A Grammy-nominated bluegrass band founded by a Jefferson County native will reignite a series of concerts to benefit the Arnold Food Pantry.
CJ Lewandowski’s band the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys are scheduled to perform Saturday, July 23, in Rickman Auditorium, 747 Jeffco Blvd., in Arnold. Doors are scheduled to open at 6 p.m., and the concert will start at 7 p.m.
Tickets cost $20, $25 or $30, depending on the locations of the seats, and are available at the Arnold Food Pantry, 2024 Key West Drive, in Arnold, or online at brownpapertickets.com.
Proceeds from the concert will help fund the food pantry’s operations.
Lewandowski, who lived in House Springs, Dittmer and Grubville, and graduated from Northwest High School in 2005, said he is looking forward to performing in the county he grew up in.
“I think it will be a good time, and I hope everyone will come out and support a good cause,” he said. “We need to help our community all we can, and I am glad to come home and do that.”
The concert will be the first of four concerts scheduled this year at Rickman Auditorium to benefit the food pantry.
The Liverpool Legends, a Beatles tribute band, will perform Aug. 13. Butch Wax and the Hollywoods, which plays music from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, is scheduled to perform Nov. 12. The last concert in the series is scheduled for Dec. 3, with the Belleville Ballet Troupe and Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra performing “The Nutcracker.”
The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys show will be the first benefit concert for the pantry to be held since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Ed Fitzhenry, the pantry director. He said before the pandemic, proceeds from sponsorships and concert ticket sales ranged between $10,000 and $30,000, and the fundraisers accounted for about 40 percent of the pantry’s operating budget.
Fitzhenry said the pantry has received grants, federal stimulus funding and donations, which have helped make up for some of the lost revenue.
“We saw a lot of foundations were being more generous than usual because they realized a lot of nonprofits were hurting because they didn’t have fundraisers,” he said. “When I wrote a grant, I would indicate that we had not had a fundraiser for a year or year and a half. I believe other non-profits will tell you foundations that support nonprofits were being more generous.
“Also, people in the community were generous. For example, when everyone was getting $1,200 back in their tax returns in 2020, we would have a lot of people turning over that tax rebate to us.”
Arnold City Administrator Bryan Richison said the city’s Tourism Commission provided a $12,000 grant to the pantry to put on the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys concert.
Ready to perform
Lewandowski, who plays mandolin and sings, said he has never performed at Rickman Auditorium. He also said he has never been inside the venue, missing a chance to see George Jones with his grandmother, Lorine Lewandowski of Arnold, when she had tickets for that concert.
“I remember being so mad that she didn’t take me,” he said.
Lewandowski, 35, of Sevierville, Tenn., said he is looking forward to the show.
“There also seems to be some people excited about it because I have been getting a lot of calls and texts from people I used to play music with,” he said. “It will be cool to bring those people together in Rickman. I am excited to play there because there are not a lot of places as large and nice as Rickman. I appreciated the food pantry trying to do something with us.”
Lewandowski said Arnold Ward 4 Councilman Butch Cooley was one of the driving forces to bring his band to Rickman.
“He is a family friend. He gave my dad (Jeff) his first job, and I did work for Butch when I was in my teens,” Lewandowski said.
“He has been a family friend for a long time. It was his idea. From what I understand, he said, ‘Bring the homeboy back home and raise some money.’”
Lewandowski will be joined on stage by band members Jereme Brown, who plays banjo; Josh Rinkel on guitar; Jasper Lorentzen on bass; and Laura Orshaw, who plays fiddle and sings.
The group will play a mix of original and cover songs.
“We have a new album out, and we will do a lot of material off that,” said Lewandowski, who formed the group in 2014.
“We have four albums out, so we will do a little bit of everything off those. We will mainly focus on that new album called ‘Never Slow Down’ on Smithsonian Folkways (a nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institute).”
In 2020, Po’ Ramblin’ Boys’ album “Toil, Tears and Trouble” was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album of the Year Grammy Award. Michael Cleveland’s “Tall Fiddler” won the award.
Lewandowski said the band’s progress was slowed when the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020.
“That was a tough deal,” he said. “We were riding high. A lot of things happened that were never on our radar. We had made our Grand Ole Opry debut in October 2019, and then we walked the red carpet in January 2020.
“We went through a slump for a minute because we didn’t know what to do. It took about a year and a half to get anything going. When it did, it came back pretty full force.”