Connie Smith, Hillman & Pedersen, James Bryan, and Moon Mullins to Headline
15th Annual Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival

    One of the most iconic female voices in country music, two pioneers of West Coast neo-traditional music, and esteemed masters of Southern traditional fiddling and thumbpicked guitar will headline the evening segments of the fifteenth annual Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival.  The event will take place Friday, June 19, and Saturday, June 20, in West Plains.

     Saturday evening’s featured performers will be longtime Grand Ole Opry star Connie Smith and James Bryan, widely considered one of the foremost fiddlers in old-time music.  Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, whose distinguished careers span four decades and multiple genres of American roots music, will perform on Friday, preceded by accomplished guitarist Comer “Moon” Mullins.

Connie Smith’s rapid rise to fame began in 1963.  Having previously performed only on a semi-professional basis in southern Ohio and West Virginia, she won a talent competition in Columbus, Ohio, earning an opportunity to perform with the Grand Ole Opry’s traveling show later that evening.  Impressed, Opry star Bill Anderson arranged an appearance on Ernest Tubb’s “Midnight Jamboree,” which, in turn, led to a contract with RCA Records.

     Smith’s recording of Anderson’s composition, “Once a Day,” reached number one in the country music charts in 1964.  A series of major country hits followed during the ‘60s and ‘70s, including “Then and Only Then,” “If I Talk to Him,” “Nobody but a Fool (Would Love You),” “Ain’t Had No Lovin’,” “The Hurtin’s All Over,” “Cincinnati, Ohio,” “Burning a Hole in My Mind,” “I Never Once Stopped Loving You,” “Just One Time,” and “Just for What I Am.”

A prolific recording artist, Smith has issued more than 50 albums over the course of her career.  She decided to slow the pace of her musical activity in 1979 to devote more time to her children, but has made a number of recordings in recent years, including Love Never Fails (2003), an album of sacred music recorded in collaboration with Barbara Fairchild and Sharon White of The Whites, who performed at last year’s Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival.

Smith has been a fixture on the Grand Ole Opry since achieving national prominence in the ‘60s.  She continues to perform on the Opry, often with her husband and fellow musician Marty Stuart.  In recent months, she has appeared frequently on The Marty Stuart Show, which premiered in November 2008 and airs on RFD-TV on Saturdays at 7 PM.  She is now at work on a substantial recording project produced by Stuart and recently launched a website, http://www.conniesmithmusic.com/.

Throughout her career, Smith has garnered critical acclaim for her robust, yet fluid, alto voice and her artful interpretations of a variety of repertoire.  Though very much a part of the Nashville country music establishment, she has found favor with younger aficionados of alternative country music, who regard her as a representative of artistic values that the commercial country music industry once accommodated but from which it has largely departed.

   Fiddler James Bryan is perhaps best-known for his longtime collaboration with renowned folk musicians Norman and Nancy Blake.  He recorded and performed regularly with the Blakes as a member of the Rising Fawn String Ensemble from 1978 to 1985. 

     In the fall of 2007, he recorded an album entitled Rising Fawn Gathering along with his daughter, Rachel, Norman and Nancy Blake, and renowned Celtic band Boys of the Lough, who recently appeared in West Plains as part of MSU-WP’s concert series.

     A native of the Sand Mountain region of northeast Alabama, where he still lives, Bryan has been fiddling since childhood, when he learned from his father and other local old-time musicians.  He won his first fiddle contest at age 12 and was awarded the title of Tennessee Valley Fiddle King four years later. 

Bryan became a protégée of master bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker, for whom he substituted in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys for a brief period in the ‘70s.  He also performed regularly with Bill Monroe’s son, James Monroe.

     An avid collector of fiddle tunes from various folk traditions, Bryan has released two solo albums of traditional fiddling on Rounder Records, Lookout Blues (1983) and The First of May (1985).  He recorded another instrumental album, Two Pictures, with guitarist Carl Jones in 1995.  In recent years, Bryan has participated in numerous festivals, clinics, and workshops, and he performs in regional bluegrass band Paul Pitts and the Porch Pickers.

