Tom Feller has spent much of this summer working on the upcoming debut of a new web site remembering the wonderful music of The Boys From Indiana.
In addition to running his own band with Chris Hill, maintaining a studio and a sound reinforcement company together, Tom is a direct descendant of the two brothers who started The Boys From Indiana, Aubrey and Jerry Holt, back in 1973. A third Holt brother, Tom, joined the group a few years later. For Feller, their music was as much a part of his childhood as anything else he did, and preserving and continuing their sound is his current passion.
Supporting his uncle Aubrey is another, as the elder Holt has been quite ill and unable to perform since earlier this year. So Tom is currently completing an online Boys From Indiana Museum, set to officially launch with exclusive content in 2016, with 50% of all funds raised going to Aubrey Holt.
The new site will be hosted at www.boysfromindiana.com, and operated as a membership site. Bluegrass fans will be familiar with the concept, as in the Doyle Lawson Family of Friends fan site or the Balsam Nation site for fans of Balsam Range. Both offer special content and premiums to members who pay roughly $10/month to access it.
Feller tells us that the BFI site became possible only recently when he came into possession of a treasure trove of band memoribilia, and started the process of recutting some of their classic songs.
“In the past year, I have secured a high volume of exclusive content that I’ve known about for quite some time, but couldn’t get my hands on. After some negotiation, I was finally able to convince Aubrey Holt to share this content and now I want to share it with the bluegrass community and the world. The website will have some basic content, but will feature a VIP membership area where exclusive content will be available each month to members. VIP Membership will be in the neighborhood of $9.99 per month and provide access to exclusive video, photo collections, previously unreleased songs, remakes of their classic songs in the original arrangements (over 60 have been selected for recording by many family members and an A-list of musicians), along with stories and interviews with some of the ‘Boys,’ will make this the world’s largest online resource for the Boys From Indiana.
Videos and songs will be presented to VIP members in ‘monthly installments.’ With over 60 songs being remade, it’s obviously a huge undertaking. For the price they would normally pay for downloading one album each month from Itunes, fans can look forward to new songs and videos being made available each month that will literally provide years of fresh entertainment. It’s important for fans to remember that all songs and videos will be exclusive to the website and not available for release anywhere else.”
As a tease, Tom has put this video together as an example of what will be available on the site when it is fully functional.
Updates about the BFI Museum will be posted as the launch date draws near on both the Feller & Hill site, and on their Facebook page.
