National Park Radio and Big Buffalo Golden Gals, a short film — Friday, June 14, 2024 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

National Park Radio and Big Buffalo Golden Gals
Friday, June 14, 2024 at 7:00PM

Help us kickoff our 2024/2025 Ozark Arts Council Membership Drive, with a concert by fan favorite National Park Radio and a short film celebrating our beloved Buffalo River, “Big Buffalo Golden Gals” by Misty Breedlove.

Tickets are $20 and may be purchased at TheLyric.org or by clicking here!

About Big Buffalo Golden Gals and Misty Breedlove:                 

In 1837 Abraham Villines and family moved to and settled what is now the Ponca Wilderness area of the Buffalo National River. One hundred and eighty-five years later, many of those descendants are still living and making their lives in the area. Misty Langdon is one of those descendants. This year, with the help of friend Ranger Lauren Ray, she took her 75 year old mother and three of her cousins aged 73-83, on a raft trip down river to reminisce and tell stories from the women’s point of view, of growing up and living on the creek, before it became America’s first national river. In “Big Buffalo Golden Gals” we invite you to hop in the raft and paddle along with these amazing women as they share their stories and memories of days gone by.

Director Biography – Misty Langdon

Misty Langdon has lived her life on the homestead settled by her mother’s family in the 1800’s. As a small child she enjoyed stories of the old times passed down by her family and neighbors. Her love of home, the Buffalo River, has been inspiration for many forms of creativity. Her latest, the Remnants Project, showcases her love of the people, their history, homesteads & family photos, to create an historical account of life on the Buffalo River before it became the nation’s first national river. Big Buffalo Golden Gals is the first production for the Remnants Project, being accepted into and securing a win for Best Documentary 2023 at the Roger’s Short Film Festival.

About NPR, from NPR.band:

“The BIGGEST little indie-folk duo”

National Park Radio is a nationally touring indie-folk “power duo” based in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. With an impressive and consistently growing grassroots fanbase across the U.S. (and the world), husband and wife duo Stefan & Kerrie Szabo have made a name for themselves over the past several years with their beautiful harmonies, incredibly inspiring and relatable songwriting, and their unique and energetic live shows.

Perfect for fans of: The Avett Brothers, Caamp, The Lumineers, The Head and the Heart, First Aid Kit, Mumford & Sons

What makes National Park Radio unique?

Aside from their incredibly relatable songwriting and harmonies that connect with so many of their fans, their high-energy live shows – created by the duo bringing in a unique setup and multitasking configuration – brings a new level of sound created by just two people on stage. National Park Radio has been described as the “biggest sounding indie-folk duo” that there is, and between the two of them, many say they create the sound and energy of a 5-piece band.OAC Ticketing Link

Smokey & The Mirror — Saturday October 6 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

Chemistry + Talent + Energy =
Husband & Wife Americana Duo
Building Community Through Excellence
as Crooked Creek presents
Smokey & The Mirror!

Saturday, October 6 at 7:00PM

 

“Bryan and Bernice Hembree (Smokey & The Mirror) are making some of the best folk music today. The songs remind me of a time when Guy Clark was unknown and Ray Wylie Hubbard was still a folkie. Smart, cool and never pretentious.”

– Greg Johnson, The Blue Door

Crooked Creek Concert Association presents Fayetteville Roots Festival  founders, Smokey & The Mirror, who will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater, on October 6 at 7:00PM. Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. 

Smokey & The Mirror is husband/wife duo Bryan and Bernice Hembree. Based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Smokey & The Mirror has toured nationally and internationally over the past decade. The band has supported tours for Old Crow Medicine Show, The Wood Brothers, I’m With Her, Elephant Revival, John Fullbright, and many of their musical heroes. They tour most often as a duo, but also play many shows as a four-piece band. Whatever the configuration, the interplay of their two unique voices coupled with engaging, accessible songs form the foundation of Smokey & The Mirror.

