Kyle Kellams: Twenty-one times a year, the Beer and Hymns Band brings people together once a month at the Tontitown Winery and once a month at Bike Rack Brewing in Bentonville. People gather to sing a couple dozen songs and raise money for area nonprofits. The final sing-along for 2025 is Sunday at the Rogers Metroplex. It’s the annual Beer and Carols.
Ken Weatherford, founder and executive director of Beer and Hymns, says there are Beers and Hymns gatherings all over the world, but the northwest Arkansas version is the first to turn the assemblies into fundraising opportunities. He says each session is about community.
Ken Weatherford: The hymns thing does throw people sometimes, and I get that. But that’s why we do songs on themes, right? So every other song that you’re coming to, yeah, it’s an old school maybe Christian hymn, but the other song is some theme. So, you know, love songs in February or
Kellams: In the summer. It’s usually July. There’s one that’s celebrating America.
Weatherford: Yeah, like a Stars and Stripes theme. June, we do pride. You know, we do the Beatles every May. You know, that’s my father’s true religion...
Kellams: Right. Let me ask about the rehearsal that it takes to do this, because you guys are pretty tight.
Weatherford: You’re going to be shocked. It’s one a month.
Kellams: Really?
Weatherford: Yeah. Beer and Carols is the only event where we do two, and yeah, literally, we get together for a single rehearsal every single month. I am so blessed to get to work with, I believe, some of the best musicians in northwest Arkansas, with Matt Nelson in particular as our pianist. He charts everything for us. ... We work with a lot of different folks, Garrett Jones on bass for a lot of our months. And then those who back him up are equally talented. Matt Beech is now our drummer. ... Just some of the guys that you’re going to see around all the jazz clubs and gigging all over the place. I don't know how we get to do this but we’re so thankful they play with us.
Kellams: Yeah, there’s something that happens when you’re singing with other people. Whether it’s this and most songs you’ll know or at least have heard where you want to give to the nonprofit. It raises the charitable adrenaline.
Weatherford: One of the coolest things, one of the neatest studies I ever read, and I couldn’t tell you where it was. It was a European country where they did this, but they put heart monitors on an entire choir and literally found that when singing together, their heart beats were in sync. There is something truly physical about music and performing and singing and doing that together, that raises us up and helps us. I don’t know, at the very least, see our humanity together, I think so.
Kellams: There’s a song that you end most shows with, and that song?
Weatherford: It’s called “All of the Hard Days Are Gone” by Kevin Mackrel. He’s still alive and an Irish singer-songwriter, lives in upstate New York most of the year. And we were introduced to it by Beer and Hymns out of Orange County, California. And Kevin has kindly gifted us the song and said, use it. It is yours. Just, you know, give me credit. But the chorus is all of the hard days are gone, it’s all beer and whiskey and songs from now on. Laugh at the darkness, dance until dawn. All of the hard days are gone. And certainly that’s not true. And we can look all around us today and see that that’s not true. But that’s, that’s the spirit of Beer and Hymns, I think, is that essence is laughing at the darkness. Together we can come together as a community and despite our differences and make a difference together.
Kellams: You know, the nonprofits that you raise money for obviously know that all the dark days aren’t gone, because they’re working in that world, right?
Weatherford: Exactly. We wouldn’t have need for them if we didn’t have the darkness, right.
Kellams: What I like is that you can get people coming because they love the sing-along, they love the band, and they might be introduced to a nonprofit they didn’t really know or know of at all. So it’s exposure as well.
Weatherford: Exactly. It’s just, yeah, it’s as much of a platform for the nonprofits to be exposed to more in our community as it is for fundraising. You know, for some of the groups, we’re raising an average of about ten thousand dollars a month these days for some of these groups. That’s an incredible, incredible gift. For others, it might be a bit more of a drop in the bucket. But no matter what, for all of them being able to be in front of an audience, you know, throughout the year, it’s an average of three hundred and fifty to four hundred people that attend the two events combined each month. And at Beer and Carols, you know, you’re an audience of seven hundred.
Kellams: More than half a decade you’ve been doing this raising money. Any idea how much money you’ve raised so far?
Weatherford: We hit a big milestone back in September, having raised more than half a million dollars for local nonprofits. And that number has continued to go up. We’re at five hundred and thirty-three thousand, I think, as of this morning when I was checking the numbers.
Kellams: Wow. And you’ve got to have support to do this, right.
Weatherford: Oh, big time. We couldn’t do it without all of our amazing sponsors. I mean, throughout the year, we’ve got great ones. In particular, I want to call out Greenwood Gearhart, and they came behind us about two, two and a half years ago and have been a great title sponsor for us during that time. For Beer and Carols as well, a huge shout out to the Mahoney Family Foundation, our title sponsor for that night. And special thanks to First National Bank of Northwest Arkansas. They’ve supported Beer and Hymns for many, many years. As well as Marion Turner Lewis and her family. Every year I’m just so surprised. We don’t do grants. We’re not seeking that. This is one hundred percent community-backed, community-supported individuals who give every single month. I’m so grateful.”
Kellams: All right. Don’t tell us if you don’t want to, but do you have a final song for Christmas and Carols?
Weatherford: It changes each. Well, it’s always still “All of the Hard Days Are Gone”. You’ll hear all your favorites. And trust me, we tee it up. You know, it’s been other songs in the past. You know, last year, I think we were “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” right before and then go into it. But this year we’ve got a different one. And I think it’ll be a special moment, though, for sure.
Kellams: Ken Weatherford is founder and executive director of Beer and Hymns. The final 2025 edition is called Beer and Carols. It’s Sunday night at the Rogers Metroplex. There will be 27 musicians on stage. It’s a fully catered event. 100% of proceeds raised will go to the Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter. For more information, beerandcarols.com.
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