Entertainment Roundup: Kelly Thibodeaux and Etoufee to headline distillery’s End of Summer fest

By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — A little rain over the weekend made for a nice change of pace, knocked the smoke out of the air, helped our hard-working firefighters a bit, and then gave way to some beautiful, sunny days.

On Saturday, Sept. 24, Mick and Cindy at Deep Woods Distillery will be holding their annual End of the Summer Festival in the Insensitive Wetlands, the distillery gardens, at 48217 E. First St. in historic Uptown Oakridge.

The music will run from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. Leading off the show will be Naomi Wise & Friends doing a mix of folk and bluegrass tunes. Naomi has been living in Oakridge for a number of years and swaps off and on between the guitar and banjo.

The second act will be the Cramer Boys, two generations of Cramers playing alt-country. Originally from Oakridge, brothers Derick and Brian Cramer will be joined by nephew Auron. They reside in the McKenzie River Valley now and are looking forward to playing in Oakridge again.

The closing act will be Kelly Thibodeaux and his band Etouffee. Kelly is a long-time resident of Oakridge and loves the opportunity to play his brand of high-energy, foot-stompin’ Cajun fiddle music for the hometown crowd. Kelly will be joined by Oakridge’s own Scott Hitchings on keyboards.

Although I don’t have details about the rest of the band for that evening, it has been my observation that Kelly always has the finest pickers around backing him up with his red-hot brand of swamp rock.

A special lighting extravaganza will be provided by Leisure Suit James.

There will be a nominal cover charge to get in. If you bring a can of food to donate to the Oakridge Food Box, you’ll get a dollar off on your first beverage.

Herbin’ Crust will be the food concession for the event. Ron and Diana, who recently moved to the Upper Willamette from Arizona, will be serving up artisan wood-fired pizzas, using seasonal and local ingredients with a special technique of fermenting the dough for three days. They will be setting up their mobile pizza wagon around the greater Oakridge/Westfir area this winter. Check them out at The Herbin’ Crust on Facebook or @theherbincrust_pizza.

Also in Oakridge at the Lion Mountain Bakery this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 23, 24 and 25, Broken Horn will be playing rock and pop favorites from the golden era of rock and roll. Showtime is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day. There is no cover charge with both breakfast and lunch being served.

I’m coming out of temporary retirement to play some of my eclectic mix of tunes on the ukulele on Sunday morning Sept. 25 from 9 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. The request lines will be open.

In downtown Dexter at the Dexter Lake Club there will be a rock and roll jam session this Sunday evening, Sept. 25 from 6 p.m. until everyone’s done having fun. Brian Chevalier will be running the show.

On Tuesday, Sept. 27, Brian and Craig Sorseth will be hosting an acoustic open mic/jam, also beginning about 6 p.m. There is no cover for either event, which takes place in the open-air backyard area. Karaoke night is every Thursday. Call for details at 541-581-3000

That’s all I can come up with this week. If you know of any live music event, open to the public, coming up in the Highway 58 corridor, give us a shout. We’d be happy to post it!

Oakridge musician Ben Olson, entertainment editor and columnist for The Herald, can be reached by email at [email protected]