The final Thursday Music in the Park Concert Series takes place this week.
Patsy Thompson and her band including James Badger, drums, Chris Rolin, lead guitar, and Bruce Morrison, bass guitar, will be taking to the stage in Memorial Peace Park.
Thompson, herself, has shared the stage with Willie Nelson, Clint Black, Rusty Weir and Stop The Truck.
The Blues and country artist has been to Texas and back and even recorded at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Recording Studio in Austin.
Vancouver born Badger is a performance and studio drummer that specializes in Roots style music. He thrives on playing blues, old country, rockabilly, rhythm and blues and classic rock and roll.
Rolin hails from Maple Ridge and has played professionally, teaching students and producing music for more than 35 years. Rolin has been selected as the B.C. Country Music Association Guitarist of the Year five times as well as producer of the year two times.
Morrison has been playing professionally since 1982 and worked together with Rolin in the early 90’s. He has received the B.C. Country Music Association’s award for All Star Band Ball Player of the Year. He has also performed on every album by country music star Rick Tippe since 1998.
Thursday Music in the Park is a collective effort between the Variété D’Arts Society and a other local community members connected with the local music scene.
This was the first year for the event that quickly started after a meeting between the society and local artists in July.
“We literally had a meeting at the beginning of July and then came up with this six week pilot project to see what kind of a response we would get from a listening audience. We are focused on getting an audience to listen to the music,” said Chris Horne, president of the Variété D’Arts Society.
Horne is hoping the summer concert series will be an annual event.
The free show takes place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Aug. 30 in Memorial Peace Park, downtown Maple Ridge.
