You’re invited! The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour is hosting its annual membership party on Saturday, Oct. 19, 5-8 pm at Wonderbird Spirits in Taylor, MS, 618 County Road 303, (aka Old Taylor Road) – seven miles south of Oxford.
Food, drink, live music!
**Silent auction bidding now open: Thacker s Annual Silent Auction.
Plenty of parking Saturday night. (Ole Miss football bye week). Early evening – Ubers accessible.
Admission is free to members. Memberships, good for a year, may be renewed or purchased online https://thackermountain.kindful.com/ or at the door. ($120 individual – $180 family).
Email: Contact – Thacker Mountain Radio Hour
Food: Taylor-area eateries will provide delish dishes including Grit Restaurant, the Offbeat In General Store and Taylor Grocery and Restaurant.
Drinks: Signature cocktail from Wonderbird as well as beer, wine.
Silent auction items include artwork by local favorites including Glennray Tutor, Ann Brock, John Davis, Milly West and Yerger Andre and experiences including a Trout Valley Quail hunt and VIP passes to Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, MS;
Dinner for eight at the home of James Beard Award-winning chef Vishwesh Bhatt;
A cocktail party for 20 includes a private performance of Faulkner’s Nobel Prize speech by acclaimed Faulkner actor John Maxwell; also, a one-of-a-kind, hand-turned cedar bowl, made from the east red cedar trees at Rowan Oak;
Caribbean percussion lessons from renowned percussionist Ricky Burkhead;
A four-day stay at a luxurious St. Simons Island, GA villa, (You know you need this!) plus many other unique (some, mouth-watering) items!
Silent auction bidding now open! Get started here!
Get rhythm: Entertainment for Saturday evening will be provided by the “Best Live Radio Band in the Land,” Thacker’s eclectic house band, the Yalobushwhackers, with drummer, Ricky Burkhead; bassist Slade Lewis; pianist Keon Love and guitarist/vocalist Paul Tate.
Special guests: Also Saturday night, novelist-turned-songwriter Michael Farris Smith & The Smokes will debut Michael’s original tunes from his forthcoming six-song EP, Lostville.
The EP drops on Nov. 8 – Order the first single, “Stranded” and preorder vinyl here.
“I didn’t really know we had an album when we were recording it,” Smith says of Lostville, his first foray into recording his own songs with a band for an actual record.
“Plus, we were recording at Jim Dickinson’s Zebra Ranch,” he adds, referring to the Coldwater, MS home of the late producer, Memphis shaman, former Yalobushwhacker (and originator of the name) and Bob Dylan confidant.
“That’s such a hallowed spot for North Mississippi music.”
Indeed. In the mid-1990s, when Dylan visited Dickinson at the Zebra Ranch, even the Great Poet felt the vibe.
“A man could get a lot of thinking done in a place like this,” he reportedly told Dickinson.
Jimbo Mathus, something of a shaman himself, produced Lostville, and well knows the world boogie, cosmic mojo of Dickinson’s studio.
“Lostville” continues the collaborative efforts of Southern writers and great Southern musicians,” