BIG DADDY LOVE—A band that includes three former Alleghany residents will perform at the Silver Dollar Music Park May 8. Pictured are (from left) Joey Recchio, Steve Nailey (no longer with the band), Brian Swenk, and Daniel Smith. Not pictured is Kelly Linville. Joey, Brian and Daniel are Alleghany natives.

Alleghany natives return to area for concert to benefit Partnership

Big Daddy Love, a band that includes three Sparta natives, encompasses music with charity efforts. The band will be having its next charity drive for Alleghany Partnership for Children May 8 at Silver Dollar Music Park.

The band came together about eight or nine months ago and include Sparta natives Brian Swenk, Daniel "Dan" Smith, Joey Recchio, along with Kelly Linville and Ashley Sutton.

Swenk currently resides in Asheville, Recchio in Yadkinville and Smith in Hickory.

According to Smith, the sole original band member of Big Daddy Love, stated the name "started out as a joke with me and two other founding members who were just kidding around (saying) Big Daddy this and Big Daddy that, one of us said Big Daddy Love and it just stuck."

Musical Stylings

Of the band's musical stylings Smith explained, "We call our music roots and rock. It speaks around a lot of our influences; we call it the sound of bluegrass with the soul of the Allman Brothers…"

Smith is the band's primary songwriter and plays acoustic guitar, with Recchio on electric guitar, Swenk on acoustic and electric banjos, Sutton on bass and Linville on drums.

Recchio commented Big Daddy Love's music is something everyone can identify with. Smith agreed, "It's got a little something for everybody…"

Swenk commented, "I come from 10 years of playing pretty much traditional bluegrass in a five-piece traditional bluegrass band…Joey has spend the last 10 years playing in an electric blues band with an Allman Brothers' style. Ashley is the bass player, he plays a funky style; people say it's funky bluegrass and Kelly is the same way, the R&B and the funk…(and) you mix that with Daniel's songwriting…you mix all that together and that's our sound."