Inside the Story: Mormon, Baptist and 2 Methodists make the Mixed Nuts band
(KUTV) What do you get when you mix a Mormon, a Baptist and two Methodist musicians? You get a band called Mixed Nuts.
Mixed Nuts returned to play once again at the Taylorsville Senior Center just off Redwood Road and 4800 South to play a seasonal concert of Christmas favorites.
According to the band's leader, Bob Nohavec, 79, the group got its name in the spring of 2009 when the no-name group played at a church event. The band included a Mormon, a Baptist and two Methodists, so someone made a suggestion.
"You ought to be called the Mixed Nuts because you are from different religions and you're all crazy," Nohavec remembered. "So we became the Mixed Nuts."
What makes Mixed Nuts unique is they travel the Wasatch Front playing at senior centers and they say it has nothing to do with the pay.
"No it's not about the money," said Bill Marsh, the band's drummer.
"We make virtually only enough money to pay for our gas driving to and from the gigs," Nohavec added.
Instead, it's about the love of music and what it does for those they play for.
"Music is therapeutic," Nohavec explained. "It actually betters them. It makes them feel and makes them remember things that they wouldn't have remembered otherwise."
Mary Halvorsen, 84, agrees.
"It just changes my whole mood," she said. "It starts while I am still sitting. My feet are going and then it goes up my legs and next thing my hands go and next my body is flying across the floor."
And so does Kent Palmer.
"I got to move," Palmer said. "I feel like I'm entertaining people and it also makes me feel good."
His girlfriend Andrea Nelson had more to add.
"It makes me very happy and proud of myself when I can dance well when I'm getting older," she said.
But this performance was no ordinary day of playing around. Mixed Nuts played three concerts in the same day, bringing them to a total 1,000 gigs as a group.
"I'm retired. What else have you got to do?" Nohavec said.
A group of mixed nuts with a catchy beat that's bringing smiles to thousands of seniors all year long.
"I can't imagine a person living a life without music," he added.
Mixed Nuts has cut three CDs and has a book of 890 different numbers they play. When they are not playing Christmas music, they are playing the big band music of the 40s and 50s.
For more on this group go to mixednutsmusic.org.
