Lawn chairs and picnic blankets are heading back to the banks of Pistol Creek tonight as Alcoa's free Songs by the Brook concert series kicks off its 2026 season at Springbrook Park. The 6 p.m. show opens with award-winning Appalachian songwriter and storyteller Michael Reno Harrell, backed by Middle Tennessee singer-songwriter Cherokee Hope and Blount County band the Drift Boat Cowboys.
The season-opening bill leans into the series' signature Americana, folk, and blues sound, according to the City of Alcoa, TN Government. Harrell, who hails from the Southern Appalachian Mountains, won first place in the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest back in 2002 and has served as Teller-in-Residence at the International Storytelling Center, according to the Salisbury Post. He's an eighth-generation Appalachian artist who has toured across 44 states and internationally, the paper reported.
Cherokee Hope's set draws on country, folk, and Appalachian influences, with songs centered on faith, family, and life in the mountains, per the City of Alcoa. Rounding out the night, the Drift Boat Cowboys — a Blount County outfit formed in 2016 — blend Americana, outlaw country, bluegrass, and roots rock, and the group has built a regional following through its live shows, the city noted.
A Family Tradition Now in Its Second Generation
The series traces back to 2014, when it was launched by Phil Eakins, a 47-year employee of the Maryville-Alcoa-Blount County Parks & Recreation Commission, according to a report from Let's Be Blount. The concert series later earned a four-star state award from the Tennessee Recreation and Parks Association, and Eakins designed the outdoor setup to make use of the creek-side hillside as a natural amphitheater, the outlet reported.
After Eakins retired, booking and management passed in 2025 to his son, local musician Tommie John Eakins, who now draws on his own performing background to curate the lineup of regional acts, per the same report. The setup remains unchanged: the outdoor stage sits near the Darwin Street entrance to Springbrook Park, with shaded grass along Pistol Creek where attendees spread out their chairs and blankets.
Big Crowds and a Rain Plan
Turnout has grown steadily over the series' eleven-year run. Last year's season opener drew more than 350 attendees, one of the largest single-night crowds in the concert series' history, according to the Maryville-Alcoa-Blount County Parks & Recreation Commission. Whether tonight's opener, the August 27 show, or the September 10 finale will match or exceed that number remains to be seen.
If severe or rainy weather strikes any of the three Thursday dates, the parks commission moves performances indoors to the Springbrook Recreation Center at 1537 Dalton Street in Alcoa, which sits directly within the park grounds. The full 2026 schedule runs 6 to 9 p.m. on August 13, August 27, and September 10, with upcoming shows from 110 in the Shade, Will Shepard Band, Elijah Wyatt Band, Jon Foulk Band, and Brady Turner filling out the rest of the season, per the commission's listing.
Tonight's free concert is backed by a long roster of local sponsors, including Arconic, Alcoa Tenn Federal Credit Union, Crestview Dental, LDA Engineering, Sweet Leaf Hemp Farms, West Chevrolet, R6 Lawn Care, Jack Raby Optical, Stevenson Tire Service, Gatlin's Automotive, Twisted Piston Car Club East Tenn., Clendenin and Lockwood Construction & Remodeling, Cruzes Tint N Tunes, and David George – Humana, according to the City of Alcoa's announcement.
A Regional Park With Deep Roots
Springbrook Park's ability to host hundreds of residents for free traces back to Alcoa's founding. The city was established in 1919 by the Aluminum Company of America, which designed the municipal layout to include one acre of park land per 100 residents and donated property for local green space, according to Kiddle. Springbrook Park remains one of those foundational green spaces from the city's early industrial expansion.
The park also serves as a hub for the Maryville-Alcoa Greenway, which opened a 3-mile connecting trail segment in 1998 linking Springbrook Park with Bicentennial Greenbelt Park in Maryville, per Kiddle's account. That paved greenway now stretches across Blount County for walking, running, and biking.
Behind the concert series sits an unusual piece of local governance: the Maryville-Alcoa-Blount County Parks and Recreation Commission was created in 1970 under Tennessee's Inter-Local Cooperation Act and remains the state's only administrative joint-venture parks board shared across three local governments, according to the commission. A seven-member administrative board oversees the commission's roughly 20 full-time staff members, the same source notes. Whether attendance and vendor participation grow further as the season continues remains an open question heading into the August 27 and September 10 dates.
