The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour returns to the Neshoba County Fair, outside Philadelphia, MS, Saturday, July 27 at 8 pm at the Founder’s Square Pavilion. Guests will include acclaimed southern novelist Joshilyn Jackson, Grammy-nominated bluesman R.L. Boyce and Texas guitar wunderkind, Jack Barksdale.
Hosts are Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers.
No live broadcast. This program will be recorded for air on Saturday, August 3 at 7 pm on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and 9 pm on Alabama Public Radio.
Information on Fair tickets, parking, etc: http://www.neshobacountyfair.org/.
The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour is heard in Neshoba County every Saturday at 7 pm on WMAW 88.1 FM.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson’s newest book, Never Have I Ever (William Morrow), launches July 29 but will be available at this show. The novel combines suspense and nervous laughs when a book club’s wine-filled evening devolves into the spilling of deep, dark secrets. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game of blackmail and intense intrigue.
Diabolically entertaining, this is a tale of betrayal and deception, filled with dark twists and leavened by Joshilyn Jackson’s trademark humor. Never Have I Ever explores what happens when the transgressions of our past come back with a vengeance.
When asked to describe her work, Jackson responds: “Weirdo Fiction with a Shot of Southern Gothic Influence for Smart People Who Can Catch the Nuances but Who Like Narrative Drive, and Who Have a Sense of Humor but Who Are Willing to Go Down to Dark Places.”
Joshilyn learned to scuba-dive to write Never Have I Ever, and now she and her husband Scott are avid divers. They live in Decatur, Georgia with their “two kids, two entitled cats, and a modestly-sized dog.”
Jackson’s previous eight books, including Almost Sisters, Gods in Alabama and Backseat Saints, have been translated into a dozen languages, won a Southern Independent Book Association’s Novel of the Year award, have twice won Georgia Author of the Year awards and have been a finalist for the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction.
R.L. Boyce is a Grammy-nominated blues musician from Como, Mississippi. He began his career as a drummer with Otha Turner, Jessie Mae Hemphill and RL Burnside before moving to guitar. His 2017 album Roll and Tumble (Waxploitation) received a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album (losing out to revered blues traditionalists, the Rolling Stones). Tumble was co-produced by Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars who also plays on the record. Dickinson says, “They say the greatest players are so tight they are loose. This is that.”
Adds Boyce: “Most of it, when somethin’ hits my mind, I just start. I don’t do no rehearsin’ with nobody. I don’t do nothin’ like that. Whatever hits me, I jump in on it.”
Jack Barksdale is an 11-year-old singer/songwriter from Texas. Inspired by folk, rock, and blues legends, Jack started performing original music at age nine and has already shared the stage with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Will Kimbrough, and Hayes Carll.
Barksdale’s latest album, Live From Niles City, will be released June 28. His previous release is the EP, Revival.