The Hembrees work tirelessly on many musical and creative pursuits.  They are committed to others’ music as much as their own.  They have found that the most satisfying path to longevity in music is to put others’ art in the spotlight or to inspire others’ to find their voice.  They believe that the future of music is not winning the “me first” battle, but rather building community. To this end, they are founders and co-creators of the Fayetteville Roots Festival and also spent a year (2017) with Austin-based international songwriting collaborative, House of Songs, to pilot House of Songs Ozarks in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Crooked Creek Concert Association presents Fayetteville Roots Festival  founders, Smokey & The Mirror, who will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater, on October 6 at 7:00PMTickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. 

The thing I love most about this band and the evening with them is not only the powerfully beautiful voice of bass player, Bernice Hembree, or the well-written songs of Bryan Hembree, sung with his rustic, true American voice – it’s the energy they bring on stage and to the audience! You can tell when they are performing; they truly treasure what they do. They feed off each other to the point it’s sometimes hard to tell where the guitar stops and the bass starts!”  – 

– Chris Roberts, Red Arm Music

 tickets

Winona Wilde — Thursday May 17 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

“Just your
run of the mill,
post-structuralist
cowgirl Americana…”
Crooked Creek presents Winona Wilde!
Thursday, May 17 at 7:00PM

Photo by Brandon Albert, Flare Magazine

“Over simple, well-worn chords, Wilde’s voice sounds weary and wise, and yet still full of life…Her storytelling binds together personal experience and political ideas in relatable ways, the way only the best songwriting can.”

–  Peter Ellman, Exclaim

Crooked Creek Concert Association presents 2017 Kerrville NewFolk Songwriting Award winner Winona Wilde, who will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater, on May 17 at 7:00PM, with special guest opener Fayetteville’s Elizabeth Scott. Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. 

Karl Magi recently profiled Winona Wilde for Spinditty, so we’re going to borrow some quotes from his excellent article there. He shows her love for the Roots Music fans and culture: “If I had known all of these people and festivals existed when I started law school, I probably would have quit instead of suffering through it. The sense of community I have felt from the folkies is unlike anything on this earth. It has made me a better person.”

It’s not having gone to law school that makes people wonder most at her rise to prominence in the Americana scene—nor even her being Canadian, since that’s “North Americana,” at least—but the fact that she is a Canadian of Iraqi descent

Photo by Sim Al-Surraj

who has so embraced—and been embraced by—Western “Roots Music”/Americana and its fans.

Wilde (whose non-stage name is Noosa Al-Sarraj) says that music was a part of her life from her earliest days. “I do not come from a musical family, but opportunities for making music always came into my life at the right time. As a little tiny baby, I used to sing my mother’s lullabies back to her, and as a toddler, I was really good at clapping back rhythms and freakishly repeating back entire verses from the Koran, so my mother suspected there was something at play there.”

Her musical influences are wide-ranging. “I grew up on classical music. My faves were the moody, dense composers like Beethoven and Schumann. I spent hours every day alone with the piano, deciphering the language. To this day, I can still recognize a composer from just a few bars of music. Nobody generally cares when it happens, but it always feels like a little bit of a fist-pump moment.”

“When I hit my teens I got all the way into older blues artists like Ray Charles and Nat King Cole and then started to experiment with the edgier stuff like Tool and Nine Inch Nails. I loved the melodic metal my younger brother Sim listened to, he got me into Opeth, Dream Theatre and stuff like that. The heaviness of my lyrical content might have something to do with that.”

Magi writes: “Her transformation into a country/folk artist is something for which Noosa has an interesting explanation. She says, ‘My parents both worked a ton so we had a nanny whom we affectionately called Nana. She may have had country music radio on all day, so my young brain had the country music of the 80’s hammered into it without my even noticing. When I eventually heard John Prine and Loretta Lynn as an adult, all of this country music came pouring out of me.’”

