Stone Bank, Ozark Highlands Radio team up for ‘Cabin Fever 2020’ concert

COVID-19 has shuttered many festivals and annual celebrations around the state including the Arkansas Folk Festival in Mountain View. There’s a group trying to put together a concert in its place.

Working with Daren Dortin, executive producer of the Ozark Highlands Radio program, a handful of area performers were chosen to perform. The online concert is scheduled to stream May 28, 7:30 p.m. at www.cabinfever.stonebank.com. It can be followed on Facebook. The performance will also be archived on the Stone Bank YouTube Channel.

“After the annual Arkansas Folk Festival was postponed and eventually cancelled, we decided we had to get creative and try to honor the music that has become synonymous with Mountain View,” said Kevin Compton, chairman of Stone Bank, which is based in the Stone County seat of Mountain View.

“We have a relationship with Ozark Highlands Radio, which is produced by the Ozark Folk Center and airs on over 130 public and community radio stations all across the country,” said Kirby Williams, Executive Vice President of Stone Bank. “We help sponsor their national broadcast and their weekly broadcast on KUAR, the Little Rock NPR affiliate.”

Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly one-hour program featuring musical performances, past and present, as well as segments on the cultural history and tradition of the greater Ozarks region. Ozark Highland Radio’s on-air host Dave Smith will emcee the evening event. Also featured is Ozark Highlands Radio and Mountain View personality Mark Jones, who has a regular segment on the weekly radio show.

“Cabin Fever 2020” will feature performances from some of the Mountain View area’s finest musicians including, Grace Stormont, Love Holler, the Bow Tanglers and The Gravel Yard Bluegrass Band, Pam Setser, Ed Nicholson and Stan D’Aubin. Here is more on the acts to perform:

• Mark Jones is an accomplished claw-hammer banjo player, storyteller and sound engineer and was there when it happened at the Ozark Folk Center in the early 1970’s and 1980’s. He comes from a family of talented musicians and carries on the signature “Jones Style” banjo playing he learned from his father, Grandpa Jones
• Love Holler is an old-time string band that hails from Batesville. Twin sisters Emma and Caroline Russell and their dad, Stacy, play old time, gospel and traditional country music.
• The Bow Tanglers are an old-time fiddle duo based out of central Arkansas.
  Everett and Emily Elam perform traditional Ozark fiddle music and accompany tunes with historical anecdotes.
• Grace Stormont is a vocalist and multi-instrumental performer who plays old time, folk, gospel and jazz music. She is one of the area’s young performers who has taken hold of the traditional music of this region.
• Gravel Yard Bluegrass Band formed unexpectedly three years ago in a gravel lot near the courthouse square in Mountain View.
• Pam Setser grew up on the Ozark Folk Center State Park stage and started playing music with her parents when the park opened in the early 1970’s. She is a multi-instrumentalist, proficient on guitar, mountain dulcimer and spoons and performs frequently with the Leatherwoods among other musicians in Stone County.
• Ed Nicholson and Stan D’Aubin are premier pickers from Northwest Arkansas. Ed has played with numerous groups through the years and is one Arkansas’s finest guitarists. Stan is a world-class mandolin player who also plays in several groups.

In addition to Mountain View, Stone Bank has locations in Little Rock, Harrison, White Hall, DeWitt and Gillett. Ozark Highlands Radio is produced and recorded at the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View with major funding provided by the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism.