Spend an afternoon with musician, storyteller, historian, television host and entertainer David Holt as he shares spooky, Halloween-themed tales ideal for families.
Four-time Grammy Award winner Holt will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. The show is part of the Vulcan Materials Company Family Series. Join the center at 2 p.m. before the show for snacks and pumpkin decorating. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students/children. UAB faculty and staff may receive a 20 percent discount on single tickets. Call 205-975-2787 or visit AlysStephens.org.
Holt is dedicated to performing and preserving traditional American music and stories. He plays 10 acoustic instruments and has released several recordings of traditional mountain music and Southern folktales. Holt is known for his television and radio series and is currently hosting the PBS series “David Holt’s State of Music.” He has also hosted The Nashville Network’s “Fire on the Mountain,” “Celebration Express” and “American Music Shop.”
A native of Garland, Texas, Holt moved with his family to Pacific Palisades, California, while he was in junior high school. His early musical and storytelling influences were his family: “I grew up in a family of informal storytellers, and there was plenty to tell about our wild and woolly Texas forefathers. Storytelling was just a natural part of family life for me. I never thought about telling stories in public until I began to collect mountain music and came across interesting and unusual anecdotes from mountain folks. I began to use these stories in concerts and realized the power storytelling holds.”
As for music, Holt says in his artist’s bio, “The only homemade music in our house was played by my father on bones and spoons that had been passed down in our family for five generations. In 1968, I sought out Carl Sprague, the first of the recorded singing cowboys. Mr. Sprague taught me to play the harmonica and regaled me with old-time cowboy stories. This experience introduced me to the excitement of learning from the source…. the old-timers themselves.”