Photo by Mary Matheson, BC Musician Magazine

 

Eleni Armenakis makes it clear in her review of the Wilnona Wilde album “Wasted Time” that as much as her music can reach the heights and depths of introspection and social commentary, her music is not one dimensional: “‘Buy a Round’ marks a change in the album, as Al-Sarraj laughs into a pure country number that fittingly rolls in and around itself. There’s more of a folk sound to ‘Black Forest Black Forest’ before ‘To The Corner’ finds a balance between the two to quietly see out the album.” Armenakis concludes, “Al-Sarraj knows what she wants to say and how she wants to say it. Despite the title, she’s clearly not wasting any time.”

“The best introduction to troubadour songwriter Winona Wilde’s wry sensibilities is through her delivered-with-a-wink song, ‘Chick Singer’…She sings with both exasperation and good humour, because, as we all know, sometimes the truth is so bleak, it’s hilarious. The same autobiographical song also references the blank stares she gets from people surprised to see an Iraqi-Canadian woman singing country songs. Wilde, whose real name is Noosa Al-Sarraj, fell in love with country music thanks to a nanny she had as a kid. Her kickass songwriting abilities led to win an award at the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk competition this year—one of few Canadians to do so, and certainly the first of Iraqi descent.”

– Sarah Boesveld, Flare Magazine, 2017-10-18

Winona Wilde will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater, on May 17 at 7:00PM,with special guest opener Fayetteville’s Elizabeth Scott. Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15.

Can you recall the first song you ever wrote?

From age 11-17, my subjects were mainly animals — for example, “Everything tastes like chicken when you’re not around,” a musical adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s One Fish, Two Fish, and a mini-opera about a donkey who eats spaghetti. Although one early song I remember went something like “darkness into darkness” and had some complex chord changes and a heavy subject. I gave it to my teacher and I never got it back, so I am really curious about what was going on in that song. Perhaps she passed it along to a psychiatrist.

– Interview in BC Musician Magazine, 2015-11-07

 tickets

Lawless & Mae — Friday, April 6, 2018 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

Classic Country Duets that Rock the Lyric
JMA Fan Favorite Winners Lawless & Mae!
Friday, April 6 at 7:00PM

“We really enjoyed your singing. You both sound so good together and it’s obvious you enjoy what you do.”

–  Don Blankenship “Coffee Talk” on Macon County’s Country 102.1

Lawless & Mae, a classic country and rock n’ roll duo will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater on Friday, April 6, 2018, at 7:000PM. Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. Don’t miss their superb quality and high energy entertainment, for lovers of country, bluegrass, and even rock n’ roll!

Jack Lawless and Rebecca Mae instantly capture their audience with their fabulous tonal quality, impressive stage presence, dynamic energy, style, and personable interactive charm.

This incredible duo, which won the Josie Music Awards prestigious 2017 “Fans’ Choice” award, provides top shelf, world-class entertainment that wows crowds of all ages with a wide variety of tunes that span the decades. They are well known for performing many of the great duets of Country Legends like George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash & June Carter, Waylon Jennings & Jessi Coulter, along with favorites from great Country Legend soloists like Patsy Cline, Lynn Anderson, Merle Haggard, George Strait, Dolly Parton, and others.

Their show doesn’t stop there, though! Beside their Classic Country sounds, they perform Bluegrass, New Country, and traditional Rock’n’Roll, including great original material.

Jack Lawless has traveled the U.S. and Canada performing at casinos, on cruise ships, festivals and fairs. He has opened for many of the greats, like Kenny Rogers, Exile, The Gatlin Brothers, Lynn Anderson, Ronnie Milsap, Little Eva, Jerry Reed, Sawyer Brown, and many more. On May 27, 2012 at “Thunder On The Rock” in Monte Eagle, TN Confederate Railroad invited Jack up on stage to play guitar and Jack has since gone on to perform as a guest at several of their concerts. Jack not only sings great country but also performs songs from the 50’s and 60’s along with many popular rock n roll and R&B hits.

