Trout Fishing in America - By Allyson Jannotta

If you love a good sense of humor combined with great music, you’re in for a treat – Trout Fishing in America is coming to the Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s John H. Williams Theatre on September 20th for two fabulous shows.

At 4 p.m. the kids can take their family to the inaugural concert of the Tulsa Children’s Museum Family Concert Series. Later on at 7:30 p.m. - it’s date night for the grown-ups at an evening show presented by the Performing Arts Center Trust.

Young and old alike will be humming the tunes of songs like the bed-head classic “My Hair Had a Party Last Night.”

This truly is a band for all ages and all kinds, as the band boasts that they’ve played in both prisons and preschools.

"Our music is sophisticated," says Trout Fishing’s Guitarist Ezra Idlet. "It doesn't play down to kids or adults. Kids are moved by the lyrics or the rhythm. They know right off the bat if you're faking it musically."

Idlet and Bassist Keith Grimwood have played together as the duo Trout Fishing in America for 22 years. Their musical style is all about variety as they play introspective folk and country-tinged tunes, energetic rock tunes, contemporary, acoustic-based music and even a little vaudeville.

In fact, the variety of styles makes TFIA's music hard to classify. "If you go into a music store and try to find our CDs, you find them in different parts of the store," said Grimwood. "In Nashville, we're country. Someplace else, we're in kids' music. Some other place, we show up in the pop section. They don't know quite what to do with us.”

As wonderful as their sense of humor can be, there is serious side to the duo. "It's a balance," says Grimwood. "We do play a lot of funny songs, but you're not funny all the time in life; there are serious thoughts that go on."

Their most recent recording, Family Music Party, was released as a performance video and can be seen on many PBS stations. It features the achingly beautiful ballads "Lullaby," "Back When I Could Fly" and "Count on Me."

The acclaimed musicians have won several awards including an Indie Award for “Pop Album of the Year,” and two more Indies for their children's albums Mine! (1994) and My World (1997), as well as a Hall of Fame induction from the Kerrville Folk Festival.

The Tulsa Children’s Museum is thrilled to have them as part of their family concert series. Make sure you show up early to the 4 p.m. performance – before and after the show the kids can build instruments out of recycled items with Tulsa Children’s Museum very own traveling exhibit Reclaim This! Old Stuff, New Art.

TCM is a non profit organization that is currently a “museum without walls.” They are working with the Association of Children’s Museum, Tulsa community leaders and other non profit organizations, including Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust, to bring more family activities to the Tulsa area and to eventually have a community owned fully operating children’s museum. In this time without a building, they are serving the Tulsa community through traveling exhibits, outreach programming and a family concert series.

“We came up with the idea of a family concert series because we wanted to bring experiences to Tulsans that all generations will enjoy,” explains TCM concert chair Tobey Ballenger. “where Tulsa families can share that connection as both kids and adults laugh together, learn together and play together.”

For more information go to www.tulsachildrensmuseum.org.