The fourth annual NPR Tiny Desk Contest: Arkansas Showcase is Saturday at the Hall in Little Rock. This year, it will feature Little Rock-based artist Brae Leni, Jupiter’s Flytrap from Conway and Brick Fields and the Blues Therapy Group, based in Prairie Grove. Ahead of their performance, Brick Fields and Blues Therapy Group visited the Carver Center for Public Radio for a KUAF Live Session and to speak with Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani about the band’s origin. Lead singer Rachel Fields says she’s always known she was going to be a singer.
Fields: So I’ve done it my whole life in some form or fashion, whether it be musical theater or singing with the choir. I studied in New York City, where I studied musical theater, and then I went on tour in my early 20s with some bigger bands. And then in my mid-20s, started playing guitar and writing songs and doing my own thing. That’s been a long time ago.
Brick: My name is Larry Brick, and I play guitar. And Rachel and I have been married for about 18 years, and we’ve been playing music that long. For me, it’s just something I always did. When I got out of college, I didn’t want to go to work, so I just started playing music full time, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Fields: He did it for the ladies. That’s what it was, huh?
Brick: Yeah.
Turner: Vince Turner, and I’ve been with the group off and on for about 12 years. And I play guitar most of the time, but I played bass today. So I’ve been playing pretty much all my life. I remember beating pots and pans, trying to play drums when I was a kid, and played trombone in band, and started playing guitar probably when I was 12 or 13, and been playing in bands ever since.
Bonner: And I’m Kevin Bonner. I’ve been with Rachel’s from the beginning, for about 14 years, and I play the drums and sing. I got my first pair of drumsticks, I either was given them or stole them, when I was 4 years old, and I’ve been playing ever since. Matter of fact, Vince and I have been playing together for over 40 years.
Nourani: Sounds like collectively the feeling is, “We’ve been playing ever since.” Like, once you got into it, you just couldn’t stop.
Fields: Well, Larry and I met in Eureka Springs and played together for several years there before we moved to Fayetteville. And we kind of had this thing where, booking gigs is not easy, right? So we would find a place that we liked and go in and say, “Hey, we’ll play for cheeseburgers,” or whatever. And that’s what we did here.
When we moved to town, we went to a place called Bear’s Place, and we told Bear, “Hey, we’ll play on Wednesday nights for cheeseburgers and see what happens. And if it ends up being good, then you can start paying us.” And so that’s what we did every Wednesday night for a few months. And then one by one, these guys started showing up and joining us, and an audience started coming. And we did that for the lifetime of Bear’s Place, which was five years.
And he closed down, and then we moved over to Murano’s. And so it was about 14 years we’ve done it, every Wednesday night, Blues Therapy, until the last few years. Larry and I bought a restaurant because we’re insane, and we started running Magnolia House in Prairie Grove and playing music when we can.
Nourani: It sounds like blues has always been a focal point of sound for you and for, perhaps, the group, but where did those origins of sound come from?
Fields: So I did not grow up with that music around me. My mother was a Beatles and Barbra Streisand fan, and she wanted me to do theater. That was her dream for me.
Nourani: Oh, OK.
Fields: Which I tried, and it wasn’t my thing. I was adopted when I was 3 by my dad when Mom and Dad married. I never knew my biological family. Daddy loved country music. Mom hated it. But I got to listen to it when I was with him. He loved Glen Campbell and these things, so I got a little taste of that. It wasn’t until I went to karaoke night, I was living in Missouri, and someone asked me to sing “The Thrill Is Gone,” and I’d never heard it.
Nourani: Wow.
Fields: But I said OK, and the music came on, and I just followed the words, and it did something to me. I was like, “Wow, I love singing this music.” I eventually found out that my biological father was a musician, and he was a soul singer. And my uncle was Berger, who was famous in his own right out of Little Rock, was also like a country blues singer and songwriter. So it was really cool to discover that and hear their music.
And one night we were singing down at this place on the corner, Nomads. I gotta tell you this story. One night we were playing down there, and this guy comes up to me, and my family, my biological family, is from Pine Bluff. This was here in Fayetteville. He came up to me, and he said, “You’re Johnny Scoggins’ daughter.” And I said, “What? How do you know that?” He said, “Because you can’t kill a soul like that.” He said, “I grew up down the street from your daddy. And when I walked in here tonight, I knew exactly who you were.”
Nourani: Wow.
Fields: So those genetics are strong. And I would like to say that’s where that music came from.
Nourani: Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about the Arkansas Tiny Desk Showcase. Congratulations on being selected as one of the artists to perform in Little Rock. That’s super, super cool. Have you ever submitted to the Tiny Desk Contest before? Was this your first time doing it? Maybe give us a little bit about what that was like.
Fields: We have not.
Nourani: OK.
Fields: Lisa Ault actually told me about it and encouraged, here at KUAF.
Nourani: Yeah.
Fields: And I said OK. Larry and I have been having some health trouble this past year, which you can hear in my speaking voice. And I believe that being away from the music and putting all my focus in the restaurant has taken something that has damaged my health. So when she brought that to my attention, and I wasn’t playing so much anymore, I thought, “You know what? I’m going to do this and see if we can.” We did, because we were pretty rusty at the time, right?
Brick: Yeah. We hadn’t played in several months, I don’t think. And we were used to playing together several times a week.
Fields: Right. And I thought, you know, for our health. And as a matter of fact, that particular day, Larry, he was under the weather and could not participate. So he wasn’t with us. He is today.
Nourani: We’re happy to see you.
Fields: Yeah. So for me, it was a challenge, and it was a blessing, and it was a healing, a day of healing, a moment of healing. And this whole thing of actually being chosen to go to be supported or to represent Arkansas is just a real treasure. And it tells me that I’m still supposed to be doing this 100%, with these guys. I wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else. So I love these guys.
Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani speaking with Brick Fields and the Blues Therapy Group. That was part of KUAF’s Live Session series. They’re one of three winners of this year’s NPR Tiny Desk Contest: Arkansas Showcase. It’s taking place at the Hall in Little Rock Saturday night. You can find tickets and more information atlittlerockpublicradio.org. We’re going to hear a song from their KUAF Live Sessions performance in a moment.
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.
