Rob Atterbury, right, and Bill Walczak perform as the Savin Hillbillies.“Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Walczak…”
Last Thursday afternoon at the Neighborhood Club of Quincy, the Savin Hillbillies provided the pre-luncheon entertainment for the senior citizens at the Facilitator Appreciation Party for UMass Boston’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).
Savin Hill’s Bill Walczak and his fellow medical administrators, who moonlight as country-western/Irish warblers, brought only 70 lyric sheets for a sing-along OLLI crowd that unexpectedly topped 200, giving the Hillbillies their biggest audience ever.
The concluding number was “Charlie on the MTA.” Walczak explained that as an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Boston he could appreciate in a special way this toe-tapper that was used as a campaign song by an earlier unsuccessful candidate for the same office, Walter O’Brien.
Aside from losing his mayoral bid to fellow Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta parishioner Martin J. Walsh, Walczak has progressed though a succession of high profile leadership positions starting with co-founding the Codman Square Health Center and the Codman Academy Charter School and including a stint as president of Caney Hospital.
Last year, Walczak was appointed president and CEO of the South End Community Health Center, and Joel Abrams, formerly of Dorchester House, was named associate CEO. These two colleagues and friends formed the nucleus of the Hillbillies group. Both play rhythm guitar, but Abrams can also wail on the harmonica. Initially they billed themselves, a bit misleadingly, as “Billy Joel,” as in “Hi, I’m Billy. He’s Joel.”
Sometimes a duo, sometimes a trio, sometimes a quartet, these guys over the past 10 years have been playing at family, Dot House, and St. Patrick’s Day events (even though none of the singers is Irish) mostly as a lark. But recently, when the Hyde Park Branch Library formally booked them for its courtyard concert series, they had to come up with a less deceptive moniker and so the name “The Savin Hillbillies” was born.
Probably the most musically accomplished of the group is lead guitarist Rob Atterbury, a trained musician and Walczak’s brother-in-law whose medical claim to fame is as that he is the Coordinator of Ancillary Care at the Dot House Health Center. Recently added to the ensemble is percussionist and bass player Jose Santos, who evokes all the sounds of a whole drum kit with his Brazilian drum.
Most of the songs in their repertoire are well suited to sing-alongs: country classics like “King of the Road” and “Jambalaya” and Irish handclappers like “Black Velvet Band” and “The Wild Rover.”
Recently fame, if not fortune, has been catching up with the group. The Savin Hillbillies are looking for more gigs, and their large repertoire of Irish rebel songs make them a fine fit for the upcoming St. Patrick’s month festivities. Inquire at billwalczak@gmail.com.
When asked why he and his pals chose to fill their downtime with the hassles of performing and being their own roadies, Walczak quoted from Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”: “The life I love is makin’ music with my friends.”
