From Staff Reports

GREER, S.C. — The band Mac Arnold & Plate Full o’ Blues will perform music for listening and/or dancing from 6 to 9 p.m. Aug. 16 in the amphitheater at Greer City Park, 301 E. Poinsett St., here.

 The show is part of Greer’s annual Tunes in the Park series.

Arnold’s band is billed as performing blues, soul and funk music. 

During band breaks, the concert will feature performances in the Greer Idol contest.

Arnold, 83, is a native of Ware Place, S.C., and is one of 13 children born and raised on his father’s farm.

“Arnold’s musical journey began in the 1950s when he and his brother Leroy fashioned a guitar from a steel gas can, broomsticks, wood, nails  and screen wire,” Wikipedia reported, adding that he “laughs as he talks about how gas -an guitars came about. One of those homemade guitars, the one most see him playing on stage, was leaning on a wall recently near his kitchen table in his Pelzer home... Arnold’s brother, Leroy, found a way to turn a gas can into a guitar when their father, Jodie Arnold, went to Florida to pick oranges. 

“‘Dad wouldn’t let him buy one (a guitar),’ Mac Arnold said. ‘So when he was about 15 years old, he figured out how to make one on his own. We used to tie wire to the rafters in the barn, and we knew that made sound because of the tin roof. You could hear it vibrate through the barn.’ Arnold has since become famous for the gas-can guitar and has taught many other people how to make them”

 Arnold has performed blues music — as a bass guitarist, gas-can guitarist and singer —  from 1965 to “the 1990s” and from 2006 to “today,” Wikipedia stated.

Attendees of Arnold’s Greer concert are urged to bring lawnchairs and/or blankets. Admission is free