The careers of Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen have intersected with some of the most significant developments in the history of American roots music from the ‘60s to the present.  Hillman and Pedersen remain two of the most notable figures in West Coast neo-traditional, bluegrass, country, and country-rock music.

     Chris Hillman brought his bluegrass background with him when he became a founding member of the influential California folk-rock band The Byrds, which became famous for such hits as “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and “Eight Miles High,” among many others.

     As a songwriter, Hillman contributed country-influenced compositions to The Byrds’ repertoire, and he was largely responsible for the band’s turn toward country-rock with its landmark 1968 album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

With fellow Byrd Gram Parsons, Hillman founded The Flying Burrito Brothers, a band whose lasting influence has far exceeded its initial commercial success.  Remembered for such original compositions as “Christine’s Tune (Devil in Disguise),” “Sin City,” and “Wheels,” the Flying Burrito Brothers are widely regarded as the quintessential West Coast country-rock band and as role models to many of today’s neo-traditional and alternative country musicians.

     Hillman made several solo albums and performed with various combinations of musicians in the ‘70s before organizing the Desert Rose Band in 1985 with Herb Pedersen. 

     Influenced by the styles of country music characteristic of Bakersfield and Nashville in the early ‘60s, as well as the West Coast country-rock to which both Hillman and Pedersen had been formative contributors, the Desert Rose Band had several major country hits in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including “He’s Back, and I’m Blue,” “I Still Believe in You,” “One Step Forward,” “Summer Wind,” and “She Don’t Love Nobody.”

     Herb Pedersen became involved in bluegrass music by way of the folk revival of the ‘60s in California and performed as a banjoist and singer with many of the leading figures in bluegrass on the West Coast.  He briefly substituted for bluegrass banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs in Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys while Scruggs was recovering from surgery in 1967.

     The following year, he replaced Doug Dillard in the Dillards, a bluegrass band founded in Salem, Missouri, but then based in California.  He performed on the Dillards’ innovative, stylistically hybrid albums Wheatstraw Suite (1968) and Copperfields (1970), having written the title song of the latter.

     During the ‘70s, Pedersen worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by Linda Rondstadt, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, and Emmylou Harris.  His voice can be heard in harmony with Harris’s on her first major hit, “If I Could Only Win Your Love” (1975). 

     He performed as a member of Jackson Browne’s and John Denver’s bands and bluegrass supergroup Here Today, released several solo albums, and composed soundtracks for several television series before joining longtime friend Chris Hillman in the Desert Rose Band.

     The Desert Rose Band ceased performing together regularly in 1994 but reunited for a national tour in 2008.  Since the conclusion of the band’s full-time activity, Pedersen and Hillman have performed and recorded individually, together, and with various other musicians. 

     Chris Hillman’s and Herb Pedersen’s collaborative recording projects include Bakersfield Bound (Sugar Hill, 1996), Way Out West (Back Porch, 2001), and three albums on Rounder Records with bluegrass masters Tony and Larry Rice, Out of the Woodwork (1997), Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen (1999), and Running Wild (2001).

   Comer “Moon” Mullins is one of the most decorated practitioners of the guitar technique known as thumbpicking.  Among his many accolades is the title of “Champion of Champions” of the International Thumbpicking Contest at Central City, Kentucky, awarded in 1996.

     Thumbpicking entails using the right thumb to play bass lines and especially ostinatos (recurring patterns of notes) on the lower strings while articulating melody lines and chordal passages on the upper strings with the fingers of the right hand.  This results in a complex, polyphonic texture.

     Sometimes called “Travis picking” in recognition of Merle Travis, one of its most famous exponents, thumbpicking is often associated with Travis’s native region of western Kentucky.  Thumbpicking guitar traditions can be found throughout the Midwest and South, however, including here in the Ozarks, where there are many guitarists who are proficient in the style.

