The Momentary in Bentonville will celebrate Arkansas women in music later this month with a program inspired by Stephen Koch's book, "From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song." For nearly three decades, Koch has taken listeners into the music of the state through his radio segment Arkansongs. Koch said the book covers a wide span of music, historically and stylistically, and the two women in the book's title did plenty to influence music heard around the world.
Koch: Almeda Riddle is a legend among folklorists, and she's preserved hundreds of songs, some of them dating back to the Middle Ages, making that connection between immigrants who came over and settled in the hills and sang these songs from the 1600s or 1700s. That's a long time. Zilphia Horton was another important figure in the Freedom Songs movement. She took old gospel songs, such as "We Shall Overcome," and made them anthems for organizing and marching and protesting.
Kellams: Both of those women did a lot to preserve and further popularize some songs, and I think a lot of Arkansans, a lot of Americans, don't realize that or have never heard their names.
Together, those two, and you throw in Lee Hays and some of the other Ozark songsters, and we're talking about thousands and thousands of songs that help make up a large percentage of what we call Americana. We just chose those two because I thought people would read this and automatically think from A to Z, since we were trying to cover so many different women and so many different genres. Some of the first people didn't quite get it, so we had the art director, Amy, go back and put the A and the Z in a different color to make it clearer, because it's supposed to be semi-comprehensive in terms of all these incredible women who are featured, with paintings by Katherine Strause and an afterword from Erin Enderlin and a foreword from Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch from ASU.
Kellams: You mentioned it's semi-comprehensive because no book like this will ever be comprehensive, but it's really darn close.
Koch: It shows how women who have made Arkansas home, or been born here, are involved in music. It spans almost every genre. I love what Dr. Jones-Branch said — she said this is the book we didn't know we needed. That really touched me. Once you sit down with a piece of paper and start making a list, that's when you think, man, this should be a book.
Kellams: There are artists in here who were very influential and maybe weren't household names for a while but seem to be getting rediscovered. I'll start with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock and roll, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe I have a myopic view because I'm in Arkansas and I worship at the altar of Rosetta Tharpe, but she's become much more of a well-known figure over the last 15 or 20 years.
Koch: I remember when we started doing Arkansongs, around the time she got on a U.S. postage stamp, no one had ever heard of her, and I remember having a hard time getting her music to play on the program. I think it's directly from her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — kudos to them, but it was a long time coming. Louis Jordan was in the second class, back in the '80s I guess. She didn't even have a headstone for decades. Now the kids are hip to Rosetta Tharpe, and that can't be a bad thing.
Kellams: And then there's Florence Price, who really, in the classical music world, has had her legacy and her music explode over the last decade or so, including being part of a series of CDs from the Fort Smith Symphony.
Koch: She's someone the world is finally catching up to. She was such an important composer but didn't get a lot of music published during her lifetime. Then, with the discovery in the attic in, I think, 2008 or so — which is so cinematic already, finding these old papers in the attic — thank goodness those people found out what this was and got it to the right people. The classical world has been astounded at the complexity of Florence Price's unpublished work. It wasn't just some castoffs in that trunk, so she's being reevaluated. I teach a course at UofA Little Rock on Arkansas music, and one of the handful of Florence Price scholars is at UALR. She came in and spoke particularly on Florence Price and William Grant Still.
Kellams: There were also women in the book you weren't that familiar with, one of them being Carolina Cotton, who hailed from northeastern Arkansas. What can you tell me about her?
Koch: I've been doing this for decades with Arkansongs, and I still keep finding people. This was a few years ago, because of a film clip I'd seen her in — a cowboy Western type movie, she's in a lot of them. Her big song, which I thought you were going to quote there, Kyle — she was born three miles south of Cash, Arkansas, which is an actual place in Craighead County.
Koch: I got to know, or have gotten to know, Carolina's daughter, and she keeps the legacy of Carolina alive and is a wonderful person. But yeah, just one of the many forgotten greats.
Kellams: I like that "forgotten" is in there, because there are some women in this book who at one point were household names, and then, as can happen in the music or entertainment industry, you start to become a little less known. I'm thinking of Patsy Montana, who at one point was a huge major star.
