The “Sunset Music Series” at the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center presents Hokum’s Heroes at 7 p.m. June 25.
     In the days before ragtime, jazz, blues and country music were clearly defined as musical genres, hokum was a component of popular entertainment that mixed music and songs with stagecraft, farce, spoofs, and other forms of “tomfoolery”.
      The Boston-based stringband, Hokum's Heroes, take their name from that early 20th century era (as well as the not-so-early 20th century television show, “Hogan’s Heroes”) when popular music was a
primordial stew from which jazz, country blues, ragtime, folk, vaudeville, gospel, stringband, and jug band would spring forth.
     Steeped in the sensibilities of this early music, Hokum’s Heroes render it with spontaneity, modern sensibilities and a big backbeat, and the result is a glimpse of a time before record stores and radio stations divided music up – when blues, rags, folk, jazz and more sat side by side on the shelf as popular songs.
     Hokum’s Heroes is comprised of guitarist and bandleader Bruce Millard, vocalist Samoa Wilson, harmonica player and vocalist Geordie Gude, upright bass player Matthew Berlin, and drummer Jerome Deupree. Raised in Boston in a vibrant extended family, Wilson ’s early years were filled with vintage
blues, jazz and folk music, and she possesses a fresh, yet classic voice which wraps itself around timeless material like a warm blanket.
     Millard and Berlin both played in Howard Armstrong’s band before he passed away at age 94 in 2003. Millard was particularly influenced by the six years he spent playing with Armstrong.
     The Sunset Music Series is sponsored by Bank East. Admission to each concert is $4 per person at the door, with Heritage Center members admitted free. For more information, call the Heritage Center at
(865) 448-0044.

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