 

Do yourself a favor and go see Lawless & Mae…and listen to some real, traditional, Country and Gospel music!
– Douglass Chapel UMC

Rebecca Mae is an award-winning vocalist and entertainer who has traveled the North America performing as a featured soloist at casinos, fairs, and festivals, including featured-artist performances at the Country Tonite Theater in Pigeon Forge, TN, Silver Dollar City, the American Lawn Mower Racing Association festivals, and just about anywhere that fans of country music will gather to have a good time…like at our own “Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks,” the historic Lyric Theater!

Lawless & Mae, Friday, April 6, 2018, at 7:000PMTickets are available in advance for $10 through our ticketing site or by calling (870) 391-3504 (please leave your name, number, and the number of tickets you need on our voicemail and we will call you back); at the door, tickets will be $15.

tickets

Ordinary Elephant — Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

Extraordinary Nomadic Roots/Folk
with Ordinary Elephant
Thursday, February 8 at 7:00PM

Photo by Richard Herron Studios, http://herronstudios.smugmug.com

“Their harmonies, singing, the whole presentation…as genuine as it gets”

–  Lloyd Maines

Ordinary Elephant will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater on February 8 at 7:00PM, with special guest opener Kerri and Stefan Szabo (National Park Radio). Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. 

Brought to the Lyric Theater by the Crooked Creek Concert Association, Ordinary Elephant captivates listeners with their well-honed combination of insightful writing, effortless harmonies and intertwined clawhammer banjo and guitar. Husband and wife duo Crystal and Pete Damore have been performing together since 2011, but their 2017 sophomore release ‘Before I Go’ established them nationally and internationally. Quickly receiving the support of the folk community, the album reached No. 2 on the Folk DJ Chart for January of this year with their opening track ‘Best of You,’ not only setting the tone of the record, but capturing the No. 3 Song of the Month slot, and also secured them slots as a 2017 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Finalist and Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist. Crystal and Pete have lived the song’s message—being moved to create, perform, and put everything into what they do.

‘Before I Go’ is also exciting European ears. Upon his review of the album, Dani Heyvaert of Rootstime.be said “I remember when Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were here for the first time…I suspect that this couple is going to play in the same league in the foreseeable future.”

These were particularly welcome words given that it was Gillian’s playing that led to Ordinary Elephant’s particular configuration. From an early age Pete has been a guitarist, but once Welch’s “Hard Times” came across his car stereo speakers, the banjo beckoned. The realization of how well the clawhammer style he was unearthing complemented Crystal’s lyrically rooted singer-songwriter approach was a happy accident at the kitchen table one night, which led to many more nights of collaboration.

…their voices were made to go together and we’d all feel deprived if for some reason they chose not to sing together.
– Bill Aspinwall, Texas Music Journal

This collaboration of husband and wife, their connection, and their influences (such as Guy Clark, Darrell Scott, Anais Mitchell, Mary Gauthier, Cahalen Morrison and Eli West) all meet on stage. You see it, hear it, and then you find

Photo by Kerry Scherck Photography, http://www.kerrysherckphotography.com/

yourself truly feeling it. Pete’s understated, melodic and mellow banjo weaves through Crystal’s steady and clean rhythm guitar, and poetic lyrics are purposefully delivered in rich harmony, “like their voices were made to go together and we’d all feel deprived if for some reason they chose not to sing together.” (Bill Aspinwall, Texas Music Journal)

After growing up a state apart, Crystal in Louisiana and Pete in Texas, the two found each other at a weekly songwriter night in Bryan, Texas in late 2009. After a couple of years of co-writing and developing their sound, Ordinary Elephant brought their music to Houston with a move in late 2011. They recorded their 2013 debut album ‘Dusty Words & Cardboard Boxes’ there, which garnered a nomination for Vocal Duo of the Year at the 2014 Texas Music Awards. Today, they happily call the road home after shedding most of their possessions in 2014 to take on nomadic life. Living full-time in a van and travel trailer with their dogs, they are exploring the country, creating, and uncovering attentive audiences with which to share the conversation of their music.

I’m impressed by many things, but mostly by the songwriting style…[the lyrics are] very economical and stripped down, but seem to effortlessly evoke the kind of poignancy and emotion someone expects of artists with more salt on their shoulders.

