2016 Depot Days was a “Hot Time in the Old Town” with Music and Rock’n’Roll Highway 67 Museum Open Yesterday!!

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2016 Depot Days was a “Hot Time in the Old Town” with Music and Rock’n’Roll Highway 67 Museum Open Yesterday!!

 

 

We had a great time at Depot Days yesterday in downtown Newport!  I had not been but once several years ago, so I was greatly anticipating this trip, and hopefully, get to see ACE CANNON!  While Ace was an Ace and awesome, the other musical groups were all rocking and r0lling with gospel, country, Hank Williams, etc., that had us and everyone around us tapping toes and snapping fingers, boogeying to the beat!!! The gentleman sitting next to me was a railroad employee who had worked from Newport Railroad Depot 43 years before he retired (and a drummer!), and he was there because of that and he wanted to see Znydall Raney and Band, who had a magical beat hard to beat.  The Jimmy Dunham Family Band took us to church with their rockin’ gospel as they call it, bringing tears to your eyes while you keep beat with your feet.  J.R. Rogers and the Allstars did a lot of fancy piano and boogie-woogie  type music that had us at it again.  The retired railroader/drummer and I agreed every band was really especially good in their genre and deserved to be invited to be at Depot Days!

 

Our friends Cathy and Rick joined me and my cohort and, of course me and Cat had this planned, we had to have a Jumbo Corn dog, big lemonade, funnel cake and sweet tea!  We saw some old friends (Marc Herring from Hardy had a booth) and made new friends as we all sat and/or stood and just flat enjoyed the heck out of Newport’s Depot Days.  They were even giving away free huge chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins!  This was a free music event Jackson County is quite proud of, and in spite of the heat, there was standing room only.  Look on FB for videos, etc.

We heard news that Ace Cannon was signing autographs in the Rock’n’Roll Highway 67 Museum right up the street.  It was air-conditioned and my BFF and I went and stayed an hour.  We toured the upstairs and there was so much musical history in the pictures and plaques we were fascinated by the fact we lived, in Batesville, so close to the beginning of rock and roll.  There was photos of Elvis, our own Batesville’s Danny Dozier, and Sonny Burgess and the Pacers, as well as many other famous rock’n’rollers.  Walnut Ridge recently held its Beatles at the Ridge Festival, and it was a magnificent event you want to attend as well next year!

Our last stop was downstairs to view the piano that years ago was on top of Porky’s Rooftop around 1955.  A sign says on March 2, 1955, in a 10:00 pm show Elvis Presley rocked the rooftop following an earlier show at the local armory, and IF Elvis Presley played the piano while he was at Porky’s that night, the piano in the pix is the one he played!  Yes, if he had, it was for sure his fingers actually touched the keys of that piano (and yes, the sign said “Don’t Touch!”).

 

Newport is a friendly little town that was packed full of Newport-ians and others from all over Arkansas and probably several other states. You can always count on Depot Days in Newport to be packed full of music, food, free fans (LOL), vendors and family fun!!!  It was a really friendly bunch and people were dancing by the stage, some two-stepping and some line-dancing, to all that good old Rock’n’Roll Music a lot of us grew up with and love! Yea, Newport!  I will be there for your 2017 Depot Days!

 

 

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