West Plains, MO. – The West Plains Council on the Arts recently released an announcement to give an update on the upcoming Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival in June. Read below for more.
The Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival will celebrate Missouri culture Friday and Saturday, June 2 and 3. The annual event in downtown West Plains, MO celebrates Ozarks music and culture. Admission to all festival events is free. Festival hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. each day, with music scheduled to begin at noon.
The West Plains Council on the Arts (WPCA) started the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival in response to input from the traditional music community – mostly musicians from families who had played for generations as well as graduates from the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program of the Missouri Folk Arts Program. At the time, there was not a festival venue locally where that music was showcased. Members of the community formed a planning committee to look at the feasibility of a small arts council participating in a meaningful way to facilitate such a festival. The first years were under advisement, with input, and some sponsorship from the Missouri Folk Arts Program. The festival has always received funding from the Missouri Arts Council under their community arts program. The event is now the signature event of the City of West Plains.
“We’re excited to introduce the full slate of musical performers who will fill our stages. For this celebration, we’ll feature many of those who have performed over the years, some who have been involved with this Festival since its inception, and some names new to our event,” organizers said. “It will be two great days of old-time music!”
Headliners were previously announced:
This year’s Friday headliners are The Isaacs, in the Arena at 7 p.m.
This year’s Saturday headliners are the Blackwood Brothers Quartet, in the Arena at 5 p.m., preceded by Women in Need of God Sing (W.I.N.G.S.) at 4 p.m.
Our other featured performers include:
Judy Domeny Bowen
Judy Domeny Bowen is a solo performer of folk songs. Her musical performances are a reflection of her life’s interests–traditional Ozarks ballads, farm songs, and original songs about being a teacher.
Mining the collections of Max Hunter and Vance Randolph, Judy learned songs of broken-hearted lovers, cowboys, Civil war soldiers, train wrecks, and a plethora of murders. She developed a personal repertoire of hundreds of traditional Ozarks songs that are seldom heard today. She has enjoyed performing these songs at festivals and concerts for decades. As years rolled by, Judy added songs that reflected her life on rocky Ozarks farms that she loves much. She sings of gardening, cutting wood, auctions, milking cows… Currently raising top quality Boer goats, Judy will talk your ear off about all things goats, so be advised and don’t even bring up the subject.
Her songs led to performances across the nation and internationally as Judy shared music and laughter, honesty, and inspiration with educators in need of a good dose of humor. Judy’s performances will include songs from her life—Ozarks ballads, farm songs, and songs about life as a teacher. Accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, Judy sings with great clarity, warmth, and good humor. Come enjoy her music and stories.
Colbert Brothers
Old-time music has been a family tradition for generations for Colbert Brothers Leon, Van, and Vernon, all of whom hail from Willow Springs, Mo. “Mom and Dad instilled in us the love of their music, and to this day we play, sing and remember,” said Van, who is known for his unique “two-finger” roll style on banjo.
The Colbert’s grandfather, Hall Colbert, moved the family from the Buffalo River region of Arkansas during the Depression years. He and his wife, Ethel, their four boys, Leon, Bob, Truett and John, and their four daughters, Geneva, Gladys, Jewell, and Marge, traveled by horse and wagon to the Howell County community of Amy where they established new roots and Hall preached as a Baptist minister and sang.
The Colbert’s father, Joseph Truett, who was named for a famous turn-of-the-century minister, taught himself to play a banjo he built by stretching a groundhog skin over the hoop for a head. He taught Van’s older brothers to chord the guitar and enjoyed playing along once they could carry a tune. Mother Vernieca May (Easley) Colbert also was a beautiful singer and lady, Van said, and before she passed away, they could always encourage her to sing “Beautiful Brown Eyes,” “Red River Valley,” “Maple on the Hill” and “Wildwood Flower” to their accompaniment.
Compton & Newberry
Mike Compton and Joe Newberry play traditional and new American music that honors the past and forges a path toward the new tradition of the future. While two musicians do not a bluegrass band make, their music rings true to fans of bluegrass, early country, blues, gospel, and string band music. Together, Compton & Newberry are shining a much-deserved contemporary light on the roots, as they tend to the branches. too.