Koch: People loved her, and she was in a Gene Autry movie — he's one of the kings of the Western cowboys, and a great fiddle player as well. But it's a great piece of Arkansas treasure, because her first big gig was taking a Hope watermelon to the Chicago World's Fair as a kid, and that's where she got the bug. Bringing over a whole watermelon to Chicago — it's pretty Arkansas.
Kellams: Is there anything you think is common among these dozens of women profiled?
Koch: Talking with Katherine Strause, the artist on this — we've had a few programs like we're doing at the Momentary where we talk about this kind of thing — she's said that tenacity and perseverance have been required, sometimes a heavier load if you're female or dealing with other things society doesn't always agree with. They had to work a lot harder. They had to be better to succeed in a male-dominated industry.
Kellams: You mentioned the program at the Momentary later this month. What can we expect?
Koch: I'm really excited about this. It's called Arkansas Tunes. Erin Enderlin, the Grand Ole Opry star — she's had songs like Alan Jackson's "Monday Morning Church," which was her first big one, and she's had songs with Patty Loveless and, most recently and impressive to me, Willie Nelson. She was just on the Opry this week — her 33rd time. But she plays these heartbreaking songs, so bring a Kleenex, because some of her stuff can just tear you up.
I'll be talking a little about the book, from Almeda to Zilphia, and playing a short set of mostly Arkansas women musicians, like Sippie Wallace's song "Women Be Wise." Katherine Strause, the artist from the book, is going to talk about her process with the show, with some slides of the beautiful portraits she has of each woman in the book. If you've ever met Kathy, she's just as colorful as her paintings. It's hard for me, as an alleged co-speaker, to even compete with her. She's a mile a minute. She has amazing ideas. She was an art teacher for the longest time, and people just love her.
Kellams: People who listen to Arkansongs will be familiar and understand why Maya Angelou is in this book, but some people might see this and wonder how Maya Angelou fits into a book about Arkansas women in music. It's a wonderful story, isn't it?
Koch: I love her story. She didn't even have to do this, but she was a calypso singer in 1957, when calypso was at its commercial peak. She did a calypso album that, if you read her autobiographies, she really considered herself more of a dancer and was sort of dismissive of her calypso record. But she sort of, to oblige the masses, started singing it, and it sounded like almost by accident. She ended up having a whole calypso routine, and a lot of it, I feel obliged to say, drew from Louis Jordan records such as "Run Joe," which everyone had adapted, because Louis Jordan, from Brinkley, Arkansas, introduced calypso to America. So it was during its height in the '50s when Maya Angelou added that other feather to her cap.
Kellams: You're synonymous with Arkansas music and knowledge of Arkansas music, but I'm guessing there are still some stories out there, or figures you haven't completely found out about.
Koch: First, I need to say that KUAF is such a valued partner in Arkansongs, and I adore the station, and I love you, Kyle. But yes, I'm still finding people all the time. When I first started doing Arkansongs, somebody — I wish I could remember who, or maybe it doesn't matter — said that once you do Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell, you're done. I've had a chip on my shoulder ever since, because I grew up with Louis Jordan. And I need to say, about Maya Angelou, that Bob Dorough, from Polk County, who did all the Schoolhouse Rock stuff, played with Maya on piano as part of the act. He's not on the calypso record, but they performed together when they were on tour doing a scene from "Show Boat" on what I think was called a U.N.-type tour. What a connection between two folks who hadn't quite found their voices yet in the '50s.
Kellams: Well, I cannot wait to see you and your colleagues at the Momentary on July 31. Keep doing what you're doing.
Koch: Thanks so much, Kyle. I'd be remiss not to mention American Tunes, this July 30, with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rhiannon Giddens and Hurray for the Riff Raff, which we're all kind of part of, and that's going to be pretty amazing itself. Thank you so much again. I adore KUAF, and I'm so proud to be on the roster there.
Stephen Koch is host of Arkansongs, heard regularly on Ozarks at Large. He's also the author of "From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song." He'll be at the Momentary along with artist Katherine Strause and songwriter and Grand Ole Opry star Erin Enderlin, July 31 beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20, $16 for members, and copies of the book will be available for purchase that night.
Stephen Koch and Kyle Kellams spoke last week.
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.
