O’Connor Lee, Budwig, light up OK

Published 1:20 pm Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Winter music could be slim pickings for music lovers in Wallowa County if it weren’t for the OK Theatre, owned by Darrell and Christie Brann. The OK brought us the marvelous O’Connor Family Band to help usher in the holiday season and opened the new year with performances by the O’Connor Lee band and local legend Bart Budwig and his band.

Forrest O’Connor and Lee are married members of the Mark O’Connor Band. Forrest is Mark O’Connor’s son. He played mainly guitar and mandolin while Kate Lee burned up the fiddle strings.

After a brief intro by both Darrell Brann and local musician, Jimmy Bivens, the O’ Connor Lee band strode on stage and got right down to business. Both are extraordinary musicians; after all, Mark O’Connor doesn’t seem the type to allow substandard musicianship in his band, family or not.

Extraordinary musicianship and great voices are a rarity, but the couple possesses both. Their voices also mesh together beautifully, which is particularly appealing on love songs. By the way, the two are also the primary songwriters for the Mark O’Connor Band. Their song, “I haven’t said I Love You in Awhile,” evoked the same pathos as the Simon and Garfunkel number, “The Dangling Conversation.”

With Lee’s soulful fiddle and O’Connor’s adeptness at both finger picking and flat picking, it’s hard to quibble about any of their performance. They also took time to join Meredith Brann on stage for a number or two, much to the audience’s delight.

Of course the two don’t leave all the best songs with their family band. The couple played a number of tasteful tunes from their upcoming double album, which brought raucous applause from the audience and a standing ovation with the obligatory encore at the concert’s end.

Bart Budwig is one of those Wallowa County performers making a name for himself outside the region. One of the most pleasant people in the universe off stage, he somehow manages to transfer his affability into his stage act as well. Refusing to be defined by genre, Budwig and his very capable band that includes local marvels Nevada Sowle on bass and Cooper Trail on drums with Ben Walden on guitar and Seth Kinzie on the keys, led the crowd on a myriad musical journey it won’t soon forget.

Darrell Brann, one of the finest pickers around, played on a Budwig tune as well. Lastly, even O’Connor Lee joined the act, making for a regular jamboree.

Budwig closed the show with his classic “Damn Good Start” that could probably chart nationally given the right promotion. The only quibble about the show is the audience turnout. We have a number of fine local musicians who need and deserve our support, not to mention the nationally recognized talent O’Connor Lee provides or the fact that the Brann family go out of their way to provide top quality music at an affordable price.