Published September 10. 2015 04:00PM
Twitty Fever is the only band at the Palmerton Community Festival featuring three generations of the same family.
The band has been playing the festival for more than a dozen years, usually closing out the show Sunday night on the main stage. But the Rehrig family have been playing country music around the Palmerton area for more than 50 years.They got their name from the classic country singer Conway Twitty. Dave Rehrig has been doing his tribute to Twitty for nearly 40 years. But they also include a wide variety of country hits from every era."If they're not particularly Conway Twitty fans, they can still enjoy the show since we throw in those other songs," said Dave's son, Dustin, the band's drummer/manager.Dustin stepped in to help his dad with the band in 1996, when the band was on hiatus. He agree to take over managing and drumming, so that Dave could just focus on singing.Dustin says he can always remember his father playing music, and hearing stories of his grandfather, Pop Rehrig, playing squeezebox and fiddle around the area in the 1960s and '70s."My dad showed me how to play the drums," he said. "I learned how to play square dances when I was 5 years old."Dustin took what he learned growing up in the music business and turned it into a successful business managing bands like Get the Led Out, one of the best known Led Zeppelin cover bands."We're out with different bands all the time," he said. "When we're home, we do the Twitty Fever stuff."Today, the tradition continues with Dustin's daughter, 14-year-old April Rehrig. She joins her grandfather on Twitty's well-known duets with Loretta Lynn."She's only 14, the band is 36," Dustin Rehrig said.
Copyright 2015