BANJO player Curtis Eller is bringing his American Circus all the way from the USA to play at New Milton’s Forest Arts on Saturday July 23.

Curtis Eller began performing onstage as a juggler and actor when he was just seven years old until, as legend has it, he picked up a banjo and headed to the Big Apple where he forged a career as ‘New York’s only yodeling banjo player’!

Siting Buster Keaton, Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley as his primary musical influences, Eller became a staple of the beer halls, burlesque houses and underground theatres of the eastern seaboard, but fame proved elusive so he uprooted his family and re-settled in North Carolina with the sole intent of assembling a new version of his band – The American Circus. The latest version of his ensemble is a rock and roll outfit that sing songs about the great names that literally ‘made’ America with Abraham Lincoln, Buster Keaton, Amelia Earhart and Joe Louis sharing the spotlight with a host of Civil War generals and corrupt 19th century politicians.

Their most recent release, How to Make It in Hollywood, is a collection of glittery show tunes, sentimental tear-jerkers and rock and roll rave-ups, but this bands true métier is not recording – it’s performing live. With the physicality of a trained acrobat Eller leaps across the stage, sometimes even joining his audience, as he yodels and yelps the words to songs that only he could have written. He is funny too – sharing the tales behind the songs with a light touch belies his deep cultural knowledge.

Tickets: 01425 612393