48 | JANUARY 27 • 2022 

T

he three members of 
the Corn Potato String 
Band began playing 
fun country music together 
in 2012, but it’s been almost 
three years since they’ve been 
able to appear in person as a 
trio.
With entertainment venues 
opening again, they’re glad to 
resume taking their song styl-
ings around Michigan with an 
appearance Thursday, Feb. 10, 
at The Ark in Ann Arbor. 
Sensing their energy geared 
up, the three dubbed this the 
“No Spaghetti Arms Tour.”
“The main way I’m feeling 
liberated since the pandemic 
is by setting time aside to play 
music with my really good 
friends,” said Detroiter Aaron 
Jonah Lewis, a multi-instru-
mentalist joined by another 
Detroiter and multi-instru-
mentalist, Lindsay McCaw, 
and banjo player Ben Belcher 
of Alabama. 
“Getting in front of people 
and sharing that experience 
has always been really import-

ant to us, and it’s been hard to 
go without it.”
The instruments the trio 
plays include fiddle, guitar, 
bass and mandolin. They joke 
about what their title rep-
resents about themselves and 
their choice of songs: the ears 
and eyes of America as the 
starches of the New World. 
“We do traditional songs, 
some new songs and tell the 
stories that go with the writing 
of the songs,” said Lewis, a 
Midwestern-bred entertainer 
whose immersion in Southern 
music came after the classical. 
“We try to do some songs 
that people will recognize and 
relate to as well as songs they 
haven’t heard before. An idea 
is to unearth gems from the 
musical past.”
An example of their style is 
the presentation of two ver-
sions of a tune based on the 
fight song of Washington and 
Lee University in Lexington, 
Va. Lewis does “Washington 
County” learned as a fiddle 
arrangement once recorded 

Old-Time Country

ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC

CORN POTATO STRING BAND

Corn Potato String Band performs 
at The Ark.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Aaron Jonah 
Lewis, Lindsay 
McCaw and 
Ben Belcher

Michigan Writer 
Tells His Father’s 
Story in New Novel

"This is the life story of one 
man, but it parallels the 
stories of millions of Jewish 
people who tried to escape 
from increasingly hostile 
Europe to someplace safer"
says Louis Finkelman.

Available for purchase at BarnesandNoble.com,
Amazon.com and IUniverse.com

Michael is available to schedule book
club appearances and/or author signings! 

Call 248-765-5880
for availability and scheduling.

A Stitch 
A Stitch in Time:
in Time:

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