Students of Marquette Senior High School sing together on stage during the event. Marquette Rockestra and Marquette Area Public Schools banded together Thursday night to put on a Sounds of the 60s concert at Kaufman Auditorium in Marquette. The concert served as a benefit for MAPS music program. (Journal photos by Rachel Oakley)

By RACHEL OAKLEY

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — Kaufman Auditorium was alive with “The Sounds of the ’60s” Thursday evening, a concert with the goal of raising funds for Marquette Area Public Schools’ music program.

“We started it last year with the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper,” said event coordinator and Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center Director Dan Truckey. “I said ‘Hey, we should put a big band together and play the entire album, and then we decided it could be a benefit and we could have it (at Kaufman). It went so well. We raised a lot of money, we had a really great time and we said ‘Let’s do it again,’ and that’s how it came together.”

Truckey said around $7,000 was raised through last year’s benefit.

This year’s entertainment was composed of the Marquette Rockestra and students of Marquette Senior High School.

“We have 49 musicians playing … and it’s a massive group of people who were involved in many different levels of making it happen,” Truckey said. “We’re playing 28 songs and those songs kind of reflect the many genres and styles of the 1960s. Everything from Motown to British invasion, to psychedelic to some of the more pop songs, the jazz songs of the time. Almost every song that we’re playing was a hit.”

Truckey said it feels good to finally reach the culmination of months of hard work.

“We started planning this one last fall and we’ve been rehearsing for almost three months now,” Truckey said. “There’s so many people involved in it … The truth is it really takes a village to pull something like this off. There was an enormous amount of effort on the part of the musicians, and the school, and the folks at Kaufman, and the sound engineers and everybody. When it finally comes together, it’s really incredible. That’s why we’re doing it again. It is a lot of work, but in the end the payoff is so huge.”

Rachel Oakley can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 243. Her email address is roakley@miningjournal.net.