– Chuck Hawthorne

Ordinary Elephant will perform at the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks, Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater on February 8 at 7:00PM, with special guest opener Kerri and Stefan Szabo (National Park Radio). Tickets are available in advance for $10; at the door, they will be $15. 

Listening to Ordinary Elephant live was a real treat. Tight harmonies, solid songwriting, and an overall musical experience comparable to the best of T Bone Burnett
– Ray Younkin

 tickets

Americana Legend David Olney (with Daniel Seymour) — Friday, December 1, 2017 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

Americana Legend David Olney
Friday, December 1 at 7:00PM 

Master craftsman, acclaimed singer/songwriter and globe-trotting performer David Olney has released more 30 solo albums over four decades, including six live recordings. His music has been prominently featured in ABC-TV’s Nashville

Photograph by John Partipilo

and his stellar songs have  been recorded by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Young, and Steve Earle, among many others. While you can (and should!) catch up with David on his weekly live, You Never Know streamcast—starring “Nashville’s Answer to the Bard” performing a song and sharing the story behind it—every Tuesday on DavidOlney.com and YouTube., you can catch him #LiveAtTheLyric, as he will be heading to “The Roots Palace of the Ozarks,” Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater on Friday, December 1, 2017, at 7:00, accompanied by while longtime bass player, Daniel Seymour.

“Olney is a talented musical enigma, and he is unquestionably a founding father of Americana music.”

Though a folksinger at heart, Olney incorporates wide-ranging inspirations from honky tonk to rock into his standard repertoire. Born in Rhode Island, David moved to Nashville during the early ’70s and became a major player in the city’s underground folk/country scene, recording a half-dozen albums before the end of the decade. His output during the ’80s slowed considerably, but in the ’90s he recorded with an impressive cast of roots-rock all-stars—Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Rodney Crowell, John Prine, and Brian Ahern, among others. Beside his own albums, his discography on AllMusic.com features 288 credits…so far!

“Though he’s best known as a masterful wordsmith, Olney has a knack for creating the ideal atmosphere for his gothic noir tune.”

– Acoustic Guitar Magazine

Olney remained prolific throughout the coming decade, delivering several studio albums and, with his increasing popularity as a touring artist in Europe, three different live albums, all recorded at various locations in Holland. As previously mentioned, he began hosting a weekly interactive streamcast video series (originally called Hear & Now, but now titled, You Never Know) on which he performs a handful of songs and shares the stories behind them, as well as offering his observations on other things and recitations of classic poetry. Between his weekly videos and busy touring schedule, Olney found the time to release a studio album, When the Deal Goes Down, in 2014 and released another this year, Don’t Try to Fight It, so you can expect to hear music from a wide repertoire, including whatever fresh project he might be working on during this tour!

The late Townes Van Zandt was the best songwriter in the whole wide world, Steve Earle said in an oft-cited quote, “and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” Seventeen years after Van Zandt’s death, the Americana artists who followed in his wake still speak of him the way rockers invoke John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix — as a standard bearer who represents a pinnacle of credibility and craft.

Had he been the coffee-table orating type, however, whose name would Van Zandt have declared?

“Anytime anyone asks me who my favorite music writers are, I say Mozart, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and Dave Olney,” Van Zandt wrote. “Dave Olney is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard — and that’s true. I mean that from my heart.”

– Skip Anderson, writing for The Nashville Scene in his article
David Olney is still a contender. Can you say the same?

We’ll excerpt some of the rest of Mr. Anderson’s article here because, as producer and music writer Tommy Goldsmith is quoted in it, “He’s not a household name, but, my God, look at what he’s done over the years. It’s a really impressive body of work.” Thus, Anderson writes, “Olney is a talented musical enigma, and he is unquestionably a founding father of Americana music. And yet, perhaps reflective of his career as an invisible giant, Wikipedia doesn’t even list him among the 135 artists it associates with the genre.”

