The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour wraps up its fall 2016 season this Thursday, Nov. 17 at 6 pm at The Lyric Oxford (1006 Van Buren Ave, Oxford, MS 38655). Admission is free and the public is invited. Guests will include British author Geoff Dyer, Thacker host/author Jim Dees, and musical guests, Delta bluesman Watermelon Slim and Memphis rockers Southern Avenue.
The Thacker house band, the Yalobushwhackers, will open and close the show. The program can be heard locally on WUMS 92.1 FM and online at www.myrebelradio.com
Host Jim Dees will be making his debut appearance on the show as an author. His book is The Statue and the Fury – A Year of Art, Race, Music and Cocktails (Nautilus Publishing), a humorous look at the controversial year of 1997 in Oxford. The book covers the furor over creation of the William Faulkner statue, and includes interviews with Shelby Foote, Willie Morris and Willie Nelson, among others.
Dees has been the host of The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour since 2000.
Southern Avenue is a Memphis-based, high-energy soul-roots band that is deeply rooted in the blues and reached the finals at this year’s International Blues Challenge over 250 acts. The band’s infectious rhythms, soulful guitar sounds, and masterful musicianship, caused the Memphis Flyer to write, “Southern Avenue is simply the best band in Memphis right now… The coolest music to come out of Memphis in years.”
The band’s debut album will be released by legendary Stax Records in spring 2017.
His 2011 collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Dyer is writer-in-residence at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles and London.
Bill “Watermelon Slim” Homans has built an international following with his raw, impassioned intensity. Harp Magazine wrote, “From sizzling slide guitar…to nitty-gritty harp blowing…to a gruff, resonating Okie twang, Slim delivers acutely personal workingman blues with both hands on the wheel of life, a bottle of hooch in his pocket, and the Bible on the passenger seat.”
His latest release is Bull Goose Rooster. Homans lives in Clarksdale.
The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour will resume live production in February 2017. In the meantime, the show can be heard every Saturday night at 7 pm on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
A special Membership/Holiday Party will be held to raise funds for the show on Friday, Dec. 2, 6-9 pm at Southside Gallery, 150 Courthouse Square.
Courtesy of Jim Dees
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