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This program is brought to you in part by listeners like you as well as act Johnson and Janet Logan real estate brokers Welcome to our home realty where you're treated like family pet and janitor professional traders with experience in all aspects of the real estate industry including growing titles and they offer property management services for help with your real estate needs you can call pack at 530-526-2400 are Janet 530-243-7534 they are located at 3464 petroleum in reading in or on the web at Welcome Home Realty dot com Caesarian thinks Johnson and Logan of walking tour a home reality for their generous support. Radio brought to you by the center state park in Mountain. A wonderful way to enjoy yesterday on the web at Center dot com. Hey everyone I'm Dave Smith host of Ozark Highlands radio Welcome to our show this week we'll hear music from Cindy Wolf Mark Foley and Jason Chapman playing both traditional song. They wrote as well also on the show we'll hear from folklorist Blevins on the history of the Ozark folk center and its founder Jimmy driftwood and take a trip down into the vault to hear what Mark Jones this week all that and more this week on Highlands radio. After a 16 year tenure as one of the founding members of Missouri based old time string band Big Smith Markel who continues his musical journey he's now a partnership in music and in life with singer songwriter Cindy Wolf. Recently. There is only. A few. A lovely. Valley. Thanks. To you to focus on questions that are online you know meaning the old recordings are there that you can listen to one of our from Springfield where I was born and the other collectors John Quincy wore from base for me from and so that's where we found the songs we just I mean the only requirement was that we would like to the songs you know we pick them out that way and. So that's how we came up with the album Tyler's world country. Thank. Lol. Yeah I was born in. The fifty's. Ever since then it's been a magnet for really great musicians playing with Branson kids. Many musicians. The That was Mark. In Jason's cabin with the original song Born Under grew very lake after the break we'll take a trip down to the boat to see what Marc. You're listening to. Radio. It's time for us to head down to the vault and visit our friend Mark Jones who keeps all the recordings that were made here at the Folk Center for the last 40 years has gone down or announced he was going to. Play Marco you doing. Dave I'm doing real good haven't a big. You know I was thinking the other day about an old friend here in Stone County who actually made the belt buckle in arm wearing today a fine. Man and a musician in Iraq layer in a guy who had a lot of talent Glenn Branscombe you remember going hey view that a glamorous belt buckle I do and I'm so proud to have it made to I've got one is beautiful got a little piece turquoise in the middle of it and I get a lot of comments. To tail people that on the lane and. In an amazing fellow Ravens are good rock lawyer and so talented you know Dave a couple weeks ago are running across a recording of him doing probably one of the most spiritual things. And then I've ever heard any are Capella I don't know heard it but it's definitely one of my favorites called. Fathers So you were. They I'm on a track found in fact real old religious. Crap was brought out in the country when the people come in here from compact in the places they came from. Sam has father found a glowing. As far. As. Gloria he. Has for. Years. On to me. As. A read. On the. Issue. And day he will. Be the I'm. Glad. You. Think him. Glad they. Were in seeing. You. We. Who once gone to. Me we are. Now beloved who ones on. The we don't have. The. Room there to start. We go and sing the I'm sorry. You. Glad. You. Thank all that's a great song Mark I remember very well Glenn Branscombe during his songs it was about my favorite way to hear him saying when he sang on a company like that you know Dave. Writes from the heart in so. Well anyone. He wouldn't he would normally go in and try and encourage nobody claimed variance in that so he was a nurse who is always going to be yeah going past on several years ago but we all remember him well there was a man who never had a bad thing to say about anybody that he's great or Mark thanks a lot this were a great to hear that recording in there with you again next week Ok Ok. If you've ever spent much time in the Ozarks you know that the weather can change sometimes in a matter of minutes Here's Cindy Wolfe and Mark blue with their song like the weather . So I wrote a song inspired by that and it's called like the weather new friends and me. Mulder. My dad was really into bluegrass. So seventies came here a whole lot I. Hung out with. A lot of pictures he played a little bit I think you play with. Photographer. So when it when you go home he said and kids are ravenous my show and he is of Mountain View in the 70s all the people sit around playing music and look so cool like I am going to. A. Lot of those. I guess what I was you know I remember the 1st maybe the 1st I went to that I was a teenager I came here dad and all the guys from the old school leaver spanner hanging out. I had to sit around on some porch they let me sing a song you know. I did well I know wearing street. Ange area that was one of the 1st I sang with any of those guys and I started it way you know how I got to the Course part and we all just quit life. For a good president of the way. So I had to learn a little bit and then very. Long Thank you so much it's. Really. An honor to play here. I'm going to play here my whole life that was Cindy Wolff and Mark Butler with like the weather Arkansas sweet heart and welcome as the flowers in May We're going to take a short break now afterwards folklorist Brooks Blevins will give us some history of Jimi draft board and the Ozark Folk Festival You're listening to Ozark Highlands radio. He knocked me down with the man. They came from everywhere same from cities and farms from Memphis and Little Rock from hills and hollers from St Louis even Chicago Little Mountain View Arkansas had never witnessed anything like it an estimated 10000 mountain music fans and others looking to see what all the fuss was about converged on this little town on the 3rd weekend of April 19th 63 they came to play or saying or simply to witness the 1st Arkansas Folk Festival no one who gathered in the old high school gym those 2 spring evenings would ever forget it not because of Joan Baez or Bob Dylan or Peter Paul and Mary they weren't there if you hadn't spent time in Fox or only your 56 or Timbo you didn't recognize the pickers and singers on the stage in this sleepy Ozark town back in the hills but that was part of the charm it was the heart of America's folk movement and here on stage where the very people who inspired it real life augurs in farmers and country schoolteachers in grandmas and calico dresses they played fiddles and mandolins and guitars they same 300 year old British ballads and 19th century American minstrel songs sung could barely muster the courage to come out from behind the curtain others relish the spotlight and almost had to be dragged off the stage. Behind it all was the only person in town that the visitors had ever heard of stone counties alone celebrity Jimmy driftwood he was no stranger to the spotlight if you're younger than 60 chances are you've never heard of him born James Corbett Morrison the Richwoods community of Stone County Arkansas in 1907 he grew up in a musical family. Jim Morris spent the 1st half of his adult life as a teacher in the rural schools of the Ozarks but writing songs and performing were his true passions as his friend and mentor folklores John Quincy Wolfe Jr put it he lived in song by the midnight 150 s. He had begun performing at the local venues under the name Jimmy driftwood on the advice of wolf and other friends the country schoolteacher now 50 years old a struck out for Nashville in the summer of 57 and came back home with a record contract a song that had sealed the deal was the Battle of New Orleans a story song set to the melody of an old fiddle tune called the 8th of January drift wood said he had crafted the lyrics some 20 years earlier to teach students in a one room school about the war of 812 the Battle of New Orleans was one of 12 tracks on Driftwood 1st album released in the fall of $58.00 his version became a minor cult and station but country star Johnny Horton's rendition went to the top of the country and pop charts in the spring of not 259 ranking as the top selling record of the year and winning driftwood a Grammy for Song of the year a number of other driftwood songs we came hits for Nashville stars such as Eddie Arnold version of the Tennessee stud and soldiers' joy by Hawkshaw Hawkins Jimi played the Grand Ole Opry appeared in the Pat Boone's show performed on stage at Carnegie Hall all the while keeping one foot firmly planted on his cattle farm it Timbo Arkansas all. The lot of his fame may have been fading by 963 but he could draw a crowd in the hills of the Ozarks and he had friends and contacts throughout the world of commercial country music. Hoping to pump a few dollars into the depressed local economy the organizers of the Arkansas folk festival had asked driftwood to put together a musical program that would accompany the festival craft show and dogwood drive expecting him to use his Nashville connections to recruit a star attraction or 2 the organizers were surprised when driftwood announced that there would be no popular recording artists only local musicians and singers despite the pessimism of town leaders and merchants driftwood was certain he knew what the public wanted and he was enough of a ham that the idea of being the only famous person on stage must surely have appealed to him Jimmy was right the festival was a rousing success and its fame grew in succeeding years the festival's impact in driftwood influenced white major roles in the creation of the Ozark folk center State Park which opened its doors in NY team 73 now more than half a century after that 1st festival with its fiddlers and singers whose memory stretching back to the not to century the Arkansas Folk Festival continues to bring thousands of music in those yes the mountain view each April almost all the performers from those original shows are now gone but the spirit of Jimmy drift toward in his cast of woodcutters hog farmers in grainy lives own. Facts. And. I don't know why I didn't pick it up earlier but I got my dad. Martin Vegas and you know half ago. That mean I. Get motivated and I am going to. Bring Phil where actually an owner and Mark are there. Giving me lessons. For years. Yeah. I wish I'd been around for this for back in my grandfather's day when he was young man and woman is a couple of his brothers and several of his cousins played the fiddle and they were the entertainment for Saturday night deals or whatever and so I got really interested in that want to learn all I could about it because of the time I became interested they were all coming in either plan for physical reasons or were. Moral reasons. But as as it turns out. Vance Randolph you know the if he came through and he recorded one of my grandfather's cousins his name was Willie blue in like 947 I think so I got a hold of the recording and Willie was just. Really fine musician kind of the short short most violent and really quick he played really quickly and he was I had always heard that he was kind of want one of the best ones around so I was very thankful that Vance ran. And then around. Raw. Raw. Raw. Raw. Right. Well that's it for this week's show be sure and tune in next week for more great music and folklore from the Ozarks and if you have comments or questions feel free to contact us at Ozark Highlands Radio dot com so long everybody I'm Dave Smith. Highlands radio is produced by Jasc Glover executive producer. Additional support for this program comes from Arkansas state parks with 52 unique or.