Staff photo by Shane Opatz

Shawn McInnis as Elvis sang “Love Me Tender” to Edna Mooney of Eau Claire.

If you go: While the Jail Bailers shows are designed for incoming tour groups, a limited supply of tickets are set aside for the general public for each show. Tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door. For ticket availability, call Jayne Plumer or Kristal Meyer at 878-4857. All shows are performed at the Holiday Inn Campus Area, 2703 Craig Road: n Saturday, May 17, 1 p.m. n Wednesday, June 11, 7:30 p.m. n Tuesday, June 24, 7 p.m. n Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7 p.m. n Monday, Sept. 15, 7 p.m. n Wednesday Sept. 24, 7 p.m. n Monday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m. n Wednesday, Dec. 10, 7 p.m. n Saturday, Dec. 13, 1 p.m.

Dressed as a police officer, Brad Sorenson escorted the performers -- or should we say inmates -- to the stage.

Mugshots were taken of each man, and they were placed on stage with their backs to the audience.

“Obviously it’s our best side,” one of the performers cracked.

Welcome to the Jail Bailers’ variety show. Let the fun begin.

Sorenson sang a solo, and then emcee Jayne Plumer encouraged him to get off the stage so the other seven guys could get involved in the show.

“I think you should pass that microphone,” Plumer said.

“Can I swallow it first?” Sorenson said, which elicited belly laughs from the crowd.

If this sounds like a silly, laugh-out-loud variety show, you’re right.

“We’re all a bunch of hams,” performer Charlie Plumer said in an interview before the group’s March 12 show. “We’re just having fun with it.”

For almost two years, the Jail Bailers have been performing to tour groups visiting Eau Claire and western Wisconsin attractions. March 12 was the Jail Bailer’s first performance for a general audience.

The Jail Bailers are eight Eau Claire men who have known each other for several years. Most of them are members of the Eau Claire Male Chorus.

They got together for a spur-of-the-moment variety show in May 2001 and have been performing ever since.

The Jail Bailers are made up of Shaun “The Ham” McInnis, Charlie “Luscious Lashes” Plumer, Ron “Lovely Locks” Mastin, Norb “Sticky Fingers” Lehman, Todd “Money Bags” Nickels, Tommy “The Hillbilly” Anibas, Bob “Twinkle Toes” Wierman and “Bad” Brad Sorenson.

The group was thrown together under the guidance of Charlie Plumer’s wife, Jayne.

Jayne Plumer co-owns Tours Inc. of Eau Claire, a company that assists tour groups visiting western Wisconsin sites and attractions.

A group from North Dakota was planning a three-day tour of western Wisconsin in May 2001.

The group had nothing planned for its first night here and sought Jayne Plumer’s assistance in finding an activity after an eight-hour bus ride.

Plumer shared the tour group’s need with her husband and other members of the Eau Claire Male Chorus.

Chorus members were returning from the Big Sing in Grand Rapids, Minn., an annual event that brings together the Associated Male Choruses of the Upper Midwest for a mass concert.

Plumer and several chorus members decided to put together a show for the North Dakota group.

The Plumers found T-shirts with a county jail theme and decided to buy the shirts and make “love crimes” the show’s theme.

“We had one rehearsal for that show,” Jayne Plumer said. “And they got a standing ovation.”

“They pretty much ate it up,” Charlie Plumer said of the Jail Bailers’ first audience.

“We put together a little show, and it’s grown from that,” Mastin said.

The Jail Bailers have remained together ever since to play for tour groups mostly from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Jail Bailers performed six shows last year and so far have 12 shows scheduled this year at the Holiday Inn Campus Area, 2703 Craig Road.

Charlie Plumer, Anibas and Mastin say the chance to perform and clown around with their musical friends are the biggest thrills.

The Jail Bailers perform songs in harmony or in solos. Comedy is sprinkled throughout the event.

Some of the diverse tunes they sing include “Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” from the musical “Annie;” “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers; “King of the Road” by Roger Miller; and “Are You Lonesome Tonight” by Elvis Pressley.

“We show off everybody’s talents,” Charlie Plumer said.

While the music is pre-selected, each show is a little different.

“Some of the guys can throw one-liners off the cuff very quickly,” Anibas said. “It can get pretty wild.”

“We love to play off the audience,” Charlie Plumer said.

“We have little surprises for them,” said Mastin, a retired Eau Claire music teacher who serves as the unofficial director of the Jail Bailers.

Surprises include impersonations of Elvis Presley, Archie and Edith Bunker and a “descendant” of Johann Sebastian Bach -- played by Mastin -- who performs a classical music rendition of the nursery rhyme “Old Mother Hubbard.”

At the March 12 show, three of the Jail Bailers -- led by Anibas -- came on stage wearing hillbilly costumes and were dubbed “Tommy and the Hillbillies.”

“Which song should we do?” one of the hillbillies asked.

“Let’s do the one we know,” another hillbilly replied.

Evonne Karpinske of Eau Claire was at the March 12 show and has seen the Jail Bailers perform four times.

“You can tell they are having way too much fun up there,” she said. “And that makes the audience have fun.”

The songs are pretty much the same at each performance, but the show itself is never the same, Karpinske said.

“There’s always some ad libbing or something new,” she said. “They act off the audience. They’re just a good group of guys.”

Jayne Plumer says she can best describe a Jail Bailers show in one sentence.

“Start with Lawrence Welk, add a little ‘Hee Haw’ and top it off with Frank Sinatra and the Statler Brothers,” she said. “It’s a good old variety show.”

While their shows are geared for tour groups, Jayne Plumer tries to set aside a small group of tickets for each show for the general public.

“This is a bunch of guys that love to perform, love to sing and are darn good at it,” she said. “The guys themselves don’t know how good they are.”

The Jail Bailers don’t know how long their gig will last, but they are enjoying the ride.

“If there’s a need for it, or if we can do it more often, the guys would love it,” Charlie Plumer said.

Holtz can be reached at 833-9207, (800) 236-7077 or dan.holtz@ecpc.com.

 

Jail Bailer Schedule