Compton & Newberry are masters of their craft whose combined pedigree speaks for itself. In addition to multiple IMBA and Grammy nominations and wins, their talents have been featured on “A Prairie Home Companion,” the Transatlantic Sessions, the soundtracks to “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Cold Mountain”, as well as numerous other popular collaborations with a diverse range of artists and styles. The duo can be counted on to showcase the sounds that laid the foundation for ragtime, country, folk, rural blues, and Americana, as well as other sounds that dominate radio and music charts today.
A Compton & Newberry program features a familiar combination of tunes and songs from the great American song bag mixed with their own newly composed numbers which are already taking their rightful place in the new tradition. They are just the artists to bring fans together for a multi-generational celebration of music we all can love.
“Two musicians, two instruments and two voices capture the essence of how great music can be.”
– Mandolin Café
Echoes of Dogwood Mountain
The “Echoes of Dogwood Mountain” is a group that formed from associations of folks in the southwest
Missouri area. The group name has evolved over the years from Ozark Mountain Dulcimers (a 5-person
mountain dulcimer group) to Dogwood Mountain Dulcimers (which had hammered dulcimers as well as
mountain dulcimers) to the now Echoes of Dogwood Mountain (a multi-instrument group). The Echoes of Dogwood Mountain has a unique variety of instruments: mountain dulcimers, hammered dulcimers, a
flute, a violin, a marimbula, and a bodhran. While the group plays mostly folk music, they also include songs from Bluegrass, Celtic, and Southern Gospel backgrounds.
Meet the members of the Echoes of Dogwood Mountain: Anne Dreier, Christa Clawson, Julie Wilson, Marvin Glueck, Robin Tucker, Matthew Tucker, Mary Ellen Lounsbery, and June Day. More details available at the website www.oldtimemusic.org
It’s our joy to share our music together and with others! Many of the members of the Echoes of Dogwood Mountain host an open jam group called Dogwood Mountain Dulcimers. This group meets every 1st Tuesday for a multi-instrument jam at a library in Springfield, MO, and we’d love for you to join us if you’re ever in the area on the day we meet.
Four Corners Quartet
Four Corners Quartet was formed in 2022. Members are Andrew Eckman, tenor-West Plains, MO; Matt Franks, lead-Salem, AR; Lee Edwards, Baritone-Pulaski, TN; and Jim Goss Bass-West Plains, Mo. Four Corners Quartet loves spreading the word of Jesus Christ through Southern Gospel music. All 4 members have sung southern gospel music their entire lives.
Julie Henigan
Julie Henigan grew up in Springfield, Mo., with old-time music on her doorstep. Famed fiddler Art Galbraith lived a block away, the Max Hunter Song Collection was at the nearby library, and music parties were just a short drive away. Other musical influences from the Ozarks include Almeda Riddle, Glenn Ohrlin, and Bob Holt.
Known for her unerring command of the distinct, but related, idioms of Southern American and traditional Irish music, Julie sings and plays finger-style guitar, clawhammer banjo, mountain dulcimer, and fiddle – instruments she uses for both song accompaniments and solo pieces.
Julie’s performances have been characterized as “mesmerizing,” her vocals “stunning” and her instrumental work as “absolutely superior.” She has performed solo in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and as a member of a number of Irish and old-time bands, including Missouri Girls with Barbara Weathers and Kim Lansford. She has shared the stage with a variety of singers and musicians, including Tom Paley, Chirps Smith, and Irish super-group Altan. Author of two Mel Bay books on open-tuned finger-style guitar, Julie has a highly lauded CD on the Waterbug label entitled American Stranger.
Juhl Family
The members of the Juhl Family Band eagerly look forward to returning to West Plains for their second appearance at the Festival. The originator of the group, Marv Juhl, developed an affinity for the music made by local instrumentalists and singers such as the Beverman Boys at box socials and barn dances during his youth in central Illinois’s Logan County in the 1930s and ‘40s, as well as the sounds broadcast by the National Barn Dance on WLS in Chicago and the Grand Ole Opry on WSM in Nashville.
Inspired by the recordings of such bluegrass musicians as Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, and the Osborne Brothers, in addition to television’s Hee-Haw and the soundtracks to Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance, Marv, Bob, and Joe honed their instrumental skills. In the 1970s, the Juhls formed a bluegrass band called the Beaucoup Bottom Boys. Based in Du Quoin, Illinois, the group was named for nearby Beaucoup Creek. After the band ceased performing together regularly, Joe, Bob, and Marv continued playing with various local musicians and making occasional public appearances. Bob and Joe recorded and performed with fiddler Katie Kerkhover and Rockwood Junction in the 1990s.
The Juhl Family enjoyed participating in the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival in 2014, when they celebrated Blackberry Winter’s recording of an original composition by Marv and Bob, “Memories of the Ozarks.” Blackberry Winter included their rendition, which they retitled “Ozark Mountains,” on their album, Still Standing.
The current membership of the “band,” sometimes augmented by other friends and neighbors, includes:
Bob Juhl of Du Quoin, IL; Joe Juhl of Perry County, IL and Madison County, MO; Josh Juhl of Newburgh, IN; Gary Juhl of San Antonio, TX; and Matt Meacham – son of Bob’s and Joe’s cousin, John Meacham. Matt was a public folklorist with the West Plains Council on the Arts from 2007 to 2011, remains involved with the festival, and currently lives in Edwardsville, IL.
Duane Porterfield
Duane Porterfield is a musician with a passion for old time folk instruments and music. He is the current Arkansas State Old Time Banjo Campion, (senior division) a former National Mountain Dulcimer Champion as well as several other awards and acknowledgements. As a boy in the fifth grade, his parents bought him a K-Mart guitar promising that, “If you stick with it, we’ll get you a better one”. He stuck with it, and a few months later, was presented with his first “real” guitar. Playing along with cassette tapes of The Eagles, John Denver and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, among others, he soon discovered a love for the sound of acoustic stringed instruments. Eventually he would form a string band, Hardtack, with his older brother Dennis and Les Crider, the man who first taught him to play Wildwood Flower on the guitar. For several years they played fairs and festivals in the area.
In 1997 he entered the Mountain Music Shop in Shawnee, Kansas and was introduced to the mountain dulcimer. He recalled as a young child watching his great grandfather strumming on a similar stringed box with a stick and feather. Duane left the music shop that day with his first mountain dulcimer failing to realize the impact this instrument would have on his life. He sums it up with these words, “The mountain dulcimer has been the medicine that relieves my headache, has taken me back to a simpler time, and has introduced me to some of my closest friends”.
Living in Mountain View, AR. since 2013, he remains involved in its rich music heritage. When not performing, or instructing workshops, you may find him at the Dulcimer Shoppe helping to create the McSpadden Mountain Dulcimer.
The Roe Family Singers
Bonfire Music Group recording artists the Roe Family Singers are a Good-Time, Old-Time Hillbilly band from the tiny community of Kirkwood Hollow, MN. Led by wife & husband Kim and Quillan Roe, the band marries old-time sounds from barn-dances, fiddle pulls, and county fairs with the rock & roll passion of youth. For 20 years Kim & Quillan Roe have made music together, starting at a tribute to the then recently deceased Johnny & June Carter Cash.
Featuring banjo, Autoharp, guitar, and Appalachian clogging, the band and family of fans have been regularly filling Minneapolis’ 331 Club every Monday night since 2005. They’ve shared the stage with Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, Mike Seeger, Del McCoury, Jesse McReynolds, the Grascals, Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur, Junior Brown, Asleep at the Wheel, and John McEuen & John Carter Cash. In 2011 the band was awarded the prestigious McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians; they won the title of “World’s Best Jug Band” twice, in 2010 & 2012 at the annual Battle of the Jug Bands; in 2012, won the Minnesota Duet Contest at the MN State Fair; in 2016 won the title of Entertainers of the Year from BMAI; in 2017, Kim won the clogging competition at the Old-Time Music & Ozark Heritage Festival, held in West Plains, MO; in 2018, won both Entertainers of the Year and Album of the Year from BMAI; in 2019, won Best Band, Best Band Overall, and Entertainers of the Year from BMAI; and in 2020 their song, “Don’t Worry About the Rich Man,” was #10 overall on the Bluegrass Grassicana charts.
