Thacker Mountain Radio, in its early incarnation, debuted on October 15, 1997. First billed as the Words and Music Community Radio Hour, the show rose in the midst of a radio renaissance in Oxford at a time when four different live radio shows were being broadcast from various venues around town. Words and Music began as a collaboration between Square Books owner Richard Howorth and two ambitious local musicians, Bryan Ledford and Caroline Herring, whose band The Sincere Ramblers hosted the show in Howorth's cavernous used book shop, Off Square Books. The free admission and diverse program, mixing author reading and live musical performances, was an instant attraction, and the show quickly evolved into Thacker Mountain Radio.

Thacker Mountain Radio filled a void for non-bar entertainment in the college town of Oxford, and as its audience grew over the years, the show's personality formed through a series of emcees - Tom Arriola, Peter Slade, and the current host, Jim Dees - and house bands, most recently the Taylor Grocery Band, featuring show founder Bryan Ledford. (Herring has gone on to a successful recording career but makes frequent returns to the show as a guest musician.)

While the show was designed as a free community radio program for the people of Oxford and Lafayette County, Thacker Mountain Radio widened its content to attract a statewide audience when Mississippi Public Broadcasting began airing the show in the fall of 2002. From its inception, however, the show has benefitted from Oxford's far-reaching appeal, which draws authors and musicians from all over the world.

Among the many writers who have read from their work on Thacker Mountain Radio are Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Robert Olen Butler, Southern comedian Roy Blount Jr., beloved Southern novelist Lee Smith, eccentric journalist George Plimpton, iconic crime writer Elmore Leonard, U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and a host of international best sellers, from British novelists Patrick McGrath and Martin Amis to Tasmania's Richard Flanagan and Turkey's Orhan Pamuk. Thacker Mountain Radio has always celebrated Mississippi writers, and such favorites as Willie Morris, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, Donna Tartt, Julia Reed, Will Campbell and Lewis Nordan have all read on the show.

Thacker Mountain Radio has also played host to world-class musicians in various styles - from bluegrass and jazz to blues and folk. Among the most popular artists who ever graced the Thacker stage are Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, the Del McCoury Band, Marshall Chapman, Sleepy LaBouef, Peter Rowan, the Hackberry Ramblers, Precious Bryant and Spencer Bohren. Renowned Mississippi musicians such as Marty Stuart, Jim Dickinson and T-Model Ford have all performed on the show numerous times, and the show has charted the progress of many up-and-coming Mississippi musicians with frequent appearances by the North Mississippi All-Stars, Jo Jo Herman, Claire Holley, Cory Branan, Cary Hudson, Laurie Stirratt, Duff Dorrough and Guelel Kumba, a Senegalese musician who came to Oxford and so fell in love with the town after his Thacker Mountain Radio performance that he moved there.