{"id":37469,"date":"2026-06-12T12:57:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=37469"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:58:00","slug":"sweet-hot-night-on-plaza-kelsey-retiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/sweet-hot-night-on-plaza-kelsey-retiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet, hot night on plaza; Kelsey retiring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sweetwater All-Star Band made its eighth consecutive appearance in the Decatur Chamber’s Summer Concert Series on Thursday night, featuring heat, the usual great music and a surprise announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standing on the Madison St. Plaza and looking directly into a blazing sun, lead vocalist and guitarist Bob Bailey told his audience: \u201cIt is HOT up here \u2026 but we’ll get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was hot, alright; 88 degrees hot when the Sweetwater bunch began bringing the music at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the heat was undoubtedly what held down the crowd, quite a bit smaller than the previous week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The temperatures didn’t spoil the music, however, although the All-Stars did cut their normal three-hour show by about 15 minutes due to a pending storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey said it would take about an hour and a half to get all the band’s equipment disconnected, packed up and moved out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine-member \u2013 all of them employees of Sweetwater Sound near Fort Wayne \u2013 has played the concert series for eight consecutive years, missing only the first one, in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band will return to the plaza stage on Sept. 3 for the annual Senior Living Concert held by Adams Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KELSEY’S LAST: Near the end of the show, it was announced that Brett Kelsey, the trumpet player with several relatives in Adams County, was making his final appearance in Decatur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is moving to Florida, reportedly in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelsey is one of just three original members of the 9-person band still performing with it. Bailey and band founder Chuck Surack are the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelsey was born and raised in Fort Wayne, but has numerous relatives in the Decatur area, including Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord, Janelle Young, Elaine Rash, Kip Massoth and Keith Young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marilyn Noll is his aunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brett’s mother, the late Thelma Noll Kelsey Alexander, was born in Pleasant Mills. She had 15 siblings. His late father was Ned Kelsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALBUM DROPS: One of the band’s lead vocalists, Lisa McDavid, has just released her first full-length album: \u201cDream World.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 10 \u201cDream World\u201d CDs were handed out to audience members on the plaza Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDavid, who is highly popular in the Decatur and Adams County area, is a native of Youngstown,Ohio. She works extensively with the All-Stars and four other bands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The Sweetwater All-Star Band made its eighth consecutive appearance in the Decatur Chamber’s Summer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[14,58,15],"class_list":["post-37469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-decatur","tag-entertainment","tag-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Sweets.jpg?fit=1022%2C503&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37471,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37469\/revisions\/37471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}