The Roe Family Singers mix original music and contemporary takes on old-time, traditional, and gospel tunes into one roiling & rollicking river of fresh yet familiar American music. Every performance raises a ruckus.
Shortleaf Band w/Lonnie Jones
The Shortleaf Band is a duet based in the Southern Missouri Ozark’s. Michael and Tenley Fraser have immersed themselves into the culture, and traditional music of the “Scots Irish” who became the first to settle the region.
Michael, an original member of the Shortleaf Band was instrumental in the founding of the “Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival.” He served as an apprentice to the late Bob Holt of Ava learning how to
perform Ozark Square Dance Music on the fiddle. He is also the author of the CD titled “Fiddles and Forests” that was produced by the Missouri Department of Conservation, as well as musical director on the CD “Voices of the Hills” also produced by MDC.
Tenley is a former musical stage performer who has moved into the folk music genre. She lived in Kansas City most of her life and has been performing for The Shortleaf Band since 2005. A singer/songwriter with a folksy alto voice; she plays keyboards, guitar, fiddle, and mandolin.
They will be joined by bassist Lonnie Jones and will be performing on a variety of stringed instruments including fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and others as they weave a musical tapestry showcasing traditional and contemporary music from the Ozarks.
Seth Shumate w/
Seth Shumate is an Arkansas native whose grandfather and great-grandmother played the harmonica or “french harp” in the Ozarks. Shumate said he acquired the habit in the seventh grade. Since then, he has played and studied the history of old-time harmonica and specializes in the fiddle-tune, country blues, and jug band styles of the harmonica masters of the 1920s-30s. He has played at this very festival as a member of the string bands Shout Lulu and The Ozark Highballers.
His performance will include harmonica masterpieces from nearly a century ago followed by a presentation on the old-time harmonica techniques needed to transform a skinny melody into a wall of sound.
The United Quartet
The United Quartet, based in West Plains, MO consists of four friends that have been singing together most of their adult life. The group performs a variety of styles, but you are sure to hear some old-time hymns, southern gospel, or bluegrass favorites when you join them in service or concert. They are gifted musicians on the piano or keyboard and various strings, but perform many of their songs acapella, using, in their words, “nothing more than the instrument God gave us”… their voices. When you hear them, you quickly recognize that their mission is the message, and music is just the tool.
For years, they have been singing in churches all over the Ozarks, sharing not only their music, but their touching testimonies and stories of God’s goodness, mercy, and grace. The lead singer, Jason Roberts, is also pastor of the Faith Chapel Free Will Baptist Church, where all four members of the quartet attend and frequently sing. Tim Tilson sings baritone for the group and has played the piano since just a child. He has dedicated his life to using his God-given gift in various music ministries for many years. Keith Turner sings tenor and plays the guitar, which he has done for decades with bluegrass groups around the region. His love for bluegrass, and music in general, started with his father, Shirley, who lived and breathed it for as long as Keith can remember. Jake Marcum sings bass and you will occasionally find him behind a guitar or piano as well. With a powerful voice and powerful testimony, many have been touched by his story of overcoming a rare brain disease that nearly took his life as a teenager. The United Quartet continues to sing and welcomes anyone and everyone to join them for some familiar tunes and timeless truths. Come and be blessed with the United Quartet.
John P. Williams and Thomas Coriell
One of the foremost Missouri old-time fiddlers playing today, John P. Williams has played the fiddle over 30 years. He first caught the “fiddle bug” at age seven inspired by the “fiddling I heard growing up at the local fiddle contests my family would take me to.” He grew up and still lives in northeast Missouri on his family’s farm located in rural Monroe County. Central and northeast Missouri is home to the distinctive regional old time fiddle style known as Little Dixie; generally characterized by long bow strokes, an emphasis on clear notes and melodies, frequent double stops, and accenting all of which produce a driving quality to the tunes.
