This week, Ozark original up and coming traditional bluegrass quartet Spillwater Drive recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park’s Bluegrass & Fried Chicken Festival weekend.

Each August, the Ozark Folk Center State Park in scenic Mountain View, Arkansas hosts its Bluegrass & Fried Chicken Festival. The event brings a full weekend of down home crafts, soul food and soulful bluegrass music. Bands at the festival range from local acts to some of the most celebrated groups in modern bluegrass music.

Spillwater Drive is a traditional four piece bluegrass group from the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks region. An Arkansas Country Music Awards winner, the band brings bell ringing vocal harmonies, superb instrumental virtuosity and unstoppable energy. Spillwater Drive features Adam Ash of Gateway, Arkansas on banjo, Mountain View’s very own Samuel Cobb on mandolin, Gary Cook from Monett, Missouri on upright acoustic bass, and from Washburn, Missouri, Jake Stogdill on the acoustic guitar.

- https://www.spillwaterdrive.com/meet-the-band

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1987 archival recording of honorary Ozark originals The Grandpa Jones Family, featuring Grandpa, Ramona & Alisa Jones and Cathy Barton-Para, performing the traditional tune “Bill Cheatham,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. Also, a vintage joke told by Grandpa.

In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins discusses the surprisingly varied heritage of the Ozarks.