Songs of old crooner come to life Thurs. at the Buskirk-Chumley

“Splish Splash,” “Dream Lover” and “Beyond the Sea” are a few of the many songs that made Bobby Darin a legendary entertainer.  This vocal powerhouse may no longer be living, but his hits will come to life on stage this week at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.
Robert Shaw, a southern Indiana native, will be performing “Dream Lover — A Salute to the Music of Bobby Darin” at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday.  
“[Shaw] loves his music,” said Trish Thayer, director of operations for Lonely Street Productions, a music tribute company founded by Shaw in 2005. “He felt like not enough people knew how great Darin was.”
Thayer met Shaw in Tucson, Ariz., through mutual friends before joining Shaw’s team. The company is based in Tucson and southern Indiana, where Shaw currently resides.
Summer and fall performances take place in Indiana, and winter and spring shows take Shaw on tour to Arizona.
Shaw formed Lonely Street in 2005 after Tucson audiences encouraged him to put together a tribute to Elvis Presley, Thayer said.
After a year of Elvis tributes, Shaw researched and performed Johnny Cash tributes and has since performed  Bobby Darin.
Shaw said in an interview with the Herald Times that in 2010, Lonely Street moved outside of Nashville, Ind., because he saw an opportunity to bring music back into that area after the destruction of the Little Opry venue. After reading an advertisement for a vacant building, Shaw and company members reconstructed the vacant space into the RedBarn Jamboree and made it their home that year.
He also played understudy roles for three characters in the Chicago-based Broadway musical “Million Dollar Quartet.”
“He loved being a part of that show,” Thayer said.
After a year in Chicago, the growing company began working on a new project: the tribute to Darin. The tribute premiered in July 2011 and will be showcased Thursday in Bloomington for the first time.
“[Shaw] is saluting Bobby’s music,” she said. “He researches and is as true to it as he can be.”