     Originally from southeastern Kentucky, Moon Mullins sold garden seeds in order to buy his first guitar at age 11.  When he was 16, a friend taught him the thumbpicking technique, and he soon excelled at it.  After a 25-year career as a machinist, he became a full-time musician in 1985, moving to Mountain View, Arkansas, where he performed regularly at the Ozark Folk Center.

    

Mullins won the 1985 National Merle Travis Tribute Thumbpicking Contest in Mountain View, Arkansas, and the 1991 International Thumbpicking Contest in Central City, Kentucky.  He received his “Champion of Champions” title by placing first among seven past first-place winners of that contest in 1996.  He filmed an instructional video on thurmbpicking for Mel Bay Publications in 1999.

     Now a resident of Florida, Mullins performs frequently throughout the South and Midwest.  He regularly appears by invitation at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention in Nashville.

     Though it is perhaps most closely associated with country music, the thumbpicking technique is historically linked to and often applied within multiple genres of American roots music.  Mullins’s repertoire, like those of many of his fellow practitioners, encompasses arrangements of a wide variety of country, gospel, and popular selections of the 19th and 20th centuries, all adapted to the thumbpicking style.

Shout Lulu String Band is Paul and Skye McGowen, along with Pete Howard. The McGowens met Pete while traveling and busking in Arkansas in 2006. In 2007, Paul and Skye moved to Arkansas and teamed up with Pete.

Paul McGowen has been street performing at various markets in Seattle and Portland since 2002. He was also a member of The Tallboys from 2002-2006. As a Tallboy, Paul played The NW String Summit, Seattle’s Folklife Festival, KBOO’s Pickathon, Portland’s Old Time Gathering 2005 and 2007, and The San Francisco Old Time and Bluegrass Festival.

Skye McGowen has been performing with Paul since 2005. Her Flatfoot Clogging abilities have made her a popular guest with many groups. She recently danced on a re-issue of Clarke Buehling’s classic album "Out of his Gourd" and on the newest CD from The Old 78s. 

Pete Howard is a popular Midwest dance fiddler. In the early 90’s, Pete played fiddle, banjo, and bowed bass with The Skirtlifters. They played high class venues, such as the Chicago Old Town School of Folk.Petejudged and performed for the 2006 Arkansas State Fiddle Championship at the Ozark Folk Center. In July 2008, he taught and performed at an Ozark Style Fiddle camp, again at the Ozark Folk Center.

Whether playing on the street, at a festival, or in a venue, Shout Lulu throws a party and invites everyone to join them. Shout Lulu parties like it’s 1899. A time when even the chairs rocked! The Old Time music they love and play puts the audience first, providing danceable rhythms, high energy music, and "quite lovely harmonies." Performances feature flatfoot dancing, rhythm bones, jaw harp, fretless banjo, fiddle, ukulele, harmonica, and a catawampus 3 stringed cello.

  • Nominated for “Best Americana” (North Arkansas Music Awards) 2008
  • Nominated for “Album of the Year” by the Rural Roots Music Commission 2008
  • 2nd Place Bob Holt National Jig Dance Competition (Skye McGowen)
  • Recently featured in The Old Time Herald, on 2 episodes of Ozarks at Large (NPR 91.3), and a one hour performance on KXUA 88.3
  • Tours and performances include festivals and venues in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Washington.
  • www.Shoutlulu.com
    Baled Green and Wired Tight of Pineville, MO includes Brandy Wooden on bass and vocals, Brandon Wooden on banjo and vocals, Lee Ann Sours on fiddle and Jack Sours on guitar.  The group’s name refers to making hay.  And baling green and wiring tight is something you don’t do without risk of setting the barn on fire.  They play at such venues as the farmers market, contra dances, county fairs, ice cream socials, art shows, the Chicken House Opry and other music shows.
    The group plays old-time traditional music which often  came to the Ozarks through Appalachia or sometimes down the river from Canada.  Their musical influences are from family (Lee Ann’s dad sang harmonies with his family as the picked cotton in Oklahoma, Brandon’s mother and uncle sang in a folk group) and friends (Lee Ann learned some fiddling from Cactus Jack McMurray who was a fiddler, gunsmith and bootlegger.)