If David Olney were less of a leader and more of a follower, he might have had an easier path commercially. But as with Van Zandt, the varied and hard-to-summarize gifts that make Olney a marketer’s challenge make him a hero to other songwriters and musicians.

“When I met him, he was a rocker, but he was also this sensitive songwriter,” says Billy Block, longtime host of the radio show, webcast and TV series The Billy Block Show and a session drummer. “He’s got more soul than everybody I can imagine. He embodies what Americana is.”

– Skip Anderson

Unquestionably a founding father of Americana music, David Olney will perform with bassist Daniel Seymour at downtown Harrison’s historic Lyric Theater, “The Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks,” on Friday, December 1, at 7:00. Tickets available now at our ticketing page or by calling (870) 319-3504.

 

OAC Ticketing Link

POSTPONED: Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman: Traditional Celtic Music, Baroque, Bluegrass, and Swing with Harp and Guitar — Thursday, November 2, 2017 at 7pm — #LiveAtTheLyric!

Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman:
Celtic Traditional, Baroque, Bluegrass, Swing
with Harp and Guitar
POSTPONED Due to Visa Problems Thursday, November 2 at 7:00PM 

The celebrated virtuoso partnership of “the doyenne of Irish harpers” (Scotland on Sunday) and “one of the UK’s most staggering and influential acoustic guitarists” (fRoots) is coming to “The Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks,” Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater, Thursday, November 2, at 7:00! Their performances—described by The Irish Times as “music of fire and brilliance from the high-wire act in traditional music”—are rooted but eclectic, emotional but adventurous: a breathtaking blend of traditional Irish music, hot jazz, bluegrass and baroque, coupled with striking new compositions and Chris’s delightfully subversive wit.

The children of the neighborhood teased Máire Ní Chathasaigh and her sister as they walked down the street. Her family in Brandon, West Cork, Ireland was the only one playing traditional music, so they would be teased for being out of step with the times. “We used to be laughed at by other kids because they thought we were being old hat, she says. But that first Planxty album let people see that traditional music could be modern and sophisticated, that it wasn’t some sort of hick music.” (Quoted from “Harping in the Traditions,” by Rob Adams.)

Not only her name (pronounced, Moyruh Nee Kha-huuh-sig), but her upbringing was in keeping with the traditional ways of the Gaelic-speaking Irish, her family featuring generations of musicians and poets carrying forward the folklore of her heritage. She and her sister, fiddler Nollaig Casey (Casey being the Anglicised version of Chathasaigh), were trained in both classical and folk music, both instrumental and vocal. While many worked at bringing forward the old music in new forms for pipes and fiddle, Máire revitalized the harp tradition virtually all by herself. “Since then, there’ve been lots of young people playing traditional music on the harp but there wasn’t anybody else playing when I was coming up,” she says. “If you played the pipes there were loads of recordings and a whole tradition to learn from. But I had nobody, just my ears, and I created techniques and ornaments, ways of doing things, and it was all done by trial and error, by myself. So if I got a lot of attention, it was because I was the first to do it.” (Quotes from “Harping in the Traditions.”)

Having become the first harpist to record an album primarily off Irish dance music in 1985, Máire first teamed up with English guitarist Chris Newman two years later. Celebrating their thirtieth anniversary of collaboration with their current tour of the United States, Máire and Chris will bring their internationally-heralded mastery of styles from traditional Celtic to Baroque to Swing along with a penchant for inventive soloing and challenging interaction between the artists to Harrison’s Lyric Theater for a 7:00 performance on Thursday, November 2.

“When I met Chris, he liked, but didn’t know that much about, traditional music, so he spent a lot of time learning from me,” says Maire. “Then we started experimenting with things he was proficient in, like swing, which he played with Stephane Grappelli as a teenager. We’re completely open, if we hear something nice, we’ll just say, ‘let’s play that.’ It’s extremely enjoyable to experiment and see just what your instruments can do, and we never run out of things to play.” (Quotes from “Harping in the Traditions.”)

