From National Public Radio's “A Prairie Home Companion” to Boston and New York City, and now arriving at Marbletown, Halden Wofford and the Hi Beams will present a honky-tonk concert to benefit the Arts at SUNY Ulster on Sunday, August 13, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. in the Student Lounge of Vanderlyn Hall on the Stone Ridge campus of Ulster County Community College.

With over 75 years of music between them, the Hi Beams are one of the most prominent bands in Colorado. Steel guitar, snare drum, stand-up bass and electric guitar mix with Wofford's distinctive vocals to create a solid sound that is familiar yet purely original. Not unlike hard-core bluegrass, the Hi-Beams' style of honky-tonk has a language of its own.

Halden Wofford was born in Los Angeles and transplanted to Fort Worth, Texas. With a degree in fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, Wofford is an illustrator whose first book will be published by Little, Brown in early 2007. He has played country music in Denver since 1995, hooking up with the members of the Hi-Beams in 1999.

Bret Billings is a Denver native with an extensive background in the local country music scene. His parents bought him his first steel guitar while he was a teenager, and he became a student of local steel guitar legend Dick Meis when he was 16. Billings has played locally and regionally since 1977, and he is the only Hi-Beam to have played on stage with Willie Nelson.

Greg Schochet is an integral part of Colorado's Front Range music scene. Making his home in the Boulder area, he is in demand as a performer, producer, teacher and session musician. Schochet began playing guitar in his early teens, inspired by the folk music of his parents' records and the rock on FM radio. In Boulder he was first exposed to bluegrass, and began focusing on the mandolin, which he also plays with the Hi-Beams.

Ben O'Connor is a native of New Mexico who grew up listening to his mother's country music collection. An accomplished and popular fixture in the Colorado roots music scene, Ben has played upright and electric bass with a number of prominent Colorado country, rockabilly and bluegrass bands.

Damon Smith was born in Okinawa, Japan, and had seen most of the U.S. before turning 8 and living in Africa. His parents formed a country band in Africa. Moving all the time gave Smith access to a wide spectrum of music from traditional and indigenous, to contemporary and counter-cultural. He taught himself to play the drums while listening to rock records.

General admission for the concert is $20, $15 for students and seniors. The box office can be phoned for tickets or reservations at (845) 687-5262, beginning July 17, Monday-Thursday, during the hours of 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., and two hours before the performance. Additional information can be found at www.hibeams.com. This program is sponsored by A Sparrow Hawk B&B and Betsy and Howard Mont.