Each member of the group is mysteriously drawn to play old-time music.  In fact, each may be a missing link to old-time ways as evidenced by the following:  Jack has a fascination with chipping at stone and spends countless hours doing so (a stone sculptor).  Lee Ann is a spinner/weaver. Brandy has an interest in fire and its uses in cooking.  And Brandon has continuing involvement with the wheel (truck driver).
Samples of their music and schedule can be seen by visiting their website at www.myspace.com/baledgreenandwiredtight

   

Travis Inman
Ask Travis Inman how he got interested in playing the fiddle and he’ll warn you “it’s a tale that’ll take all night to tell. “   Inman, 11-time Missouri state champion fiddler and three-time Midwest Champion says his roots as a fiddler run deep. 
“My great-aunt Kate Swearingen, a Cherokee Indian woman was the Oklahoma state champion back in the 1920’s.  My dad played the fiddle, and so did my uncles, and all kinds of relatives are musicians of one kind or another.”  One uncle, John “Doc” Swearingen, was Kates’ nephew, and was a particularly strong inspiration for the young Travis. “I remember him from when I was a kid.  He’d sit around the kitchen table, or out in the yard under a shade tree, and play all the old tunes.  We’d all be peeling apples or peaches and someone would ask him for a tune, and he’d play all those old songs you never hear anymore, songs like “Watermelon on the Vine” and “The Old Blue Mule.” 
Inman, from Cole Camp, said his teachers were many, particularly when the family would invite everyone over for a Friday night “jam session.”

“We had all these gatherings when I was a kid where everyone would come over on Friday night, and the women would bring pies and cakes and all kinds of snacks, and the musicians would start playing and play until two or three in the morning.  There was no alcohol or anything like that.  Everyone just swapped stories, swapped songs ad swapped recipes.”
As a small child, Inman wasn’t encouraged to learn the fiddle, but his father and uncles soon put him to work playing rhythm guitar for their own fiddle playing.  For a while he was content with that.  And then in 1974, he got the opportunity ot hear some real fiddle plaing at an old-time fiddlers’ contest at Warsaw.   Inspired by those “real fiddlers” he decided he had to get into the fiddle.  But that was easier said than done.  Although his father owned several fiddles and did repairs on them, he didn’t react kindly to anyone else touching them.  “If he caught you touching a fiddle of his, he’d thrash you.  So I waited until my mom was outside hanging laundry one day and I climbed up and looked in the cabinets and found an old fiddle that he’d taken apart.  It had no keys and no strings.  I rummaged around in dad’s spare parts and found the keys and put strings on. But I didn’t have any idea how to tune it.  I had to get dad’s fiddle out of its case to find out how to tune it.  And I used his bow and started sawing.  After a while I could make it bounce like you have to do, and then I went over to my uncle’s and he showed me some easy tunes.”

Three months later, Travis entered the fiddling contest in the junior division.  It wasn’t until then that he worked up the nerve to tell his dad what he had been up to.  “He just flat out didn’t believe me.   I had to get the fiddle out and play the tunes for him.”
He played the same tunes at the fiddle contest and won. “You only had to play three tunes in the competition.  It was a good thing, because that’s all I knew.”

Today Inman sports 11 state championships, three regional championships and over 140 trophies.  He has inspired and taught many a young fiddler, was a master artist in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program with the Missouri Folk Arts Program and continues to play music in and around the Cole Camp-Sedalia area as often as he can.
3 Penny Acre is a musical collaboration between four up-and-coming songwriters.  Each member is accomplished in their own right, bringing to the band vast experience and successes from prior musical endeavors.  3 Penny Acre is, however, greater than the sum of its parts.  Listeners are starting to notice the unique blend of songwriting and vocals that form the foundation of this band. 

