The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, the weekly Oxford, MS-based music and literature program, celebrated 25 years on the air in 2022. Now, in 2024, the one-hour broadcast that features author readings and musical performances before a live audience, begins its 27th year on Thursday, Feb. 1 at 6 pm in Oxford.
The show, which highlights known and unknown southern writers and musicians is, in the words of Garden and Gun magazine, “25 years old and better than ever.”
Longtime host, Oxford writer Jim Dees, agrees.
“We’ve had some great house bands over the years,” Dees (host since 2000) notes. “We’ve had really strong boards of directors, hard-working production crew members and interns, but our current staff, crew and board may be the most in-sync and productive we’ve ever had.”
Indeed, the show began in 1997 as a local Oxford broadcast before being picked up by Mississippi Public Broadcasting in 2000 (where the show can be heard every Saturday at 7 pm).
The broadcast has since grown to include seven public radio affiliates across Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee and even Taos, New Mexico (KNCE-FM).
Other platforms that carry the show are Google Podcast, Spotify, Soundcloud and-iHeart Radio. John Henderson, programmer at KNCE in New Mexico, believes the show is an excellent fit for his listeners. “Taos is small but diverse arts community in the Northern New Mexico mountains that has developed a deep connection to the music of Mississippi over the last two decades,” he declares.
“We also have a strong literary history with authors such as DH Lawrence, Frank Waters and Willa Cather. Thacker Mountain Radio’s seamless marriage of music and literature is inspiring.
“It is true Mississippi radio.”
Over a quarter century, the show has weathered staff turnover, including the deaths of beloved Thacker band members, guitarist Jerry “Duff” Dorrough and Memphis pianist Jim Dickinson. There have been the expected financial ups and downs and, most recently of course, a global pandemic. (The program rode out the COVID years by broadcasting in-studio performances without an audience).
Amanda Wymer, who grew up in Oxford, is the new executive director of the show. She remembers attending the program as a little girl with her mom at Off Square Books, an ancillary store a block away from the more famous Square Books store on the Oxford square.
“My friends and I thought it was the coolest thing even if we didn’t always understand what was going on,” she recalls with a laugh.
“To now be a part of the show and help it grow, is the greatest honor.”
Recent guest performers have included musical acts Steve Azar, Grammy winner Cedric Burnside and New Orleans guitar phenom D.K. Harrell. Authors who have read excerpts from their books include New York Times bestseller Jeanette Walls, Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and two-time National Book Award recipient, Jesmyn Ward.
Thacker production director, Tim Lee, is an author and musician with over 30 years’ experience in the music business. He says booking musical acts for the show is a challenge for all the right reasons.
“In Oxford we’re a short drive from Memphis, Tupelo, Muscle Shoals, even New Orleans,” he points out. “We try to schedule as much variety as possible and there’s plenty to choose from.”
On the upcoming Feb. 1 premiere at Oxford’s Powerhouse Arts Center, Memphis author Eric Schlich will read from his novel, Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife. The book is a heart-warming (and very funny) coming-of-age story set in the world of bizarro TV evangelists.
Musical guests for the premiere will be soul/jazz vocalist Effie Burt and Mississippi Delta bluesman Keith Johnson. Dees serves as host along with the show’s very versatile house band, the Yalobushwhackers, fronted by veteran guitarist Paul Tate of New Albany, MS.
All Oxford shows take place on Thursday at 6 pm (except Thursday, March 14 for spring break) and are free and open to the public. Venues vary between the Powerhouse Arts Center, the Graduate Hotel, Off Square Books and the Lyric Theatre.
A calendar of broadcast dates, guest performers and authors is available at the show’s website: https:// thackermountain.org/.
Noting the show’s eclectic variety, host Dees encourages new listeners and readers to visit one of the online platforms and give the show a try.
“Somebody said our show is like Mississippi weather: “It you don’t like it, wait ten minutes,” Dees laughs. “But I believe Garden and Gun is right, the show is better than ever.”
He adds, “It better be, after 25 years!”