Máire won the Senior All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil Harp Competition three times in succession, in 1975, 1976 and 1977—a record that is still unsurpassed. More recently, she was Female Musician of the Year in the Live Ireland Music Awards 2016, where she was described in the citation as “the greatest Celtic harper of our age”. This recognition is not confined to Ireland, though, as she also was named Female Musician of the Year in the Chicago Irish American News Top TIR Awards 2016.

She is the best harp player in Irish music. There are several great Irish harpists—we think of Michelle Mulcahy, Catriona McDonald, Ailie Robertson, and Emer Mallon. There are more. They are all uber-fab. But, then there is Maire. Her new album is called Sibling Revelry. Really, there are no words. Just know this.

– , writing for Live Ireland about
the 2016 Live Ireland Female Artist of the Year Award

Máire has also won awards with Chris Newman, including “Album of the Year” (Live Ireland) and also the “Best Celtic Instrumental Album” (JUST PLAIN FOLKS AWARDS Nashville, Tennessee), 2009 for their album FireWire, as well as “Folk Album of the Year” (The Daily Telegraph) for their 1987 album The Living Wood.

Traditional Celtic music, along with Baroque, Bluegrass, and Swing will be performed by Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman at downtown Harrison’s historic Lyric Theater, Thursday, November 2, at 7:00. Tickets available now at our ticketing page or by calling (870) 319-3504.

 

OAC Ticketing Link

Sunpie Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots — March 11, 7:00PM — #LiveAtTheLyric

Sunpie Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots
March 11, 7:00PM

New Orleans music icon Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots, his world-class 6-piece band, will be performing at 7:00, Saturday, March 11, at the historic Lyric Theater on the Harrison square. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are now available for $15.

It is no exaggeration to say that Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes is one of the most talented and compelling artists we have ever welcomed to the Lyric stage. Having interned as a river guide right here on the Buffalo, he has been a National Park Ranger in Louisiana for most of his life, spent time as a professional football player with the Kansas City Chiefs, is a photographer, actor, and author, a former high school biology teacher…and his multi-instrumentalist skills, great band, and beautiful baritone vocals make blues/zydeco fusion music that has to be experienced to be understood—but
from the first chord, you’re hooked for life!

Sunpie recently completed a 58 city tour spanning 34 countries, playing in the bands of both Paul Simon and Sting in their “Paul Simon and Sting Together” tour. Along with his musical group, he has traveled worldwide playing festivals with his unique style of what he calls Afro-Louisiana music incorporating blues, zydeco, gospel, Caribbean and African influenced rhythms and melodies. He is a multi-instrumentalist, master accordion and harmonica player, and also plays piano, rubboard, talking drum, and dejembe. His sound is known as Bouje Bouje music meaning “music that moves” and is Louisiana music at its best. Sunpie has performed for over 20 years at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and shared the stage at festivals with artists from across the globe including Willie Nelson, BB King, Dr. John, The Neville Brothers, Willie Dixon and Phish. He has recorded 6 critically acclaimed CDs with his compositions currently featured in 16 Hollywood film productions.

When Sunpie plays in Harrison, it is always to a packed house!

With sponsorship by Neighbor’s Mill Bakery & Café, the Ozark Arts Council is thrilled to invite you to the return of a Lyric Theater favorite, Sunpie Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots! Tickets are on sale now; head to our ticketing page or call (870) 391-3504 early to choose your favorite seats!

 

 

 

OAC Ticketing Link

Ben de la Cour — March 18, 700pm — #LiveAtTheLyric

Ben de la Cour, 2016 Kerrville “New Folk” Award Winner, presented by Crooked Creek
March 18, 7:00PM

Ben de la Cour has lived a different kind of life. After growing up in Brooklyn, he set out to see the world as an amateur boxer, bartender, janitor, and agricultural worker in Havana, London, Los Angeles and New Orleans before settling in Nashville. Influenced as much by giants such as Townes Van Zandt and Warren Zevon as by Nick Cave and The Gun Club, Ben de la Cour has managed to meld all of these influences into a uniquely modern, haunting and sometimes darkly humorous sound that is all his own. Says No Depression magazine, “Ben de la Cour’s songs are
brimming with urgent authenticity. There is thematic hardness and vulnerability throughout, but what distinguishes de la Cour’s songs from lesser guitar-and-anguished-vocals hacks is the raw humanity of his delivery and the potency of his way with words.” According to Crooked Creek Concerts founder Aaron Smith, Ben’s music is more Hamlet than Howard Stern, and deals with some adult issues, so parental guidance is suggested for those under 18.

