Our founder, Charles Armstrong, former Supervisor of Music and longtime band director in the Charles County Public Schools, had a dream: to recreate the American tradition of community bands in Southern Maryland. The golden age of bands, from the mid-1800s to the 1920s, was characterized by each community having its own volunteer band. Because radio and records did not exist during most of this period, the only form of musical entertainment in many communities was the town band, which typically performed on Sunday afternoons from the town bandstand. Occasionally, a professional band would come to town; these bands, which sometimes numbered up to 2,000 instrumentalists and 20,000 vocalists, generated great excitement wherever they performed. The popularity of bands reach its apex at the turn of the century when John Philip Sousa, the "March King," created his own touring band, "The Sousa Band."
 
  Through Armstrong's vision, the "Community Concert Band, Inc." was formed in early 1984 in Charles County, largely by Armstrong contacting former students from his 25 years of teaching. In 1985, the name was changed to "Southern Maryland Concert Band" to reflect the wide geographic diversity of the band's membership and its public performance locations throughout the four counties of Southern Maryland.