On air and online: Thursday, July 11 – Sunday, July 14 – Jayne Anne Phillips, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction, plus musical visits from old friends and the Thacker Big Band!
Author: Jayne Anne Phillips Night Watch – harrowing post-Civil War novel, winner of 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Music: Afrissippi (West Africa meets North Mississippi) and Charlie Mars (Times Have Changed)
Hosts: Jim Dees with Paul Tate and the Yalobushwhacker Big Band featuring the Thacker Horns and vocalist Mary Frances Massey
(Originally aired 11-16-23)
Air times:
Thursday, July 11 – 8 am (CT) WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN
Thursday, July 11 – 6 pm (CT) WUMS 92.1 FM Univeristy of Mississippi
Saturday, July 13 – 3 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN
7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, July 14
3 pm (ET) WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
Archive: Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Podcast, iHeart Radio
Jayne Anne Phillips’s latest novel, Night Watch (Knopf), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on May 6, 2024.
We’re delighted to revisit her appearance on our show from Nov. 2023.
The book tells the mesmerizing story of a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds.
Readers will love twelve-year-old ConaLee, “the adult in her family for as long as she can remember.” The novel opens with ConaLee on a buckboard journey to the state insane asylum with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year.
Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, and Quiet Dell.
Afrissippi is a “world boogie” band with ties to the Oxford area, including guitarists Guelel Kumba and Eric Deaton and drummer Kinny Kimbrough.
Kumba, is a singer-songwriter from the delta of Senegal, West Africa who moved to Oxford in 2002.
In Oxford, he jammed with Deaton, who had played bass with north Mississippi blues legend, Junior Kimbrough. The two discovered the similarities between the hill country blues of North Mississippi and Kumba’s nomadic melodies from the Senegalese savannas.
Afrisippi’s drummer, Kinney Kimbrough, son of the late Junior Kimbrough, brings the group’s other-worldly grooves full circle.
Charlie Mars is a journeyman-songwriting troubadour, who, over two decades of touring and recording, has amassed a loyal, national fanbase.
His latest album is the just-released, Times Have Changed.
“Mars’s country and folk-inflected pop is topped by his warm vocal croon and his knack for crafting poignant, earthy songs.” – Rolling Stone
His previous albums include, Beach Town, The Money, Like a Bird, Like a Plane and Blackberry Light.