On March 18 at 7:00, the Ozark Arts Council welcomes the second chapter of 2017’s Crooked Creek Concert Series with 2016 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Winner Ben de la Cour, with an opening act of local talent, Scott and Karen Fancher. Tickets are available online through the OAC ticketing page or at (870) 391-3504.

OAC Ticketing Link

 

Heather Styka in Concert, with Special Guest Ronnie Long – January 26 at 7:00

Heather Styka in Concert
January 26, 7:00PM

micChicago songwriter Heather Styka is not afraid to go where others fear to tread. Beneath “sweet, soulful vocals” (Portland Press Herald) and “nimble fingerpicked guitar” (Dispatch Magazine) lie narratives of vulnerability, strength, and wanderlust, played and sung with fierce and fearless honesty. An award-winning writer with a #3 album on the FOLK-DJ charts and a Kerrville “New Folk” finalist already at the age of 28, she has performed for over a decade, released four full-length albums, and toured from coast to coast. Now, Heather Styka is coming to Harrison’s Lyric Theater with Ronnie Long for a 7:00 concert on Thursday, January 26.

Heather Styka should be a good fit for all of those who have loved live entertainment at the Lyric: with training both as a poet and an actor, she is equal parts wordsmith and entertainer. Colored by a quirky sense of humor and peppered with confessional storytelling, woodenbeadsStyka’s live shows are intimate and candid as late night conversation. Heather started writing and performing as a teenager in the Chicago suburbs. Honing her craft among Chicago’s long-standing folk community, she hit the road after graduating with a degree in creative writing.

With a very direct storytelling style, Styka is noted both for her nimble fingerpicking and for her essential poetry and vocal purity. As Tim Carroll of FolkWords says, her “unique delivery combines the influences of a fragile Irish air, the warm effervescence of upbeat Americana, soulful country, and mournful blues.” Her eclectic background shines through both in style and in subject matter; songs like “Love in the Multiverse” and “Caspian Sea” reveal Styka’s intellectual curiosity—and her passion for philosophy, history, and theoretical physics—while the earnest and catchy pop sensibilities of “Careful With My Heart” caught the ears of a number of peers who now cover that song, including Joe Jencks (Brother Sun) and Scott Cook.

Styka’s latest album, The Bittersweet Tapes (2016), “tugs the ear on first listen and greets you like an old friend on subsequent visits” (Simon Rigby, Indie Music Portal). These gut-punch pretty songs nod to traditional folk, classic country, and even garage rock, carried by Styka’s emotive vocals. With such diversity, she is recommended for anyone who likes Iris DeMent, Feist, Aoife O’Donovan, Joan Armatrading, Damien Rice, Josh Ritter, Gillian Welch, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Leonard Cohen, or Bonnie Raitt. In other words, Heather Styka will fit well into the Lyric’s catalogue of great artists, from Eric Bibb to the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and is sure to delight everyone who attends this Thursday’s concert.

The Ozark Arts Council, in association with Crooked Creek Concerts, presents Heather Styka, with special guest Ronnie Long. Tickets are $10 and available by clicking any of our Get Tickets links, or by calling (870) 391-3504. The Ozark Arts Council will also be sponsoring Business After Hours for the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce prior to the show. Those who attend the 5:00 Business After Hours event will be able to discount their tickets by $2 each. Ugo’s Pizzeria will be running a ready-to-eat single portion special for Business After Hours/Heather Styka attendees, as well, so that you can catch a bite to eat without having to leave the square. (To get the special ticket price when you purchase online, just enter the code BAH when you check out.)