Saturday, Nov. 14 The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour celebrates Natchez, MS through the eyes of travel writer Richard Grant (Dispatches from Pluto) plus cool new tunes from two great musical guests, Austin, TX songwriter Beaver Nelson and Tennessee funk band, Three Star Revival!
Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers
Air times:
Saturday. Nov. 14 – 7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
3 pm (ET) University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Thursdays 6 pm (CT) WUMS – University of Mississippi
Fridays 9 am (CT) WYXR Memphis Community Radio
Bestselling travel writer Richard Grant’s newest book, The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi (Simon & Schuster) offers an entertaining and profound look at a city like no other. Grant’s previous book, Dispatches From Pluto, explored the Mississippi Delta.
Natchez, Mississippi, once had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in America, and its wealth was built on slavery and cotton. Today it has the greatest concentration of antebellum mansions in the South, and a culture full of unexpected contradictions. Prominent white families dress up in hoopskirts and Confederate uniforms for ritual celebrations of the Old South, yet Natchez is also progressive enough to elect a gay black man for mayor with 91% of the vote.
Much as John Berendt did for Savannah in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil so Richard Grant does for Natchez in The Deepest South of All. With humor and insight, he depicts a strange, eccentric town with an unforgettable cast of characters.
Three Star Revival are a modern soul-funk band from the Knoxville/Chattanooga, TN area. Their most recent release is the EP, Reset, which features “All This Life” from the Netflix show Raising Dion. The band was coming off successful appearances at Bonnaroo and NFL Draft Week activities in Nashville when the pandemic hit.
“Three Star Revival is serving up a big ol’ helping of southern-fried funk. Their lineup is stacked with talent including one of the best lead guitarists in town in Cam Moore, keyboard extraordinaire Greg Walton, a baller rhythm section with Tyler Reddick and Bo Kitzman, and charismatic frontman Ben Gaines. This newest release is the closest that Three Star has come yet to bottling the energy of their live show into a studio recording.” – Kent Oglesby, Knoxville Music Warehouse
Beaver Nelson is an Austin, TX-based singer-songwriter. His most recent release is Positive (Freedom Records). Lone Star Magazine said: “The whole album finds Nelson as spry and clever as ever in both the wordplay and melody departments; there’s really not a song on here that slips by without an indelible hook, line or chorus that doesn’t stick on the first spin.”
Hailed as a prodigy by Rolling Stone at the tender age of 19, Beaver has released a series of albums that have all been favorable reviewed at AllMusic.com, Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, Mojo and No Depression, among many others.
