Friday night at Clifton Opera House

The Clifton Opera House will be home port for the Hardtackers on Friday night, April 6 . The show will start at 7:30pm and the fun will commence! The box office opens at 6:30pm.

The Hardtackers are a seven-man Sea Shanty Crew who perform songs of the sea, lakes and rivers. They sing a capella and create an atmosphere of power and energy, wrapped up in good fun. Our repertoire consists of traditional and contemporary songs in the style of the work songs and songs of leisure time from the old sailing ships.

There is no limit to their audience as their songs cover a wide appeal. These are the songs the immigrants sailing to America from Ireland, Britain and Europe would have listened to as they came across the Atlantic. A number of these songs are staples of the folk.They tailor their set list to suit the audience, entertainment, historical, audience participation, or a mixture of each element, all of our performances include good fun.

Band members:

John Schomburg
John hails originally from Southern Ohio down on the beautiful Ohio River. He began singing and playing folk music shortly after his birth. His boyhood fascination with steamboats led to his present fascination with sailboats, which get better mileage. He is presently the skipper of Sea Monkey. John was a founding member of the Pit Bull String Band in the 1990’s and when he is not shantying with the Hardtackers performs along with his wife Janet in the old time string band TheWild Hares. He plays fiddle, banjo, and guitar.

John Locke
John’s interest in History, Geography and the Social History of Britain inevitably led him to a study of traditional folk music and storytelling. He found that the folk arts became a central thread that pulled all of these subjects together. John became interested in folk arts in the early 70s. He became a regular visitor to Folk Clubs in the area that he lived in north Worcestershire England. Starting to play guitar within a few months of discovering the folk scene he went on to perform at open stages and various folk clubs, festivals and other venues. He has run Folk Music Clubs in Worcestershire, Devonshire and Carmarthenshire. He has also been known to get a tune out of a penny whistle, English concertina, blues harmonica and a banjo. In 2001 John moved to the USA . He has an electrical engineering background and has worked in training for many years. He is a Professional Speaker and Trainer who involves storytelling in his presentations. He is past President of the Columbus Folk Music Society A member of the Story Tellers Of Central Ohio. He also has a book of short stories called, "British Twist."

Andy Beyer
Andy Beyer has always had a love of singing. Learning to play guitar to accompany himself was another step in his musical career, and by the age of twelve, he had saved enough paper boy earnings to buy his first guitar. Several years later, at the Cracked Cup Coffeehouse in Columbus, he met Hank Arbaugh and was first introduced to the traditional music of the mountain dulcimer. This began a lifetime of involvement in the folk and traditional music world wherever he has called home. He has been building, playing, and teaching mountain dulcimer for almost forty years. Besides being a founding member of the Columbus Folk Music Society, he is currently on the staff of the Central Ohio Folk Festival, the Southeast Ohio Dulcimer Festival, and the Lifelong Learning and Leisure Program of Upper Arlington, teaching dulcimer classes and workshops throughout the year.

Fred Bailey
Fred grew up on a dirt farm in Northwestern Oklahoma -- almost the Panhandle, but not quite. That's the Dust Bowl end of the Cherokee Strip. Since then he’s touched on many foreign lands and more coffeehouses and towns than can be counted. Now he seems to have settled down in Columbus, Ohio. Fred is a writer of finely crafted novels which he sets to melody and sings to the accompaniment of his 1948 Martin D28L. He is a voyager of the clouds, an aviator by nature. He knows the original words to every sea shanty ever sung, the G, the R and the Unrated versions. To his maritime colleagues he is known as “The Prairie Schooner”. When not singing shanties with the Hard Tackers, Fred fronts the more refined folk group At Wit’s End.

Chris Bolles
Chris Bolles grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, hobnobbing with boaters and lake sailors during the summer months. He learned to play the guitar in college, a habit he has been unable to break to this day. He's a research scientist turned teacher; his students would be confirmed in their judgement of his sanity if they knew he was singing sea songs in public. He is occasional first mate, crew, and bilge swabby aboard the good ship Sea Monkey. He has actually made an Atlantic crossing (on a German liner), and floated around on several aquatic resorts (aka cruise ships). Despite this vast maritime experience, he still spends almost all of his time on dry land.

Rennie Beethem
Rennie has been singing most of his life. Church junior choir in elementary school. Choir and ensembles in junior high and high school. Returning home after three years in the army, he started playing guitar--tutored by his younger sister. Over the years, jamming with friends eventually led to forming a rock-n-roll band in which he earned pocket change and free beer playing in dive bars and at neighborhood parties. He's a fan of many styles of music--big band jazz, classical, folk, blues. he and his wife currently spend winters in Ireland, where he plays and sings in various pubs--sprinkling country and rock-n-roll tunes in among the jigs and reels.

Joe Cook
Joe Cook’s interest in boats began in earnest when he and four friends, (in some obvious lapse of sanity following a food fight with a honeydew melon,) bought a decrepit (but basically solid) 22-foot 1958 Henry Luhrs Jersey Sea Skiff and began the arduous task of restoring her. Six weeks, a lot of scraped knuckles, a lot of noxious fumes inhaled, and nobody knows exactly how much money later, the Honeydew was launched for many years of pleasant, and sometimes exciting, navigation on Nashville’s Percy Priest Reservoir. Joe’s first taste of bluewater sailing was on a couple of week-long voyages as crew/passenger on the Bahama Star, a 57 foot Wellington sloop, sailing out of Miami Beach through the Biminis and the Berry Islands. In October 2010, he had the opportunity to work as Guest Crew on the Pride of Baltimore II on her voyage from Boston to New York.

As for the music, between bouts of classical choirs and musical theatre, Joe spent thirty years in and around the Nashville Bluegrass scene, including being a founding member of Cordless, a non-traditional traditional band performing original songs as well as an eclectic mix that included Louvin Brothers and Roy Orbison covers. Cordless released two CD’s , “The Number Three” (2003) and “Home Is Where Your Stuff Is” (2005). Joe met his wife Leslie at a music festival in Tennessee and she shanghaied him away from the neon rainbow of Nashville to the Old-Time Appalachian Music scene of Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is still trying to learn the language. He and Leslie play with John and Janet Schomburg in the Old-Time Novelty band, The Wild Hares.

The Clifton Opera House is located at 5 So. Clay Street, Clifton. It is owned and operated by the Village of Clifton as a fund raiser for the historic building repairs and maintenance.