The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, the weekly public radio show highlighting southern literature and music, is coming to Jackson on Thursday, June 4 at 6 pm.
The long-running program, based in Oxford and now in its 29th year, will record an episode outdoors, on the grounds of the Eudora Welty House & Garden.
The show will be recorded for radio (including Mississippi Public Broadcasting) and filmed by MPB Television for telecast later this year.
Admission is free and the public is invited.
The museum is located at 1119 Pinehurst St, Jackson, MS.
The event is planned as an outdoor show with stage and chairs set up on the front lawn. A weather site will be announced.
Doors will open at 5 pm. Showtime is 6 pm with a book signing to follow at 7 pm.
The museum is located at 1119 Pinehurst St, Jackson, MS, United States, Mississippi 39202.
**Thanks to Nancy Carpenter and our pals at America 250 – Mississippi for their support!**
Guests for the show will include former Mississippi Poet Laureate Beth Ann Fennelly with her latest book, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs (book signing on site).
with musical guests, the Soul City Swingers – Soul/jazz from Jackson!
Tyler Kemp (organ), Denny Burkes (drums), Terry Miller (trumpet) and Judson Wright (tenor saxophone)
and very special guest…
Lady Adrena – fresh off Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues tour!
The show is hosted by Jim Dees with our house band, Paul Tate and the Yalobushwhackers.
Beth Ann Fennelly, (Mississippi Poet Laureate 2016-2021) has released her seventh book, The Irish Goodbye – Micro-Memoirs (Norton).
The essays, indeed “micro” – some a paragraph, a page or page and a half – explore family, marriage, motherhood, place, grief and coming of age, all with Fennelly’s wit and emotional clarity.
The book was a March 2026 Indie Next List pick.
“…sparkles with understated delight.”- Kirkus Reviews
Fennelly’s work has won a Pushcart Prize and three times been included in The Best American Poetry Series.
Fennelly has published three poetry books: Open House, Tender Hooks, and Unmentionables, and a book of nonfiction, Great with Child, all published with W. W. Norton.
A novel she co-authored with her husband, Tom Franklin, called The Tilted World, was published by HarperCollins.
Her sixth book, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs (W. W. Norton), was named an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book, a Goodreaders Favorite for 2017, and the winner of the Housatonic Book Prize.
Fennelly and Franklin live in Oxford with their three children.
Fennelly teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi where she is a four-time teaching award winner.
The Soul City Swingers are a funky horn and organ soul quartet hailing from Jackson, Mississippi.
The group includes members of the Soul City 3, Tyler Kemp (organ), Denny Burkes (drums), Terry Miller (trumpet) and Judson Wright (tenor saxophone).
The group’s debut album (we’re told it’s a burner!) is forthcoming.
Lady Adrena is a singer-songwriter from Jackson, MS. A second-place finish at the 2018 Vicksburg International Blues Challenge, set her on her blues path.
Just two years later, Lady Adrena was named the 2020 Female Vocalist of the Year by the Jackson Music Awards.
Among her projects, she is currently touring the country (world?) with Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience including a recent appearance with the great Taj Mahal.
Her album is Recipe for the Blues (Sweet Success Records).
It includes the memorable single, No Ring No Thang.
