Iconic Scottish Band Plays Happy Days Lodge

Date: April 29, 2011
Contact: Mary Pat Doorley, 440-546-5995

COURTESY/OLD BLIND DOGS

Brecksville, Ohio – The Scottish band, Old Blind Dogs, will perform at 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at Happy Days Lodge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Doors open at 6 p.m. The concert is a part of the Cuyahoga Valley Heritage Series, presented by the National Park Service and the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, celebrating the cultural legacy of the Cuyahoga Valley. The series is sponsored by Courtyard Marriott-Akron/Stow, 89.7 WKSU, Lloyd L. & Louise K. Smith Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, and Cable 9.

General seating admission is $17 adults, $12 Conservancy members, and $5 children ages 3 - 12. Advance sales are available until 3 p.m. on Friday, May 6, by calling 330-657-2909 or stopping at Park Place in Peninsula. For updated ticket availability information, call the Cultural Arts Hotline at 330-650-4636, ext. 228. The hotline is updated at 2 p.m. the day of every concert and is intended to inform callers of sold out events or weather related cancellations.

Please note the early start time of 7 p.m. In celebration of Mother’s Day, all mothers in attendance can enter to win one of a dozen great prizes!

Since forming in the early 1990s, Old Blind Dogs has stood on the cutting edge of Scotland’s roots revival. The band has developed its own trademark style with an energetic mix of songs and tunes. Dynamic percussion, polished vocals, soaring fiddle, and stirring pipes fuel the delicately-phrased melodies and traditional songs. "Old Blind Dogs plays with a compelling energy and intoxicating rhythm, as players and audience seem to share a wild ecstasy of emotion, "stated The Scotsman.

Sixteen years is a long time in the life of any band and most who reach that milestone are content to rest on the tried and true formulas that have worked in the past. Not so for Scotland’s Old Blind Dogs, whose newly released Four on the Floor takes them bravely in many new directions.

A strong, shared musical vision has allowed the group to ride out inevitable line-up changes to the extent that the only original member still with the band is Jonny Hardie (fiddle, guitar and vocals). The Dogs popularity has never dimmed though and the current foursome of Hardie, Aaron Jones (bouzouki, guitar, vocals), Ali Hutton (border pipes, whistles, vocals) and Fraser Stone (drums, percussion) have proven more than capable of carrying on the tradition of the band that the Montreal Gazette called "...a Scots neo-traditional supergroup with a bracingly modern musical attack."

Happy Days Lodge, located at 500 West Streetsboro Road (State Route 303) in Peninsula 44264, 1 mile west of State Route 8, is a restored Civilian Conservation Corps structure that provides a rustic ambiance for folk and traditional concerts, theater, lectures, and special event rentals. For more information on rentals, call the Conservancy at 330-657-2909 ext. 119.

The Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a nonprofit organization created to engage public support for the park and provide services to enhance public use and enjoyment of the park. For more information about the Conservancy and its membership program, visit www.conservancyforcvnp.org or call 330-657-2909.

CVNP encompasses 33,000 acres along the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. Managed by the National Park Service, CVNP combines cultural, historical, recreational, and natural activities in one setting. For more information visit www.nps.gov/cuva or www.dayinthevalley.com or call 330-657-2752 or 800-257-9477.

-NPS-

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