Ozark Highlands Radio

This week, New York based folk duo Jay Ungar & Molly Mason perform live at Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas. Also, interviews with Jay & Molly. A performance from Ozark Originals The Lazy Goat String Band. “He was a Bronx kid. She grew up in Washington State. He was raised on pop music of the 1940s and ’50s. She had a fondness for traditional fiddle music and ’30s and ’40s popular tunes. He hung out in Greenwich Village coffeehouses and roamed North Carolina and Tennessee in search of traditional players. She played clubs and colleges on the West Coast and took a liking to the jazzy sound of the Swing Era. Since joining forces—both artistically and romantically (the two would marry in 1991)—Jay Ungar and Molly Mason have become one of the most celebrated duos on the American acoustic music scene. It started with a chance meeting in the late 1970s. Jay and Molly were each performing at the Towne Crier, a rural New York club. They hit it off musically and played together from time to time until Molly headed off to Minnesota to work in the house band of a new radio show: Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Meanwhile, back in New York, Jay put together a band with fellow fiddlers Evan Stover and Matt Glaser and guitarist Russ Barenberg. When Fiddle Fever, as the collaboration was called, needed a bassist, Molly signed on. The group recorded two classic LPs, now available on CD as The Best of Fiddle Fever (Flying Fish Records). On radio and television, Jay and Molly have appeared on CBS Good Morning, The Rosie O’Donnel Show, All Things Considered, A Prairie Home Companion, and the BBC’s Transatlantic Sessions. And they have no shortage of future musical projects.” - https://jayandmolly.com/about/ The Lazy Goat Stringband is comprised of Scott and Samuel Blake (father & son) on guitar and claw-hammer banjo and Emily Phillips on fiddle. They have been regular performers at Ozark Folk Center State Park for the past several years and one of the more popular groups in the region. Their attention to the authenticity of their sound is just as keen as their eye on making music a fun endeavor. Had he known, Ken Burns might have used some of their recordings in The Civil War, they would be right at home. Brooks Blevins gives a native’s view of the people, music, and colorful events that shape the Ozark region. The author and historian presents the first of his three part series "Ghost of the Ozarks," on the infamous Connie Franklin murder trial. In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1973 archival recording of Ozark original Jimmy Driftwood singing is famous song “The Battle of New Orleans,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.