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, traditional folk troubadours and Ozark originals Cathy Barton & Dave Para perform live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with Cathy & Dave. Mark Jones offers an archival recording of his famous parents, Grandpa & Ramona Jones, singing the song “Kentucky.” Writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins profiles the last in a series of three Ozark Civil War Ballads, “The Battle of Prairie Grove.”

Long time purveyors of traditional old time music, Dave and Cathy are outstanding performers with a rich history tied to many well-known old time musicians in the Ozark region. Cathy Barton is well versed in both clawhammer banjo and hammered dulcimer. She’s performed and toured with Ramona Jones and Jimmy Driftwood among others, and was a featured hammered dulcimer player at one of the first Walnut Valley festivals in Kansas. Dave Para is a guitarist and a longtime resident of Booneville, Missouri. He has a great fondness for Civil War era songs and folklore. Along with Bob Dyer, Dave was a stalwart in the central Missouri folk music scene in the mid 70’s. It was during that time he met and teamed up with Cathy. The two currently live in Booneville, MO, and perform regularly at festivals and workshops around the United States.

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers an archival recording of his famous parents, Grandpa & Ramona Jones, singing a song about Grandpa’s birthplace called “Kentucky,” 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 last of three Ozark Civil War ballads. This episode features a recording of Sara Jo Fendley, accompanying herself on the banjo, performing “the Battle of Prairie Grove” at the Leslie Homecoming on June 13, 1963. The recording was made by collector John Quincy Wolf Jr., and is preserved by Lyon College on its John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection website.

http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/fendleybattle1302.html