LIVE OAK, Fla. — Skip Johns vividly recalls the circumstances that led to being the first act to play the Battle of Olustee kickoff concert.

On Friday, Johns will once again provide the entertainment to spark the Olustee Festival when Skip Johns & Friends hold a concert at Lake City’s Florida Gateway College from 7:30 p.m. to midnight.

Playing at FGC’s Alfonso Levy Performing Arts Center, the elements will be much more suitable for Johns and company to perform than that initial performance.

“It was 37 degrees, slate gray skies and the wind would cut you in two,” Johns said about that February 1979 morning outside the courthouse in Lake City when the first three bands declined to perform. “It was an awful, awful day.”

Johns, though, told master of ceremonies Dean Blackwell that The Travelers would go ahead and play, which prompted Blackwell to ask why.

“Well, if we do some of the rest of them might too,” Johns replied. “Two of the other three did too and that kind of made me feel better.

“But man, it was terrible weather.

“That’s where it started and we were the first group to actually play at the Olustee Festival.”

It was the first of many performances Johns has delivered in his hometown. The next will come with a handful of friends joining him, including former classmate Wally Germany, Matt Johns, Branford’s Booie Beach and Lowlands, Johns’ current band.

The lineup is deep and Johns is convinced one that will provide a wonderful performance.

“We have put together an excellent show,” he said. “I think everybody is going to come out and have a good time and that’s what we’re there to do. We’re there to play.

“And better than that, they’re my friends.”

That confidence is well founded.

In addition to being a long-time friend, Germany is an accomplished musician as well. He played in his first band at the age of 12, the Symbols was a group of high school students and seventh-grader Germany. Playing with the Presbyterian Folk Choir throughout high school, Germany also took up songwriting and played with a local band called the Circle K Wranglers. For the last 20-plus years, Germany lived in North Carolina, playing a variety of venues before retiring and returning to Lake City recently.

Matt Johns has been performing since childhood. Hired at 19 by the world-famous Glenn Miller Orchestra, he performed more than 600 shows between 2003 and 2007 as a saxophonist and lead vocalist. Matt Johns has since returned home to North Florida where he works as a full-time musician, instructor, composer and arranger. He has also performed with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the legendary trombonist Buddy Morrow as well as Tony nominee Norm Lewis.

A football standout as well as an aspiring musician in high school, Beach suffered a knee injury as a junior that ended his football career. Focusing on his music, Beach headlined the Beachville Bluegrass Band until it disbanded in 1991. He was a nationally known “flat picker” in the 1990s, completing three European tours and worked out of Nashville, Tenn., from 1995 to 2011. As the lead guitarist for Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time from 1999-2011, Beach was nominated for a Grammy on the “Murder on Music Row” album. He moved back to Florida in 2011, now splitting time between Florida and Nashville.

The star of the show, though, will be Skip Johns and the Lowlands band. Johns has performed professionally on banjo and guitar for 49 years on stages from the Grand Ole Opry to Vienna and the Florida Governor’s Mansion. He is a third generation musician from one of Florida’s earliest pioneer families. His range spans from classical guitar, “Travis” finger style picking to a driving bluegrass banjo. From “bluegrass to Beethoven” as he describes it. He was mentored as a teenager by Lake City native and legendary fiddler, Chubby Wise, and his band performed with Wise on many occasions..

Lowlands is an acoustic band with a range in performance that includes bluegrass, traditional country, blues and spiritual/Gospel genres as well as classical and popular pieces performed in the band’s own unique acoustic arrangements. Joining Johns in the group are Karen and Cora Goines (Moultrie, Ga.), Lee Bryant (Jasper), Ed Pintado and Jessica Ellis (Lake City). Karen Goines plays guitar and dobro while her 9-year-old daughter Cora plays fiddle. Born in Ohio, Bryant is the band’s lead vocalist and plays rhythm guitar. Pintado plays upright bass for Lowlands and was a member of the Palms Bluegrass Band for more than 30 years and can also play guitar and mandolin. Ellis, 11, sings and plays fiddle and is often featured in duets and fiddles with Cora Goines.

“My part is trying to play the best concert I can and that’s what we’re going to do,” Johns said.

Added Germany: “I’m really looking forward to it. I think it should be wonderful.”

Tickets are $20 for the public and $15 for FGC students and staff.