
Deas Guyz Orchestra will perform at the Newberry Opera House on January, 29. Reggie Deas is a former football player and played at Newberry High School and Newberry College.
Courtesy of the Newberry Opera House
NEWBERRY — The Newberry Opera House is renowned for bringing in artists from around the world. However, this season the Opera House is especially proud to present artists with S.C. roots. From world famous Grammy winner Peabo Bryson to regional stars Deas Guyz Orchestra, S.C. has amazing talent to share this season at the Newberry Opera House.
Deas Guyz Orchestra January, 29, 2021
Deas Guyz May 7, 2021
Local Newberrians may remember Reggie Deas as a football player at Newberry High School and Newberry College. He would go on to become an educator in Hilton Head, but throughout his life music was always important.
Deas thanks his parents for influencing him.
“My dad had a band. He kind of turned me on to the old school music…Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Brook Benton, Nat King Cole…he told me that was the music I should be listening to…In the band I have now we do Nat King Cole, Luther Vandross, and so many of those favorites,” he said.
Deas also thanks his mom for encouraging him to sing at his home church of Hannah AME.
“She would say, ‘hey my son is going to get up and sing a song.’ I’d sing ‘Amazing Grace’ or something else…Music became a passion for me,” he said.
Deas’s latest musical adventure has been helping to create Deas Guyz Orchestra. With strings and horns added to his regular dance band, the orchestra allows for more orchestrated performances.
Deas Guyz Orchestra includes a former violinist with the Lexington Kentucky Philharmonic, concertmaster of the Boston Lyric Opera and Ballet, a saxophonist from the US Marine Corp band, and more amazingly talented individuals.
Deas Guyz Orchestra will be performing songs from artists such as Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Brook Benton, and many more when they perform on January 29, 2021, at the Newberry Opera House.
Deas’s dance band Deas Guyz are known for their regular gig at The Jazz Corner in Hilton Head, but have been entertaining audiences up and down the eastern seaboard for years — featuring everything from classic Motown to Bruno Mars. This group will return to the Opera House on May 7, 2021, with their upbeat engaging performance.
Peabo Bryson February 13, 2021
Peabo Bryson remembers his mother Marie Bryson taking him to performances at the Greenville Auditorium.
“I bet I saw Sam Cooke 15 times. I saw Jackie Wilson, all the greats,” he said.
By the time he turned five or six years old he was singing along with the performers from his seat. Folks in the audience would turn around and say,
“Listen to that little boy sing,” Peabo Bryson remembers. “I knew then that music was going to be my life.”
Maybe most famous for singing the Grammy winning themes for Disney’s “Beauty & The Beast” and “Aladdin,” Peabo Bryson earned his title “The Voice of Love” for his impassioned love songs such as “Can You Stop the Rain,” “If Ever You’re In My Arms Again,” and duet “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” with Roberta Flack. He’ll perform his classic hits and his latest album “Stand for Love.”
ColaJazz: Cupid Swings February 14, 2021
ColaJazz: Jazz Appreciation Month April 11, 2021
A partnership with ColaJazz will bring two shows to the Opera House this season. Under the leadership of Mark Rapp, these regional artists have been building up the jazz community in the Midlands. The Little Big Band is comprised of some of the Midlands best jazz artists from saxophones, trombone, trumpet, drums, piano, bass and two incredible vocalists.
February’s Valentine’s Day performance will be full of classic love songs. April has been dubbed Jazz Appreciation Month. ColaJazz shares the love of this genre with audiences on April 11, 2021, at the Opera House.
Rapp admits that rehearsal has been a challenge, but they are finding ways to make it work.
“We rehearse in a large open space. We send the music around in advance for folks to practice on their own and we keep the rehearsal time to a minimum,” he said.
ColaJazz has been able to do a live stream show from the beautiful stage of the Koger Center for the Arts and a live performance at Trustus Theatre for the sixth annual Jingle Bell Jazz series, but performances have been limited, which is why the group is so excited about performing.
“Jazz is a living music. It is a communal music. Jazz brings out the best in each other, brings diversity together and uplifts the spirit. All of these things are vitally important especially in our crazy time,” he said. “Jazz teaches us to improve – to pivot with style – that is what we are trying to do.”
During their February 14 performance expect iconic love songs. Rapp talks about one of his favorites “My Funny Valentine,” “It is required playing on Valentine’s Day. I like this tune because the lyrics talk about loving someone who is may not be what society deems as ‘perfect,’ but you love them so and don’t want them to change.”
Blue Dogs February 20, 2021
Just like Mark Rapp with ColaJazz, acoustic guitarist Bobby Houck and upright bassist Hank Futch grew up near Florence where they met at Cub Scouts.
