Thacker Mountain Radio Hour Plays at the Lyric Thursday, Delta State on Saturday

The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, Oxford’s music and literature show, performs two shows this week. Thursday’s show, Feb. 28, will take place at the Lyric Oxford at 6 p.m. while Saturday’s show, March 2, will be held at the Whitfield Building on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland at 3 p.m. Both shows are free and open to the public. Hosts will be Jim Dees and Thacker house band, the Yalobushwhackers.

Thursday’s show can be heard live on WUMS 92.1 FM and online at Rebel Radio. Saturday’s show will be recorded for air later this spring on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Alabama Public Radio.

Guests for Thursday’s show at the Lyric will be acclaimed military writer Adam Makos and Ghanaian-born novelist, Ayesha Harruna Attah with musical guest, the East St. Peters Baptist Church Choir and Band of Abbeville. Doors open at 5:30 pm, showtime is 6 pm. Plenty of seating and a cash bar will be available.

Acclaimed military writer Adam Makos. Photo provided.

Saturday’s show in Cleveland will feature Oxford crime fiction writer William Boyle with Mississippi-native roots musician Beth McKee. The Delta Music Institute student band, the DMI Allstars, will perform along with vocalist, Tricia Walker. While admission is free, the show will seek to raise awareness of the Duff Dorrough Scholarship Fund at Delta State. Dorrough, a Ruleville native who passed away in 2012, was the former band leader for the Thacker house band as well as a Delta State art major.

Adam Makos is the author of “Spearhead – The World War II Odyssey of an American Tank Gunner” (Ballantine Books), a true-life account of a World War II tank company fighting from Normandy to the heart of the Third Reich. The book follows Clarence Smoyer who is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank where he displays his talent as a natural-born shooter.

Adam Makos is the author of the New York Times bestseller “A Higher Call” and the critically acclaimed “Devotion.” His work has secured his place “in the top ranks of military writers (LA Times). Makos lives in Denver.

Ayesha Harruna Attah is the author of “The Hundred Wells of Salaga” (Other Press) a novel based on true events that is a story of courage, forgiveness and freedom in pre-colonial Ghana, told through the eyes of two women born to vastly different fates.

Ayesha Harruna Attah is the author of “The Hundred Wells of Salaga.” Photo provided.

Ayesha Harruna Attah grew up in Accra, Ghana and was educated in New York. She lives in Senegal.

The East St. Peter M. B. Church was organized in 1894 in the Bay Springs Community of Lafayette County. The church is now located on Woodson Ridge Road in Abbeville.

The East St. Peter Adult Sanctuary Choir was organized in 1971 by Sister Queenie Dixon, with only 10 members (all women). As the years passed, the choir continued to grow, adding male singers to its ranks.

Saturday’s show at Delta State will take place in Studio A of the Whitfield Building on campus. The studio is a recording facility designed by former Elvis Presley producer, Norbert Putnam.

The author for Saturday’s show, William Boyle, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and now makes his home in Oxford. His latest novel, to be published March 5, is “A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself” (Pegasus Books). The novel is a screwball noir about finding friendship and family where you least expect it. Boyle draws readers into the familiar–and sometimes frightening–world in the shadows at the edges of New York’s neighborhoods.

William Boyle is the author of “A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself.” Photo provided.

Keyboardist Beth McKee’s latest album is Dreamwood Acres. The album displays McKee’s signature roots music that rides the backroads of soul, gospel, blues, folk, pop, and rock. McKee learned blues first hand from her native Mississippi and Malaco Records. Her musical journey has included stops in Austin, New Orleans, and now Orlando, Florida.

The DMI Allstars is a group of students and faculty from the Delta Music Institute of Delta State University. The ensemble specializes in classic soul, funk and R&B from Motown to Memphis. The group performs at various venues around the country including the Chicago Blues Festival. Students in the Revue can earn a B.S. degree in Music Industry Studies from DMI.

The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour will return to Oxford next Thursday, March 7 at 6 p.m. at Off Square Books. 

Press release courtesy of Thacker Mountain Radio Hour