On air/ online: Wednesday, June 25 – Sunday, June 29 – From Greenwood, MS, the heart of the Mississippi Delta! Recorded at The Carl Center (formerly the Historic Elks Lodge) in downtown Greenwood. Big thanks to our friends at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta and Guaranty Bank and Trust Company for making it happen!
Guests:
Author: Boyce Upholt – and his history of the Mississippi River, The Great River – The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi – 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction
Musical guests: Indie songwriter Anne Freeman and blues dynamo Nikki Hill.
Hosts: Jim Dees with house band, Paul Tate and the Yalobushwhackers
Special NOTE: We at the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour love guitars, half our crew are dedicated fret freaks.
We’d like to highlight a very cool exhibit showing all summer at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta in Greenwood: America at the Crossroads.
From the National Guitar Museum, the show is a must see for guitar fans, history buffs or just plain folks who love a good song… and a good story.
From Eddie Van Halen to Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Dick Dale to Mother Maybelle Carter… and that’s just the first page of the program!
The show runs from May 29 through Sept. 25 and is highly recommended. Details here.
Broadcast times for our Great River show:
Wednesday, June 25 – 10 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN
Thursday, June 26 – 8 am (CT) WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN.
6 pm (CT) WUMS 92.1 University of Mississippi
Saturday, June 28– 7 pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9 pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, June 29
3 pm (ET) WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
Archived here: Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Podcast, iHeart Radio
Boyce Upholt is author of The Great River – The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi (Norton).
The book won the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction.
Author and Great River reviewer, Ralph Eubanks, noted that his late friend, (and Mississippi Delta native) Willie Morris, “would be thrilled that a book all about the great river is being awarded a prize in his name.”
In this landmark of natural history, Upholt tells the epic story of a wild and unruly river and the centuries of efforts to control it.
Boyce Upholt is a journalist and essayist whose writing has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, the Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications.
He is the winner of a James Beard Award for investigative journalism, and he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
“The Great River is easily one of the best books ever written about the Mississippi.” – John Barry, author, Rising Tide.
“[A]n exceptional natural history that never loses sight of the human players involved.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review).
“… fascinating lore alongside jolting conservation truths.” Garden & Gun
Blues/rock musician Nikki Hill, originally from Durham, NC, has honed her gritty blues/rock/punk style after years living in musical Mississippi River towns such as St. Louis, New Orleans, and, currently, Memphis, TN.
Her releases include the EP Soul Meets Country, Heavy Hearts Hard Fists and Feline Roots as well as the single, Don’t Be the Sucker.
“Think Tina Turner fronting AC/DC and you’ll have half of the picture. She’s a machine…you’ve got no excuse if you miss seeing her…
Nikki Hill is a revelation, her band masters of rocket-fueled bluesy swing, her voice the beacon which calls you home… a vocal powerhouse who don’t mess around.” — Rolling Stone
Anne Freeman is a singer-songwriter based in Oxford, MS, originally from the Mississippi Delta.
Her releases include the single, “City Watched Me Burn” from her album, Keep It Close, which bridges indie pop and alternative country.
