A Tribute: The Peder Hedman Orchestra

Posted by V'ron March 27, 2018

A Tribute: The Peder Hedman Orchestra

So, if you haven't heard, (and judging by the people I've talked to, there's a chance you haven't), a lot of the late, great Peder Hedman's friends and admirers are putting together a tribute show this Friday, March 30 at Linneman's Riverwest Inn. I'm not quite sure how people don't know about this: I've seen FB pages, items in The Shepherd and onmilwaukee.com. And if you click on all these links, you'll see all the "members of...." references to some of the top and legendary talent that will be putting their stamp on Peder's deep and wide body of work. But instead of bands, I'm attempting to list the performers that will be there as individual people. Only a few (the Mighty Deer Lick, 3 On Fire and Bicentennial Rub) will be playing with their full (regular) bands: most are getting together with other musicians they like/admire/always wanted to play with, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what will be an excellent variety of genres, arrangements and tributes of Peder's songs. And every one of these people pictured below has plenty of stories about what a great guy he was. Most have played with him, all admired his musicianship, his songwriting ability, his generous personality, and his sense of humor.

My advice? Get there early. Doors open at 8 and the show starts at 9. And I'm very specifically not listing the order of the bands or what songs they're doing. Every single act that's going to be on stage is going to be memorable. This isn't the time for "When do you go on? I only want to see such and such." If you miss one single act, you will miss something great. I promise. You can't put this all talent on a stage with the excellent songs and not be moved.

(Also, I'm not publishing the order of the bands, because, frankly, I don't know! I do know what songs people are doing, and pretty much all of Peder's "eras" are covered.)

This is also a fundraiser (for the Cyril Hedman Irrevocable Trust) and the first 100 people through the door will receive a copy of The Peder Hedman Quartet's 7" vinyl release. There's also going to be a silent auction (and the list of items is full of "I want that" things, trust me.) Black Husky Brewing donated beer for the night (sales going to the Trust) and Sonia from WMSE will be DJing between band changes.

Here's the (what I'm going to admit is probably not an all inclusive) list of players. I'm basing this photo list on various FB messages going back and forth between all the players that I've been privy to. It's been wonderful to see this community helping each other out with so many of the things necessary to put a show together like this ("my place is open for rehearsals" "I can help with the chord changes since I played this song with Peder" "I'm happy to donate auction items"). There are a few glaring omissions to the below photo list (I'm embarrassed that I do not have any photos of the excellent Alex Ballard and Sugarfoot with Jeff H, or of Jason Mohr, but they will be there.) In no particular order: