Published: July 09, 2008 09:40 pm      

Goose Creek Symphony to play weekend benefit

Prestonsburg fundraiser to benefit football team

PRESTONSBURG — Fans in Floyd County are gearing up for Sunday’s return of native son Charlie Gearheart and Goose Creek Symphony.

“Charlie is a legend and, of course, all of the guys in Goose Creek are great. This is going to be an outdoor show, so that’s going to be good, too,” said Prestonsburg High School football coach John DeRossett. “Even if we don’t raise a lot of money, we will have a lot of fun.”

Gearheart himself said there’s always something special about a show in Prestonsburg.

“Oh man, it’s kind of the ultimate. It really is. There’s just no place like it. It is home,” Gearheart said from Nashville this week, a little road weary but enthusiastic as he looked to the final shows of what has been an outstanding and memory-making summer tour.

That tour included a reunion of the band’s original members during the annual “Goose On The Lake” festival in Allegre, Ky., which Gearheart said was tremendous fun.

“We had a ball. Everybody, the whole weekend,” he said with a hearty laugh, adding members of the old band and the new got together for a big jam session on the final evening. “We had four electric guitars, two drummers and two fiddles. It took us about 40 or 45 minutes to play ‘Talk About Goose Creek’ because of all of the solos.”

The timing of the reunion was a perfect follow up to the release of Goose Creek’s latest album, “The Same Thing Again,” made up of nine songs that were recorded in the early 1970s and essentially lost for many years and unheard by the band’s legion of hard-core fans. The CD package includes a DVD with converted film footage of the early band riding on their bus “Ima” and previously unreleased images from the group’s “Words of Ernest” album cover photo shoot.

Gearheart said the bus portion of the DVD was another “lost tape” found in his closet, and admits he had forgotten ever making the original film.

“I thought it was an old one-inch tape from a TV station of a nationally broadcast show we played in Canada,” Gearheart said with a laugh, describing his own reaction to the images of the band “as a bunch of kids” riding the bus and later riding horses.

Sunday’s Goose Creek Symphony show will be the highlight of a benefit event to raise funds for new turf on the high school football field, DeRossett said, adding the crowd will also get a chance to hear Nick Jamerson, grandson of UK football legend Shorty Jamerson, and a former Prestonsburg football player who is now on the Pikeville College team.

“Kenny Chesney is what we call him,” DeRossett said with a friendly chuckle.

DeRossett said team members also hope to debut their new form-fitting uniforms at Sunday’s show.

Tickets for Sunday’s Goose Creek Symphony concert at the Prestonsburg High School football field are $15 and the public is invited to bring lawn chairs. The benefit event will be handicap accessible, DeRossett said, and plenty of concessions will be available. Gates open at 5 p.m.



Tickets for Sunday’s Goose Creek Symphony concert at the Prestonsburg High School football field Sunday are $15. Those attending are encouraged to bring lawn chairs. The benefit event will be handicap accessible with concessions Gates open at 5 p.m.

TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2651.