Photo provided

Members of the Hey!makers are (from left to right); Joshua Roth, Kris West and Dave Loomis who hail from the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania.

At 6 p.m. this Friday, August 2, the Hey!makers, a ramped-up acoustic Americana trio will play a toe-tapping, thigh-slapping mix of country, rock and roll, bluegrass, and soul on the outdoor stage at the Deane Center for the Performing Arts at 104 Main Street in Wellsboro. The outdoor stage is located on the Central Avenue side of the building. 
 
The Deane Center’s Summer Outdoor Concert Series is free thanks to the support and generosity of the EQT Foundation, Blaise Alexander Family Dealerships, and the Wellsboro Area Chamber of Commerce. 
 
Audience members are welcome to bring lawn chairs and sit on the grassy area in front of the outdoor stage or on Central Avenue, which will be closed to traffic between Main Street and the Warehouse Theatre from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. this Friday.
 
 

If weather becomes an issue, this free concert will be moved indoors into the Deane Center’s Coolidge Theatre. Donations are always appreciated.
 

 
The Hey!makers not only perform their own original songs that range from sad country waltzes to driving, twangy, rock and roll anthems but also some well-loved covers in their own signature style, such as The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville,” John Prine’s “Please Don’t Bury Me,” and Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.”
 
This trio is composed of lead vocalist Kris West of Canton on guitar and six-string banjo who also dabbles on the harmonica and the kazoo; Joshua Roth of Wellsboro who mainly plays the bass guitar, but performs on any stringed instrument where needed; and Dave Loomis of Troy who plays percussion, and is one of the finest washboard performers in this area. He also sings high harmony. 
 
West is currently working remotely as an archaeologist and mapmaker from his home in Canton. Roth, a former archaeologist, works for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Historic Sites and Museums as Pennsylvania Lumber Museum site administrator in Ulysses. Loomis is a farmer and raises sheep just west of Troy.
 
All three are lifelong musicians and over the years have each played with several other bands
 
Early in 2022, West and Loomis formed a duo and called themselves the Hey!makers. The name stemmed from Loomis’s activities on the farm where he literally makes hay for his livestock.
 
They played together for about a year before asking Roth to sit in on a practice session at Loomis’s farm in January of 2023. They knew instantly that what the three of them had wasn’t some flash in the pan jam session. It was the real thing. 
 
They played their first public gig as a trio at the Flying Taco in Towanda, in May of 2023.
 
The other three concerts in the free 

outdoor series on Fridays at 6 p.m. are: August 9 — The Wildwoods, a folk/Americana trio from Nebraska; August 16 – solo artist Logan Route on guitar; and August 23 – Cold Chocolate, Ethan Robbins on guitar and mandolin and Ariel Bernstein on drums and banjo. 

 
For more information about the free concert series, call the Deane Center at 570-724-6220, email office@deanecenter.com or visit deanecenter.com.