Golden Belt Community Concert Association has another great season coming up, but by all means we must not overlook the rare gift that we have in our last concert of the 2023-2024 season. J. Robert Spencer performs at 7 p.m. May 3 in the Great Bend Municipal Auditorium.
I know we love the concerts that pay tribute to legendary groups and solo artists of our past, and rightfully so. They take us back to music we have loved almost our whole lives, but J. Robert Spencer performing “7,000 Miles to Broadway” is becoming one of the legends of this era – in the 21st century.
His concert will be like the times during previous seasons in our history when we had such greats as The Boston Pops, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Floyd Cramer, John Davidson – legends in their own right, performers of which legends are made.
Spencer grew up singing classic country, rock and Broadway hits along to the car radio and eight-tracks. That music helped to pave his 7,000 miles to starring in two major shows playing on Broadway from 2005-2008 and from 2009-2010.
He graduated cum laude in 1991 from the Shenandoah University music theatre program, and received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the university in 2009.
Now a gifted singer and dynamic performer, J. Robert Spencer was the original performer to play Nick Massi (bass singer) in the Tony and Grammy award-winning Broadway show “Jersey Boys” from 2005-2008. In 2009, he was the original Dan Goodman in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical, “Next to Normal,” and for his part in it, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Spencer has many more accolades, including his role as Abraham Lincoln in the 2014 New York Musical Festival production, “Bayonets of Angst,” a bluegrass musical comedy about the Civil War, for which he received the festival’s Award for Excellence for Outstanding Individual Performance.
He has on-screen performances to his credit including television series, “Law and Order,” “Law and Order SVU,” “All My Children,” and “Girls Behaving Badly.” He also has played in several movies.
He was nominated in 2008-2009 for a Midwest Emmy Award for Best On-Camera Performance by a Leading Actor for his work on the Sony and PBS Concert production of “Handel’s Messiah Rocks” with Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops. In addition to performing, Spencer is an independent film director, producer and writer.
In 2011, Spencer formed the group The Midtown Men – Four Original Stars of Broadway’s Jersey Boys. Since then, he has performed with the group in more than 700 concerts in this country and worldwide. This group has recorded several CDs and a Christmas single. The Midtown Men also have recently filmed their concert and a documentary for PBS. In 2019, Spencer released his solo single, “Waiting on Christmas,” a modern classic following the examples of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole.
On our stage next week, his performance will be “chock-full of radio and Broadway hits from Willie Nelson’s country twang to the smooth crooning of Frank Sinatra and the pop favorites of Frankie Valli.” Other music will include “Johnnie B. Goode,” The Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers,” “Somewhere” from West Side Story,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” “Wichita Lineman,” Merle Haggard’s “Mamma Tried,” and many more. Yes, he also is performing the music of other legends.
This concert may by the last one in this season, but it is also one of the best. Keith Lockhart of The Boston Pops says, “Spencer knows how to light up a stage! Great voice, winning stage presence and a joy to work with!”
The concerts held in the Great Bend Municipal Auditorium are open to GBCCA members. No single tickets are available. Full-time students will be admitted for a $5 donation at the door. Concert doors open at 6:15 p.m.
Thinking of the future, our 2024-2025 membership campaign offering seven great concerts has had a great response. Thanks to the many people of Great Bend and the surrounding area who support the arts, we ended our new season’s membership campaign Friday on a “high note.”
Linda Jerke is 2nd vice president and publicity chair of the Golden Belt Community Concert Association. She was Localife Editor at the Tribune for 22 years and was a communications specialist in the Office of Communications at Barton Community College for 17 years before her retirement in 2011. She can be contacted by email: lindajerke@gmail.com.