Now based out of Charleston, Futch talks about their Southern influence,
“Growing up with a dad who who sang Bluegrass and Gospel and Classic Country songs, it is definitely evident in the songs that I write…I’m Country as a turnip green,” he said
“Like anybody else that grew up in the South when we did, we listened to Southern Rock. In 1975, we were 10 years old… Lynard Skynard was a major band…obviously, Marshall Tucker Band and Charlie Daniels were also huge…’75-‘79 is like the pentacle of Southern Rock. You are so impressionable when you are 10-14…It makes us a Country Rock band from the South,” Houck said.
These diverse influences make up the perfect Southern musical stew that is The Blue Dogs and sparked songs like “Cosmic Cowboy.” Houck says this song written by Futch is one he never gets tired of playing.
“It’s got these really great images. It’s simple but it’s deep…I think you could translate it as ‘this is where you go when the rodeo’s over,’” he said.
Houck co-wrote “Half of My Mistakes” with Radney Foster out of Nashville. Hank says it is one of his favorites because “It applies to everybody…wishing you had tried a little harder or maybe not tried as hard.”
Houck goes on to say that “Half of My Mistakes” will definitely make the set list for the Opera House show.
“It is a song with subject matter that deals with real life and keeping perspective on what is important in the scheme of things….mistakes, successes, and failures come and go, but what’s important is love…the relationships with those close to you and giving and receiving love. This past year has given us the chance to slow down, cut out some of the busy-ness in our lives, and we’ve been forced to hunker down with those closest to us, and it shows us that the people closest to us are indeed the most important things in our lives,” he said.
Having performed less this year than they have in 30 years, the band has performed virtually, outdoors, helped with fundraisers, and sadly even performed for small memorial gatherings.
The Blue Dogs are excited to get back out and play their iconic songs like “Hope She Falls in Love with You,” “Isabelle,” “Walter,” and more when they come to the Opera House on February 20.
Doug & Bunny Williams Present
Dick Goodwin & His Big Band February 28, 2021
Dick Goodwin is synonymous with music in the Midlands. He is just one of the local musicians coming to the Newberry Opera House with the Doug & Bunny Williams Presents series.
The headliner for the Opera House’s NYE concert for over a decade, Dick Goodwin is thrilled to be returning to the NOH stage to perform a diverse mix of music.
“We don’t exclusively do music from the Big Band Era. In the past we have performed ‘Bill Bailey Want You Please Come Home,’ which was written over 119 years ago. John Wilkerson and Kristi Hood will do selections from the Great American Songbook – the Sinatra ear if you will. But, we will also perform pieces that I have just written to feature our amazing instrumentalist. I’m really proud of the folks that I have in the group,” he said.
Goodwin came to the University of South Carolina in the early 1970s to start the doctoral program for composition. He pulls from his fellow retired music professors, area music educators, and people that are associated with the S.C. Philharmonic to make up his Big Band.
Goodwin says that he has used this time (during isolation) as a creative spark to write new material for the group.
“We haven’t played before an audience since March 7 of last year…We miss playing for people live,” he said.
Show organizer Doug Williams discusses how important finding ways to make this work is for local artists.
“Many of the artists we work with have only been able to perform to small groups at a restaurant or bar. The last show we did at the restaurant Villa Tronco, the artists put on a show like they were singing for 2,000 people. They are craving an audience. And the audience is craving the performance,” he said.
Two of the other shows in Doug & Bunny Williams Presents series will feature SC artists:
Tribute to Prairie Home Companion April 18, 2021
Tribute to Country Music – The Way It Used to Be May 16, 2021
Edwin McCain Dec. 10, 2021
Edwin McCain is so S.C. he uses the state flag emblems in his personal logo. This down to Earth performer loves to tell stories about going grocery shopping and the clerk figuring out that the song on the overhead speakers is being sung by the guy checking out. This Greenville native has returned to the area and nurtured the local music scene and supported local songwriters.
With a new date of December 10, Edwin McCain says he loves to play at the Opera House and then drive home to sleep in his own bed that night. The master storyteller and musician will, of course, perform “I’ll Be” and “You Can Not Ask For More,” but will also bring you sincere and sometimes funny songs written by one of our states great songwriters.
The Newberry Opera House has scheduled over 60 other events this year from Celtic rock icon Gaelic Storm to Bob Marley’s band The Wailers to Country legend John Anderson, but Executive Director Molly Fortune says that featuring S.C. Made Musical Artists may be the staff’s favorite part of the season.
“These artists are our neighbors and they have a direct impact on our communities economically but also emotionally – especially this year,” she said.
Visit NewberryOperaHouse.com to purchase tickets, for a full list of performances, and to review safety protocols including wearing masks throughout the performance and reduced capacity seating. Call 803-276-6264 with any additional questions.