From ages 9-17, John attended Bethel Fiddle Camp held annually in Bethel, MO and learned from “some of the finest Missouri fiddlers to ever draw a bow;” Pete McMahan, Taylor McBaine, Johnny Bruce, Vesta Johnson, Dwight Lamb, Charlie Walden, and Bob Holt to name only a few. In 1998, then sixteen, he had “a once in lifetime opportunity” to apprentice with the legendary Little Dixie and contest fiddler Pete McMahan in Missouri’s Traditional Apprenticeship Program. While still a teenager, John started to seriously compete and win fiddle contests in Missouri and beyond. In 2001, at age 20, he won the National Invitational Fiddle Championship held in Yankton, South Dakota.
John teaches regularly as a master fiddler at the same Bethel Fiddle Camp he once attended. He has been selected four times as a master artist in Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, one of the youngest masters chosen in the programs over 30-year-old history. As John simply and directly puts it, “I want to play and pass on the traditional tunes that have been played in our state for generations.”
Thomas Coriell
Like his grandfather and father, Thomas Coriell has developed an intense passion for listening to, and playing old-time country music. Growing up around musicians while accompanying his father to countless gigs, Thomas caught the music bug early in life. Modeling his playing after his father, (both Thomas and his father have an irregular style) playing left-handed, upside down and backwards on right-handed instruments, Thomas learned all he could from dad.
In his thirties, Thomas began focusing on playing the fiddle, and in particular, old-time Missouri fiddle style. Thomas was Charlie Walden’s apprentice in the Missouri Folk Arts Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, 2021-2022. Active in jam sessions, contests, teaching, and string bands, Thomas, a fiddle scholar, is interested in the history and personalities in fiddling and writes commentaries on his experiences. Thomas’s fiddle repertoire focuses on old-time tunes particularly from Cyril Stinnett, Jake Hockemeyer, Dwight Lamb, Cecil Goforth, Kathy Summers, and Walden (all left-handed fiddlers, too). Thomas was a guest instructor at the 2021 & 2022 Bethel Youth Fiddle Camp, in Bethel, Missouri. Thomas has competed in various Missouri fiddle contests including the Missouri State Fair fiddle contest several times. In 2021, Coriell competed in the annual Walnut Valley national championships in Winfield, Kansas, and played Stinnett’s version of “Brilliancy,” “Shamus O’Brien,” and “Waiting For The Robert E. Lee.”
Women In need of God Sing (W.I.N.G.S.)
W.I.N.G.S. is an acronym for Women In Need of God Sing. It is an a cappella singing group comprised of nine African American women from various Churches of Christ in the Oklahoma City and metropolitan area. The group celebrates its 26th year of performing at various venues across the United States. Their style of music can be best described as compelling, authentic Christian singing with a hint of R&B. Their harmonies clearly reflect years of companionship and sincerity to bless The Trinity and audiences through the ministry of song. The members are Deborah BInkley-Jackson, Trena Byas, Charlotte Carey, LaVera Holland-Pretlow, Karen Orton, Alesha Lilly, Wendell March, Cheree McClain, and Janice Stallworth.
Expanded biographical information on these performers is available on the website at www.oldtimemusic.org
The Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival is the signature event for West Plains. The festival seeks to celebrate, preserve, pass on and nurture an appreciation of the old-time music and folk life traditions distinctive to the Ozark Highlands.
2023 Festival partners include the West Plains Council on the Arts, the City of West Plains, the Ozark Heritage Welcome Center, West Plains Civic Center, and Missouri State University-West Plains. Partial funding for this event is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Additional support has been provided by Missouri Humanities and Missouri Department of Tourism.
For more information on the festival e-mail info@westplainsarts.org, visit the website at https://www.oldtimemusic.org, or “like” the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Old.Time.Music.Festival