3 Penny Acre won the 2008 Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, Kansas) NewSongs in two catagories.  Two songs, “Dig A Little Deeper” and “Concrete and Clay”, from the upcoming album were selected from over 680 entries.  The exposure that Walnut Valley Festival brought 3 Penny Acre was not the only successes of the band’s freshman year.  3  Penny Acre also played the famed Good Folk House (Fayetteville, Arkansas), Little Rock Riverfest, Mulberry Mountain Festival, and the 61st Ozark Folk Festival.
Bayard Blain
Montana grown, award winning singer/songwriter, and accomplished luthier (www.bayardguitars.com).
Bayard's unique melodies drive 3 Penny Acre's songs.  He's also a master of the hola hoop.

Bernice Hembree
Arkansas roots, farm raised, city trained.  Studied voice in NYC and thankfully made her way back to Arkansas.  Bernice adds a harmony to anything that breathes and belts out 3 Penny Acre tunes while dancing with the big beautiful bass.

Shannon Wurst
Sweetest country darling raised in Alma Arkansas.  Shannon's songwriting is a unique style of haunting appalachian melodies and upbeat old school country.  She can play guitar and hold quarters in her dimples at the same time.

Bryan Hembree
This Oklahoma boy has been making music for years.  Bryan is an award winning songwriter.  He is a wordsmith giving inspiration for 3 Penny Acre songs.  Bryan's steady rhythm is the backbone of the group.

Instrumentation
Bayard Blain - Guitar, Mandolin, Bouzouki, and Vocals
Bernice Hembree - Upright Bass and Vocals
Shannon Wurst - Guitar, Banjo, Vocals

Bryan Hembree - Guitar, Brush Bucket, Accordion, and Vocals

 

My name is Emily Dowden and I play and sing old-time/ traditional/bluegrass and gospel music. I was raised in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks, and toured with my two older sisters, Laura and Hannah Dowden, for many years, while living in Mtn. View, AR and Asheville, NC. We were known as, "The Dowden Sisters".

I toured with my family band all over the U.S. and parts of Canada, and a few years ago, I moved back home to my beloved Ozarks to pursue college and be near all of my family. I am presently a full-time college student at Missouri State University-Springfield, where I am working towards my Bachelor's degree. I graduated with my AA from MSU-West Plains in 07. My Major is Creative Writing-English, and I am a Theater Minor. Once I earn my BA I plan to get back involved with music pretty much full-time again probably, while pursuing other interests as well; but for now I enjoy performing part-time gigs here in the Springfield/Branson region, while going to school.

I also work part time at "Palen Music Center" here in Springfield, giving banjo lessons, so if anyone would like to learn to play clawhammer banjo, let me know! I'm always glad to take on new students : ) I currently play music with local artists here in Springfield--Mark Cassidy, Casey Wilson, and Gary Rea. Mark and Gary are also in another band called, "The Hillbenders." I love and appreciate all kinds of music, but acoustic/bluegrass/folk is especially near and dear to my heart, since that is the genre I have performed since I was a little girl.

Participatory events at the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival

     “One of the main goals of the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival is to foster participation in the rich cultural traditions that we have here in our region so that our folk culture remains strong and continues to grow and evolve,” said Matt Meacham, folklorist with the West Plains Council on the Arts.

     “For that reason,” he continued, “we try to include many opportunities for active participation, and we invite anyone and everyone to join in on them.  Folk culture, almost by definition, is the culture that’s important to people as they go about the ordinary business of their lives, so you certainly don’t have to be a formally trained professional to participate in folk traditions and make valuable contributions to them.”

     Jam sessions – impromptu music-making opportunities – typically happen throughout the festival at various places on the festival grounds, often including the Civic Center.  Musicians of all levels of ability are encouraged to participate.

