Aztec Two-Step and friends to perform Aug. 11

Aztec Two-Step and friends will take the stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, at the Vienna Union Hall, 5 Mountain Road in Vienna.

The concert is sponsored by the Vienna Union Hall Association.

Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman first met at an open stage at the Stone Phoenix, a Boston coffee house. Within a few months of working together, they recorded their first album as Aztec Two-Step, and a few months later, they had a deal with Elektra Records. Since 1971 Fowler and Shulman have been writing and performing songs that helped make their generation’s musical memories. Aztec Two-Step’s name comes from a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem, and their song “The Persecution and Restoration of Dean Moriarty” from their classic self-titled debut album on Elektra Records was the first of its kind written about Jack Kerouac’s iconic American novel, On The Road.

The band commemorated its 40th anniversary by recording the “Cause & Effect,” released in 2012. It is a 16 song collection of re-worked and previously unrecorded “give a damn” songs of social significance.

Fowler, lead singer of the duo, grew up in Pittsfield. His family moved to Maine from Connecticut in the late 1950s when he was 10 years old. He attended Maine Central Institute and college in Presque Isle and didn’t leave the state for good until 1971 when he met Shulman in Boston. He still has friends and connections in Maine.

Tickets cost $15. For more information call 203-2674 or email [email protected].