This week, Brooklyn, New York based old-time string band The Down Hill Strugglers recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with this fantastic folk trio. Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark original Dave Leatherman performing the traditional tune “Shoutin’ On the Hills.” Writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins recounts the American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft’s experience in the early Ozark region.

The Down Hill Strugglers is a string band composed of Eli Smith, Walker Shepard and Jackson Lynch, who play at various times; fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and harmonica. Forming in 2008, they are influenced by the music that came out of rural America, including Appalachian traditions, music from the Deep South, and the Western States. They combine the feeling of the old music that can be heard on commercially recorded 78 RPM records (largely of the pre-WWII era) and field recordings made throughout the 20th century. They have been playing together for five years and have performed at the Newport Folk Festival, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Folk Festival and many other places. In 2013 they were featured on the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, "Inside Llewyn Davis" produced by T-Bone Burnett.

- http://downhillstrugglers.blogspot.com

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark original Dave Leatherman performing the traditional tune “Shoutin’ On the Hills,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

From his series entitled “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins recounts the American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft’s harrowing experiences in the early Ozark regions of Arkansas & Missouri.