Two of the three original members of the Burnham Boys blues and rockabilly band are scheduled to reunite for a concert July 22 in Pittsfield to benefit ending hunger in Maine.
Musicians Pete Witham and Dan McCaw of the original band are scheduled to perform along with other local musicians at the Pittsfield Community Theater.
It’s not the first benefit for Burnham native Witham, an accomplished blues and rockabilly guitarist who has done them for years. Last year the tables were turned when he was hospitalized for more than a month, and his mother feared he was not going to make it. Witham underwent emergency surgery on his spleen and pancreas and his kidneys began to fail and his lung collapsed.
Benefits and community support helped the family with living expenses while he was out of work, and his wife took time from her job to look after him.
Now Witham, 44, is back on the benefit concert trail, and the July 22 concert is a way for him to give back after all the help he got last year, his mother, Sandra Witham, said this week.
“He’s doing better now,” she said. “He is playing some gigs in Portland, and he’s getting back into it. God is the reason he’s here.”
In 1999 Witham, then 27, received national attention after he remixed and recorded a song he wrote when he was 16 in memory of his aunt who was killed by a drunken driver. The song, “Sunsets of My Mind,” was recorded in Boston and sent home to Maine just a week before the student shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. His mother, Sandra Witham, sent the song to radio stations all over the country.
The song “went viral” in 1999 style, getting play on radio stations and at churches all over the country as the nation tried to come to grips with the tragedy of Columbine.
Witham did a lot of benefit concerts over the past 20 years, raising money to fight hunger and in support of Alzheimer’s research.
Tara Pomeroy-Kallweit at Sebasticook Valley Federal Credit Union, the sponsor of the ending hunger event, said the campaign began in 2009 and about $10,000 is raised each year. She said the money is collected and spread among the various food pantries in the credit union’s service area.
Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. concert are $10.
“We spread all of that money out to our local food banks in the local communities we serve here at the credit union,” Pomeroy-Kallweit said. “We hit the $10,000 mark a few years back, and we’ve been going over that every year since.”
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.