Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s historic 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, Arkansas Ozark singer-songwriter Dane Joneshill recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas. Also, interviews with this talented Ozark original.

Dane Joneshill is a quiet man. A man accustomed to silence and the watching, listening and waiting that generally accompany it. He grew up in the coastal loneliness of rural Alaska in a home tucked against the base of a mountain, a stone’s throw from the cold Pacific. Educated in a bush school by his own father, he remembers the focus of much of that class time. “We read books constantly. Wrote poems and short stories when we weren’t reading, and played in the woods for hours. I have no memories of math or science, whatsoever.” Probably not a well-rounded education, but it forced words and language deep into his soul and forged a weld with the emotional power of story. With a lyricism more akin to a novelist than a songwriter, his songs are at once wry, charming, and bittersweet. Like a Steinbeck novel, they walk the tension of darkness and loss in order to find the lights of hope. - https://danejoneshillmusic.com

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1975 archival recording of Ozark original Stephanie Isaacs, performing the traditional ballad “Lady Mary,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

Author, folklorist and songwriter Charley Sandage presents an historical portrait of the people, events and indomitable spirit of Ozark culture that resulted in the creation of the Ozark Folk Center State Park and its enduring legacy of music and craft. In this episode, Charley speaks with author and herbalist Tina Marie Wilcox on the question “What’s Worth Keeping” from our past in the rapidly evolving culture of our present.