeles. He plays guitar, mandolin and harmonica during the duo’s shows. They will perform from 6:30 to 9 p.m.

Three groups and a solo act focusing on the music of Elvis Presley will be performing in various spots around the downtown area on Saturday afternoon.

Performing will be Lincoln resident Danny Tackett and the Chicken Pickin’ Orchestra; Twang, a duo from Bloomington; and Unstable Tables, a group of younger musicians from Mount Pulaski and Lincoln; and Gregory Ray, an Elvis impersonator from Lincoln.

The groups will perform from 2 until 4:45 p.m.

The Chicken Pickers rely on bluegrass, traditional country and a few pop standards from the past. Performing with Tackett Saturday will be guitarist and vocalist Jimmy Birkey from Hopedale and Kevin Wilson, a five-string banjo picker from Elkhart.

The group appears regularly to sell-out crowds for shows sponsored by the Atlanta Library at The Palms Grill in downtown Atlanta.

Twang, based in Bloomington, includes Tom Ricker on guitar, ukulele and harmonica and Bruce Bergethon on fiddle and mandolin. They perform a wide range of styles, reflecting their long history with central Illinois bands. Ricker’s credentials include long stints with two popular groups, Kool Ray and the Polaroidz and later the X-Ray Men. Bergethon spent many years as a founding member of the Old Men Boys, a crowd favorite throughout the area.

Unstable Tables offers a wide variety of music based on an equally eclectic roster of influences, ranging from Johnny Cash to Tom Petty to The Beatles. The group includes guitarists Derek Spiker of Lincoln and Caleb Coppinger of Mount Pulaski and bassist Brady Walsh from Mount Pulaski.

Ray promotes himself as Lincoln’s original Elvis impersonator. He performs – in full Elvis costume – some of Presley’s best-known tunes with a pre-recorded soundtrack.

[Danny Tackett]