Arkansas is a musical state, and public radio is a very good example of that, hosting a range of Arkansas artists through live sessions, programs and performances right here on Ozarks at Large. The Natural State knows how to dance, sing and play for any occasion, and the Folklife Festival in North Little Rock last month aimed to gather musicians of all kinds to display our state's talents. We've been sharing stories from the festival over this past week, and we hope you'll stick around for this last one. Here's our reporter, Jack Travis, on Arkansas music and how we remember it.
“Some of Arkansas's greatest music grew from timber camps, railroad communities and front porches. The Tie Hackers celebrate those working traditions and remind us that folklore lives wherever people gather. Please welcome to the stage, the Tie Hackers.”
The Arkansas Folklife Festival is full of sound. A smith hammering steel, children in the gardens, your ears are full. However, music rises above all, from the main “People's Stage” to the intimate “Front Porch.” Players like Bobby Rush and Lucinda Williams plucked and sang throughout the weekend.
On day one, Northwest Arkansas string band The Tie Hackers vocalized stories of the Ozark woods.
"Tornado, timber, never know which way she's gonna go. Try to lay her down just right, but you just might get throwed."
It's always high winds near the stage. Dancers walk the grounds.
"These are typical dances from Mexico, mainly from Mexico. And this outfit is from Veracruz, the state of Veracruz. We are from Dardanelle, and we have a folklore, it's called a folkloric dance, and it's typical from Mexico, from some several states. So this is one of the outfits that we perform today."
And even deeper into the fest, a small booth offers free CDs, technology that fits the vintage vibe of the event. Christian Leus, the managing editor of the Oxford American, stands behind the table.
"We're a nonprofit literary magazine. Our offices are up in Conway, so we're local to Arkansas. We put out four issues a year. We publish great Southern writing, so we publish authors from all around the South. We focus a lot on music and culture and food. We think that this is a great opportunity for folks in Arkansas to get together and learn about our culture, the culture of the South more broadly. That's definitely our bag. So we were delighted to be included, and to get to hang out with folks who care about music and the folk culture of the South as much as we do."
She says their next issue is their flagship all about New Orleans, a city as steeped in sound as the Natural State.
"Yeah, so it's coming out late November. We're sort of in the process of getting it together. You'll find a lot of great writing from New Orleans writers, and you'll find a lot of new music and old music from New Orleans artists. We try to get a good breadth of genres and of time periods to really represent the city. I think with New Orleans, because there's so much history there, we're obviously interested in digging into that and getting a real depth of coverage for that. But we're also really interested in what's happening in New Orleans right now. What's off the beaten path? What's up and coming that people might want to know about?"
And of course, the CDs are free for festival attendees.
"So those are sort of part of our history. We used to send these out with a CD in there. Because we're a nonprofit, there's some rules, right, with music licensing on those, so we used to give them out as part of the magazine. Those are sort of orphans, separated from their magazines, and so we just give them out for free."
Down a bit from the Oxford American, people danced.
Ozarks at Large is Jack Travis, reporting on the music at the Arkansas Folklife Festival. The three-day event, covering all facets of Arkansas culture, took place last month in North Little Rock. This week, we brought you stories from the festival about brew makers, quilters, farmers and more.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
