{"id":1346,"date":"2022-10-03T15:18:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T15:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2022-10-18T18:16:37","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T18:16:37","slug":"ohios-past-homecoming-concerts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/2022\/10\/03\/ohios-past-homecoming-concerts\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering, and learning, through OHIO\u2019s Homecoming concerts of years past: Memories are somewhere in the melodies"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

by Taylor Burnette, BSJ \u201923, Digital Collections Social Media Manager, Ohio University Libraries.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWait? Who<\/i> played here? When!<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve been met with the above response from just about everybody I told about my little Homecoming project: \u201cMemories Through the Music: Popular Music at OHIO\u2019s Homecoming Concerts<\/a>.\u201d \u201cJust about everybody\u201d includes my friends, my parents and even my instructors. Unless you graduated from OU sometime before 1980, you\u2019re likely surprised that groups like Simon and Garfunkel and performers like Dionne Warwick ever stepped foot in Southeastern Ohio, let alone Athens.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Dionne<\/a>\r\n
“‘Just love and happiness’\u2026–the basic Warwick theme” by Rudy Maxa. The Post (Athens, Ohio), October 13, 1969.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0<\/i>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<\/a> in the state even into the 1980s, and crowds from the surrounding area, as far as Columbus, flocked down.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Athens\u2019 history as a cultural music hub in decades past is prominent in the library\u2019s archives, from the more popular examples of photos of big stars<\/a> taken by university photographers to handmade posters<\/a> advertising local \u201cbattles of the bands.\u201d Some would discount the city and university\u2019s history of music as \u201cfun facts,\u201d but for many people, concerts and performances hold together threads of memories from years gone by here at OU.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Every person I\u2019ve 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\u2019t yet thought of during OHIO\u2019s golden Homecoming concerts, there were many responses of \u201cMan I wish I could see\u2026\u201d or \u201cAre they still touring?\u201d leading into the same types of conversation: their memories surrounding music.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Eddie<\/a>\r\n
Eddie Kendricks & John Denver perform at 1973 Homecoming. Athena yearbook, 1974.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As I dug through hundreds of pages of the OHIO alumni journals<\/a>, copies of student newspapers<\/a> such as The Post<\/a>, Green and White<\/a>, and Afro-American Affairs<\/a>, and even general university archives<\/a>, 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<\/a>. People came together through the music and made the memories that still get reminisced over each and every OHIO Homecoming.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Styx<\/a>\r\n
Styx vocalist Dennis DeYoung on stage while performing for the 1979 Ohio University Homecoming concert. Ohio University Photographer Archive.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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\u2019s sake, but there\u2019s a lot more hidden in the history of concerts than you would think. In every poster, ticket and newspaper clipping, there\u2019s an impact on somebody\u2019s life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But it\u2019s still just cool to read about, too.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Taylor Burnette, BSJ \u201823, 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.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Taylor Burnette, BSJ \u201923, Digital Collections Social Media Manager, Ohio University Libraries. \u201cWait? Who played here? When!?\u201d I\u2019ve been met with the above response from just about everybody I told about my little Homecoming project: \u201cMemories Through the Music: Popular Music at OHIO\u2019s Homecoming Concerts.\u201d \u201cJust about everybody\u201d includes my friends, my parents and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,29,28],"tags":[13,12,58,49,16,17],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibits","category-student-workers","category-university-archives","tag-digital-archives","tag-digital-exhibit","tag-homecomings","tag-music","tag-ohio-university","tag-student-project"],"modified_by":"Janet Carleton","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}