Who performed at the York Fair in the year (fill in the blank)?
York County, Pa.,-born rock group Live, then with all four original band members intact, played the York Fair in 2004 as did Lonestar, Clay Aiken and Kid Rock.The band also performed at the Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center earlier that year. Live’s name appears in new database of past York Fair performers dating back to 1901. (For more about Live and successor band Gracious Few, check out Flipsidepa.com/live. Also of interest: Good old days at the York Fair were at least old and JFK received grand applause at York Fair visit. and Young curators produce York Fair exhibit: ‘A Fair of Our Own’.
In 1901, The Royal Italian Marine Band played at the York Fair.
At the height of World War II in 1943, no acts were listed, not even stars on USO tours.
Who performed in 1960 when JFK visited the fair? Pat Boone and Liberace.
All this coming from a database developed by the York Daily Record/Sunday News, is great fun, and informational… .
And it gives a glimpses of some of the unknowns, performers on the way up and, of course, stars who played here.
I used it to refresh my memory about the year stars Sonny and Cher performed at the fair.
It was in 1972.
That caused me to dig back to a memorable Daily Record story from Jan. 9, 1998, written at the time of Sonny’s death.
It covered Sonny and Cher’s meeting with a York County woman during their York Fair visit.
Excerpts follow:
Not many people get to meet their childhood idols, especially while they’re still kids.
But Kristian Lease did just that.
Lease had tickets to see Sonny and Cher perform at the York Fair on Saturday, Sept. 16, 1972, when she was just 5 years old.
But at the time, Lease, now 30, was hospitalized at Memorial Hospital with complications from her leukemia.
So Sonny and Cher came to see her.
It was the most memorable day of her childhood. She was sweating with excitement upon meeting the stars, she said.
Lease, now a staff psychologist at York Guidance Center, said she has been mourning the loss of a long-lost friend this week.
Lease said she recalls that Bono was an outgoing, friendly man.
“He seemed very open,” she recalled. “He was very comfortable with the situation.”
When Lease couldn’t make the concert, her father called CBS television to arrange for the musical pair to stop in at Memorial.
Sonny and Cher would, but only if there was no publicity.
Newspaper articles from the event didn’t identify the young girl, in part because her family didn’t want her to know how serious her condition was.
At the time, the survival rate for childhood leukemia was only 30 percent. Her family was told not to expect her to survive, but she did.
Lease was lucky not only to meet Sonny and Cher, but also to survive the leukemia.
The couple’s daughter, Chastity, was only two years younger than Lease at the time of the visit.
Lease’s mother, Sherry Sharp, said she thought Sonny and Cher were especially touched by Lease because their daughters were so close in age.
“They were genuinely concerned,” Sharp said.
Sonny and Cher stayed so long that they were late for their performance, Sharp said.
“But since there wasn’t any publicity about their visit to Kris, nobody knew why they were late,” Sharp said.
The couple sang their only No. 1 hit, “I Got You Babe,” during the visit to the hospital.
Lease has no pictures of Bono or Cher.
But she does have one treasure: an autographed tour jacket.
“And a lot of memories,” Lease said.
Sonny and Cher performed at the York Fair in 1972.
Forum of the day:
Please comment below about your York Fair entertainment memories or check out a long thread of memories on The Exchange.
Also of interest:
And here’s a sampling of past York Fair posts:
Teddy Roosevelt at the York Fair: ‘I know York county farmers are prosperous. Their barns are bigger than their houses’.
This York Fair mural is fading from sight .
Both Yanks, Rebs camped at old York Fairgrounds.
‘The lower she sank in her chair’.
*Edited, 9/8/12
