Pastor Jim Melhorn passed away nearly a year ago, but a coffee house music series he started is getting new life.

The music, as they say, lives on.

Melhorn began the series in 2007 following kidney removal surgery to combat cancer. He had always wanted to begin the series, and his recovery gave him the push to do it.

His death in May of 2009 put an end to the series, which he largely organized himself. Now his wife, Cindy Melhorn, is picking up where he left off.

“We want to start it up again because there is a real need for local musicians to play and a need for places to go to enjoy that sort of thing,” Melhorn says.

The upcoming coffee house concert on Friday will be a memorial, and Melhorn’s hope is that she will be able to get a committee of church members together to continue the series.

“This was his vision, and I want to keep it going as long as we can,” Melhorn says.

Jim Melhorn spoke to the Ledger-Transcript in 2008 about the coffee house series. At the time, he said he was trying to find musicians without much name recognition and give them opening slots.

“We’re trying to do relatively local acts,” he said at the time. “The more local the better.”

Pastor Melhorn said he hoped to be a role model for his parishioners by maintaining the series.

“If you have a passion for something, you take ownership for it and you just do it,” he said.

Pastor Melhorn avoided the spotlight, but loved music and wanted local musicians to have a place to play as well as a place that music lovers could go to hear it. He sought out performers and created a list, which Cindy Melhorn found and went through to plan the event.

Putting out a mass e-mail to performers, Rindge resident April Hobart responded. According to Melhorn, Hobart was one of the first musicians to play at her husband’s coffee house, so it was fitting to have her perform at the upcoming memorial coffee house.

Hobart’s group, Hot Mustard, is a bluegrass band consisting of herself on guitar, Bruce Stockwell and Bill Jubett on banjo, Adam Buchwald on mandolin and Kelly Stockwell on bass.

What makes the group unique, Hobart says, is having two banjo players.

“When you think of two banjos, you think that could be a lot of noise, but they have worked to not make it like that,” Hobart says. “One person plays melody and another plays harmony over it. It’s a very full sound, and I know because I stand between them generally. It’s just a wall of sound; it sounds pretty incredible. It’s very happy music.”

Hot Mustard began as a project for the N.H. Arts Council so that Jubett and Stockwell could study banjo together for a year. At the end, they performed along with Hobart and Kelly Stockwell, their significant others. They all liked the music they played together and wanted to keep doing it. Eventually, Buchwald was added.

The connection to the Rindge coffeehouse came through Hobart.

“I had met with Jim when he started to get the coffee house together,” Hobart says. “It was a fantastic and really receptive audience and I got a really warm kind of feeling from the whole thing.”

According to Hobart, everyone got excited about the music, listened and enjoyed themselves. She hopes and expects that to continue.

Melhorn says the coffeehouse was very much a family operation, with her husband organizing the event, her organizing the kitchen with drinks and desserts and their children acting as the wait staff.

“It’s all done on a volunteer basis,” Melhorn says. “It was not a moneymaking thing; we looked at it as a service to the community. If there were proceeds, they would go toward camp scholarships.”

The $8 cost at the door includes coffee and soft drinks and there are desserts for purchase.

“It’s almost like a concert atmosphere,” Melhorn says. “Tables for four are set around the meeting house. It’s a nice venue, small, but with good acoustics and lighting for the stage. All of the musicians who played there have liked playing there, and we had several regular customers that came to every one.”