by Taylor Burnette, BSJ ’23, Digital Collections Social Media Manager, Ohio University Libraries.

“Wait? Who played here? When!?”

I’ve been met with the above response from just about everybody I told about my little Homecoming project: “Memories Through the Music: Popular Music at OHIO’s Homecoming Concerts.” “Just about everybody” includes my friends, my parents and even my instructors. Unless you graduated from OU sometime before 1980, you’re likely surprised that groups like Simon and Garfunkel and performers like Dionne Warwick ever stepped foot in Southeastern Ohio, let alone Athens.

 But Ohio University has a strong history of musical performances. Homecoming concerts were just one type of event that brought performers to town. The Convo was at one point one of the top three largest concert venues in the state even into the 1980s, and crowds from the surrounding area, as far as Columbus, flocked down.

Athens’ history as a cultural music hub in decades past is prominent in the library’s archives, from the more popular examples of photos of big stars taken by university photographers to handmade posters advertising local “battles of the bands.” Some would discount the city and university’s history of music as “fun facts,” but for many people, concerts and performances hold together threads of memories from years gone by here at OU.

Every person I’ve talked to about this project also brought up their favorite concerts over the years, whether it was one they saw nearby or one that reminded them of the artists in the Homecoming concert lineups. And for those closer to my age who weren’t yet thought of during OHIO’s golden Homecoming concerts, there were many responses of “Man I wish I could see…” or “Are they still touring?” leading into the same types of conversation: their memories surrounding music.

As I dug through hundreds of pages of the OHIO alumni journals, copies of student newspapers such as The Post, Green and White, and Afro-American Affairs, and even general university archives, I began to notice social and cultural trends with concerts, too. I looked at ads and articles, reviews and photos. Bands played at dances where people met their future spouses. Black performers visited campus, providing both representation of and entertainment appealing to more Black OHIO students. People came together through the music and made the memories that still get reminisced over each and every OHIO Homecoming.

Thinking about your favorite concerts, you probably think about certain times in your life. And those concerts, and the music performed at them, were likely a part of your life at that time. There were cultural impacts those performers had on you, and maybe political ones, too. Entertainment is important just for entertainment’s sake, but there’s a lot more hidden in the history of concerts than you would think. In every poster, ticket and newspaper clipping, there’s an impact on somebody’s life.

But it’s still just cool to read about, too.

Taylor Burnette, BSJ ‘23, is Digital Collections Social Media Manager in the Digital Initiatives unit of Ohio University Libraries. She is studying journalism in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.