OHR Presents: Folk Nouveau

This week, postmodern folk singer-songwriter McKain Lakey and neo-acoustic folk-rock duo Jamie Lou & Garrett Brolund recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas. Also, interviews with these innovative trouveurs. Artists featured on this week’s show embody the spirit of folk nouveau or “new folk.” They’ve taken in sounds and stories of traditional folk music as well as modern influences to build new sounds and stories bridging their own personal experiences to this ancient art. “Sometimes the pursuit of our greater humanity involves jumping into life head first. That’s what McKain Lakey does. You can tell by her songs.  Armed with George the trusty road cat, a carful of instruments, and all the fight of a rambling, rural-raised, queer femme wanderer, McKain Lakey is one to be reckoned with. She’s the rare human who feels as comfortable wielding a chisel as she does a guitar, who can be as often spotted behind the soundboard in a crowded venue as discussing the intersections of race and gender in old time music with a classroom full of 5th graders.  Described by What’s Up Magazine as ‘a time capsule unearthed, fine-tuned and re-imagined’, Lakey draws creative inspiration from far corners of the American music tradition, tracing the lines of musical lineage that connect Old Time to Rockabilly, Country to Cajun to Dixieland. She’s a dedicated student of tradition, but at once unafraid to stare down convention through the modern lens of her lived experience. Her upcoming album, Somewhere, blurs lines of old and new, referencing musical textures of past eras while unabashedly exploring topics of mental health, family separation, rural identity and queer love. ‘My introduction to American folk music was so rooted in the knowledge that I am a part of living tradition, a web connected across time and distance, and built by generations of creative and resilient people.’ - McKain Lakey” https://www.mckainlakey.com/about “Florida native Jamie Lou Connolly began writing and sharing her songs with family at the age of 15 in Florida. But just three years later, the songs and most everything took a back seat to survival, as tragedy left her homeless in a cold and snowy Colorado. By 2010, she’d rebounded and relocated to Russellville, Arkansas and began playing live in the local open mic and songwriter scene. Jamie Lou performed solo, as one half of a folk duo, and as front woman for a number of full bands.” Her latest project is a full electric band called “Jamie Lou and the Hullabaloo.” For her acoustic performance at Ozark Folk Center State Park, Jamie Lou is joined by singer, guitarist, songwriter and fellow Jamie Lou and the Hullabaloo band member Garrett Brolund. - https://www.jamielouandthehullabaloo.com/theband In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1975 archival recording of Ozark original Dwight Moody performing the traditional song “In the Pines,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. Author, folklorist and songwriter Charley Sandage presents an historical portrait of the people, events and indomitable spirit of Ozark culture that resulted in the creation of the Ozark Folk Center State Park and its enduring legacy of music and craft. In this episode, Charley discusses the many and varied styles of folk music captured by legendary song collector Alan Lomax.