OHR Presents: Sad Daddy

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, original Ozark Old Time folk minstrel and songwriting group “Sad Daddy” performs live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with these interesting and innovative songwriters. Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark legend Bookmiller Shannon, playing the traditional song “Shortnin’ Bread.” Writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins profiles the first in a series of three Ozark Civil War Ballads, “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek.” “Sad Daddy” combines the talents of four unique Arkansas musicians in one convenient package. The group features Brian Martin on guitar, Melissa Carper on bass, Joe Sundell on banjo, and Rebecca Patek on fiddle. Sad Daddy performs all original material, and their songs have the unique quality of sounding familiar yet new at the same time. Music fans in these parts are notoriously very selective about “new” or “original” music. Suffice it to say, Sad Daddy easily won over a tough room. Oh, and the name? Guitarist Brian Martin tells the story of an old Arkansas backwoods man who’s common refrain to something in less than a good state of operation….”that’s one Sad Daddy….” In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark legend and dance banjo maven Bookmiller Shannon, playing the traditional song “Shortnin’ Bread.” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. From his series entitled “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins profiles the first of three Ozark Civil War ballads. This episode features a 1958 archival recording of Doney Hammontree, singing the Ozark Civil War ballad “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek,” A somewhat humorous ballad sung from the perspective of one of those German soldiers – the “Dutch” as their American neighbors mistakenly called them – “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek” is basically a battlefield variant of any number of songs poking fun at immigrants in the nineteenth century. The recording is preserved in the Max Hunter Collection at Missouri State University. https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=132