Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s beautiful 1,000-seat auditorium in Mountain View, Arkansas.  In addition to the music, our “Feature Host” segments take listeners through the Ozark hills with historians, authors, and personalities who explore the people, stories, and history of the Ozark region.

This week, singer, multi-instrumentalist, podcaster, story teller and musicologist Nicholas Edward Williams recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park.

“Host of the popular roots music history podcast American Songcatcher, Nicholas Edward Williams is a multi-instrumentalist and storyteller who is dedicated to 'playing it forward' by preserving the songs and styles that have shaped our country: ragtime, Piedmont blues, traditional folk, old time and early country.  Williams has spent the last 15 years touring around the US, the UK, Western Europe and Australia, blending the roots music spectrum in his own style.  He's opened for Taj Mahal, The Wood Brothers, Dom Flemons, CAAMP, John Paul White, Town Mountain, John Craigie, Rachel Baiman and Lucy Daucus, and has performed at festival stages on three continents.  William's debut record As I Go Ramblin' Around made the International Folk Radio DJ Charts in 2019 with the #6 Top Album, #7 Top Song.  His critically acclaimed sophomore release Folk Songs For Old Times' Sake unveiled in November of 2021 and has been heralded by the likes of Grammy-winning musician David Holt who said: ‘With tasteful guitar arrangements and a voice that draws you right in, Nicholas’ recordings roll along like a mountain stream.”
https://nicholasedwardwilliams.com/about/

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1981 archival recording of Ozark original Sam Younger performing the tune “Mississippi Sawyer,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins investigates the history of tourism in the entertainment Mecca of the Ozarks: Branson, Missouri.

Sound Beat episodes for the month of September 2023

Conversations around community policing are polarizing. It can be hard to have a meaningful and useful conversation. Brian Williams believes that conversations that first hit the heart can impact the head and hands, bringing corrective and collaborative action. And: Police suicide rates are on the rise. It’s clear that mental health is a real problem in the profession. Stacey Clifton studies how the very culture of police–a sort of macho suppression of emotion–makes it extra hard to address their mental health crises.