Blue Hill Pops delights crowd with holiday show

A not-so-traditional repertoire presented a record-breaking crowd with a melting pot of musical offerings Monday night in Blue Hill village.

Nearly 1,000 people packed into the acoustically challenged George Stevens Academy gym for the sold-out Blue Hill Pops holiday concert, ushered in by a rhythmic mix of tunes ranging from calypso to Strauss provided by the Brooksville-based Flash in the Pans steel drum band.

Sponsored by the local Bagaduce Music Lending Library, the concert will benefit the 12-year-old organization, known nationwide for its collection of sheet music. Library director Judy McGeorge said the rare local appearance by Blue Hill resident Noel Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, probably contributed to the unprecedented number of ticket sales.

Sellers of decorative folding fans did a brisk business, particularly among concert-goers in the bleacher seats. Under the influence of the pulsing heat of the steel drums, the traditional red, white and blue decorations festooning the hall appeared ready to melt into the pink and purple hues of the tropics at a moment’s notice.

One minute seated patrons could boogie sedately to strains of “Oye Como Va,” the Carlos Santana tune. Able to cross continents at quicksilver speed, the drummers soon segued into a delicate rendering of the “Blue Danube Waltz.”

Fans of the amateur ensemble of peninsula musicians seemed delighted to see their friends and neighbors leaning into the beat, as the wisp of air stirred by portable fans billowed the players’ hair and shirts like a temperate breeze.

A 20-minute set by the polished A-Train Jazz Quintet seemed a study in democracy, as each member’s gift was showcased by turn in standards, such as “A Night in Tunisia.”

The crowd-pleasing Evelyn and Jan Kok (pronounced “coke”) of Stonington and Presque Isle presented a short set of light-hearted folk ditties, in which the retired music professor accompanied his wife’s comic vibrato and guitar strumming with over-the-top hand gestures and mugging facial expressions.

Seemingly in homage to black-fly season, the pair donned bobbing antennae for their closing number about “two little bugs, kisses and hugs.”

Featured soloist with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in 1989, high school band director Nancy Rowe Laite turned in an intense peformance of “Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra” by William Kraft. Accompanied by Richard Pasvogel on piano, Laite’s brisk pummeling of her copper-colored kettledrums unleashed low rumblings that at times erupted into torrential thunder.

A well-received medley of show tunes and pop songs by the Bagaduce Chorale led into the much-anticipated, if abbreviated, handful of songs by Stookey, who asked the audience celebrating their nation’s independence to remember people elsewhere, for whom freedom cannot always be taken for granted.

Marveling at the opportunity for a “fifty-something white guy to play reggae,” Stookey followed a feel-good duet with Flash in the Pans leader Carl Chase with a moving rendition of the “May to December” song, backed by the chorale.

Stookey and the chorale shared a lovely a cappella version of the “May the Road Rise to Meet You” Irish prayer set to music.

Little prompting was needed as the 1960s anthem, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” became an impromptu sing-along, and “This Land is Your Land” turned into a cathartic clapfest that continued through the grand finale of “Stars and Stripes Forever” featuring the steel band.

While the headline singer clearly scored a win with the home team, the night’s biggest ovation came not to Stookey, but to Marcia Chapman, honored by concertgoers as the library’s longtime executive director, and one of its founders.

Although retiring from her library post, Chapman continued to prove her mettle Monday night, drumming vigorously as a member of the steel band.