     Workshops on banjo, dulcimer, and guitar playing, as well as mouth bow making, will take place on the brush arbor stage at various points during the festival.  The times and other details are available on the schedule printed in the festival program and posted on the www.oldtimemusic.org website.

     As usual, this year’s Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival will feature a “fiddlers’ frolic” on Friday, June 19, from 5 to approximately 6 PM in the Civic Center theater.  All traditional fiddlers are invited to take part, and accompanimental instrumentalists (banjoists, guitarists, etc.) are also welcome.  Participating fiddlers will take turns introducing and leading tunes.

     Meacham explained that although the fiddlers’ frolic emphasizes traditional fiddling, “traditional” is defined broadly to accommodate tunes representing many different musical styles and periods of time.

     “This year, everyone involved in the fiddlers’ frolic will have a special treat.  James Bryan, one of the best-respected Southern old-time fiddlers, who’ll be one of the featured performers on Saturday evening, is planning to participate in the fiddlers’ frolic,” Meacham said.  “There’s no need for anyone to be intimidated by the prospect of jamming with James Bryan.  He’s very easygoing and is looking forward to exchanging ideas and tunes with fiddlers here in West Plains.”

     Howard Marshall, a folklorist, music historian, and accomplished traditional fiddler from east-central Missouri, usually emcees the fiddlers’ frolic and provides commentary about the tunes and the contexts surrounding them, but he will be unable to participate this year.

     “Howard was invited to help judge this year’s National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest in Weiser, Idaho, which will be happening at the same time as our festival, and for some inexplicable reason, he accepted the invitation,” Meacham joked.

     Ed McKinney, Gordon McCann, and Matt Meacham will serve as emcees and commentators for this year’s event.

McKinney is a professor of history at Missouri State University-West Plains and a longtime south-central Missouri traditional musician.  McCann, a guitarist from Springfield, is one of the foremost experts on old-time fiddling traditions, especially in the Ozarks.  The co-author, with Drew Beisswenger, of Ozarks Fiddle Music (Mel Bay, 2008), he recently donated his collection of field recordings of traditional fiddling, totaling more than 3000 hours, to the special collections of Missouri State University in Springfield.

     Meacham said that he will have reference materials available so that he can try to do on-the-spot contextual research on any tune selected by the participants in the highly unlikely event that McKinney and McCann are unfamiliar with it.

     “We invite anyone who is interested not only in fiddle music itself but also in the social and historical contexts surrounding it to attend the fiddlers’ frolic.  It will be a good chance to hear some of our region’s most experienced traditional musicians, as well as the stories behind what they do,” said Meacham.

     This year’s festival will include another event that will parallel the fiddlers’ frolic: a thumbpicking guitarists’ roundtable.  The thumbpickers’ roundtable is scheduled for Saturday, June 20, from 5 to approximately 6 PM in the Civic Center theater.  It will feature Moon Mullins, one of the most accomplished thumbpicking guitarists in the world, who will have performed the previous evening on the main stage.

     Thumbpicking – sometimes called “Travis picking” in recognition of Merle Travis, one of the foremost masters of the art – is a guitar playing technique that involves using the right thumb to play bass lines and especially ostinatos (recurring patterns of notes) on the lower strings while articulating melody lines and chordal passages on the upper strings with the fingers of the right hand.  This often produces a complex, polyphonic (multi-layered) texture.

     Thumbpicked guitar playing probably originated largely from techniques used by African-American guitarists and “songsters.”  Today, thumbpicking is most closely associated with country and related genres, but the technique can be applied to many different musical styles, as demonstrated in the work of such famous guitarists as Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Reed.  Moon Mullins’s repertoire, for instance, encompasses arrangements of a variety of country, gospel, and popular selections of the 19th and 20th centuries.

