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Free concerts at Lutz Junction start Saturday with local group
By BILL COATS © St. Petersburg Times, published October 8, 2000 LUTZ -- Music under the stars, which traditionally happens in Lutz one night each year, is about to become downright common. A free concert series begins Saturday night at the community's newly rebuilt train depot, Lutz Junction. Next month, the series resumes for three consecutive weekends. Saturday's theme is country music, appropriate for a community that cherishes its semi-rural surroundings. The headliner is James Taylor Curtis and the Silver Eagle Band, a group with roots in Land O'Lakes but bookings far and wide. "This is predominantly a country-music area," said Ron Stoy, who organized the concert series after leading the volunteer group that built the depot early in the summer. Jimmy Curtis, 24, leads a band that he essentially inherited from his father, J.T. Curtis Jr. It's a versatile group with southern-rock leanings. "A lot of our guys are pretty much old rock-and-rollers," Curtis said. The band is on the move. In March, it produced its first CD. On June 30, it opened for Lee Greenwood at a MacDill Air Force Base concert. Previously, it has opened concerts for Charlie Daniels, Lonestar and Pam Tillis. It is booked in January for a 10-stop tour with the Kentucky HeadHunters. "We're doing the bigger shows now," Curtis said. Opening for Curtis are a pair of individual performers, Bob Anthony and Charles Burns. Stoy calls Anthony a "guitarist extraordinaire;" the Tallahassee Democrat has called his songs "intricately beautiful." Burns has played at the Grand Ole Opry and essentially accompanies himself like a four-piece band, using multitrack recordings, said Stoy, who owns the Sound Exchange music store. On Nov. 4, the concert series turns religious with APB and In Thy Name. APB plays "contemporary Christian pop rock," Stoy said. He said In Thy Name performs a mix of southern gospel, contemporary and jazz, along with humor and personal testimonies. Veterans Day, Nov. 11, brings a return of the 27-member Sunshine Brass Band, which helped dedicate the depot on July 4. The band's Web site (http//members.aol.com/sunbrass) already is touting "a toe-tapping, goosebump-raising, pride-swelling patriotic celebration." The Nov. 18 concert is by the Women's Blues Review, featuring Lutz's Nancy Johnson. "That's definitely going to be the most energetic and raucous of the shows," Stoy said. All the groups are from the Tampa Bay area, and all will be paid partly from profits at food booths, Stoy said. The concert series gives a new role to the grassy, county-owned field in front of the Lutz Branch Library, and to the depot. The core purpose of Stoy's depot-builders was to create a focal point in Lutz's downtown that was a link to its small-town history. But the depot's open platform doubles nicely as a permanent, covered stage. Previously, portable stages were used for festivities there, including the sole night event, an annual community Christmas party with Santa Claus and school choruses. Stoy said he hopes the series will lure families. "Your 20- and 30-year-old couples with 5- and 10-year-old kids who can't get out very often -- I want to see them out there," he said. For everyone who shows up, "I will be doing my best to instill a sense of community in them," he said. For Jimmy Curtis, the concert will be a community service akin to the nine years he has performed at Land O'Lakes' Flapjack Festival. Curtis said he enjoys smaller settings more than big ones, despite a certain anxiety. "I'm actually more nervous at the hometown gigs," he said. "There's a lot of people you can let down, a lot of people who believe in you." - Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469 or coats@sptimes.com. If you go
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