If you love the old cowboy songs, you’ll want to catch Jason Petty’s The Swingin’ Cowboys Saturday, Sept. 29 at Catawba College’s Keppel Auditorium.
Petty is an OBIE award winner, and his latest production is a tribute to the music of the American West. The show features songs from Stephen Foster, The Singing Cowboys, Roy Rogers and others.
You’ll learn about how cowboys used to sing and hum improvised melodies on the trails to soothe their herds, melodies which evolved and became widely known and recorded by stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
Petty will narrate the legacy of Western Swing, which originated in the 1920s and became popular with the rise of such songs as “San Antonio Rose,” “Don’t Fence Me In,” “Shame, Shame on You” and others.
Petty will be joined by 2011 Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame inductee Carolyn Martin and her band. Petty has performed in Salisbury before, with “Hank & My Honky Tonk Heroes” and “Country Royalty.”
Admission is by Rowan County Concert Association 2012-13 season ticket, available in the lobby before the show, or by single event ticket. Adult ticket is $20, student ticket (18 and under) is $5. Tickets are available at Belk in Salisbury Mall, Rowan Visitors Center, 204 E. Innes St., Literary Book Post, 110 S. Main Street, and Keppel box office one hour prior to show. Online, go to www.rccamusic.com.