     Thumbpicking is strongly associated with the region of western Kentucky in which Merle Travis was raised.  A black guitarist named Arnold Schultz influenced a number of white guitarists there, including Travis, Mose Rager, Kennedy Jones, and Ike Everly (father of the Everly Brothers), starting a regional tradition of thumbpicking that remains lively today. 

     However, thumbpicking guitarists can be found throughout the South and Midwest, and, thanks to recordings and other media, around the world. 

     “W.K. McNeil, an eminent scholar of the folk culture of the Ozarks, writes in his book, Ozark Country, that there are many accomplished thumbpickers here in this region, and I’ve had the good fortune to meet several of them, myself,” Meacham commented.  “So, we thought it would be a good idea to invite Moon Mullins to perform at the festival and also to lead a participatory music-making session with thumbpicking guitarists from our own area, and we’re very pleased that he’s agreed to do so.”

     Meacham continued, “I know of at least three outstanding thumbpickers who are planning to participate, and I’m anticipating that there will be several more, so it should be a great musical event.”

     Yet another participatory event will be the second annual Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival Mule Jump, sponsored by Hirsch Feed and Farm Supply in West Plains.  The competition will take place on Saturday, June 20, on the front lawn of the Senior Center along East Main Street at 3 PM. 

     It will be preceded at 11 AM by a demonstration of mule jumping featuring award-winning mules owned by Richie Dement of Centerville, the coordinator of the competition, and Jerry Nelson of Liberty, Missouri.

     Mule jumping was introduced to the festival in 2007 as the result of a suggestion made to Kris Norman, economic development director for West Plains and a member of the festival planning committee.  The first actual competition took place last year.

    “Mules compete to determine which can clear the highest hurdle from a standstill,” Meacham explained.  “Believe it or not, there hasn’t been a lot of scholarly research on the origins of mule jumping, but from what I understand, it seems to have started in the American Southeast when raccoon hunters began training mules to jump over fences so that they wouldn’t have to interrupt the hunt to look for gates.”

     Meacham continued, “This developed into a competitive activity unto itself, and mule jump competitions still take place today at events such as county fairs and town picnics throughout the Midwest and South – especially here in Missouri, where the mule is the official state animal.”

     There will be no entry fee for the 3 PM competition.  Pre-registration is recommended but not required.  Those who wish to pre-register or have any questions may call Meacham at 372-3177.  Anyone who does not pre-register must register onsite by 2 PM on the day of the competition.

     Standard Missouri rules will apply.  Meacham emphasized that mistreatment of the animals will not be tolerated.

     Prizes of $100, $75, and $50, courtesy of Hirsch, will be awarded to the first-, second-, and third-place winners, respectively, in each of two classes based on the height of the mule, the dividing line being 52 inches. 

     “The audience at last year’s mule jump was very enthusiastic, and this year’s event seems to be generating a lot of interest.  Several people from out of state have contacted us about it.  We hope to have more competitors involved than we had last year so that our spectators will have a wider variety of mules to observe, so we strongly encourage anyone who has a jumping mule to join us,” said Meacham.

     As always, the festival will include the annual Bob Holt National Old-Time Jig Dance Competition, scheduled for Saturday, June 20, at 1 PM in the Civic Center theater. 

     The name of the contest memorializes Bob Holt, an acclaimed old-time fiddler from Ava to whom the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a National Heritage Fellowship in 1999, honoring his efforts to promote and sustain music and dance traditions in his region.

     Prominent in much of the Missouri Ozarks, jig dancing is closely connected with the old-time string music tradition.  It is related to, but distinct from, dances traditional to the British Isles, and it belongs to a family of traditional solo dance genres found throughout the Upland South that also includes buck dancing, flatfooting, and clogging.

     The annual Bob Holt memorial contest is one of very few competitions devoted specifically to jig dancing – or perhaps the only one – in the United States.

     Further details about this year’s competition will be released soon, but anyone who has questions about it may contact Kathleen Morrissey, president of the West Plains Council on the Arts, at 255-7966.