OXFORD — The Oxford County Fair has booked the multi-award-winning Marshall Tucker Band as its main act this fall.

The free concert at the fairgrounds on Pottle Road is to begin at 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15.

Jackie Young, president of the Oxford Agricultural Society, said the same anonymous donor who stepped up six years ago in an attempt to boost the financially flagging fair, has stepped up again this year .

The decision of who will showcase the fair is always left to the donor, Young said.

The Marshall Tucker Band got its name from a piano tuner found on a key ring in the band’s old rehearsal space. According to the band’s biography, it got its start in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In 1972, the band signed with Capricorn Records, and opened shows for The Allman Brothers in 1973. The following year, it headlined its own shows across the country after the platinum-plus sales of its debut album.

Hits include singles such as “Heard it in a Love Song,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Can’t You See,” and “Take The Highway.”

Opening acts for the show are Lyssa Coulter at 2:30 p.m. on the Family Fun Field, followed by Lexi James at 3:30 p.m. Other bands will play on the Community Stage on opening day, Wednesday, Sept. 12.

In addition, the fair will have livestock shows, demolition derbies, Education Day, steer and oxen demonstrations, cattle pulling, baking contests, Woodmen’s Day, exhibition halls and Smokey’s Greater Show.

New this year is a firemen’s muster beginning at 6 p.m. Sept. 12 at the 4×4 arena. Six-person teams will compete in events such as dry hose, wet hose and ball squirt. Hebron Fire Chief Jim Trundy is hosting the muster.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net

The Marshall Tucker Band performs the national anthem at the CMA Music Festival at Nissan Stadium in Nashville on  June 11, 2016. (Al Wagner/Invision/AP 2016 file photo)

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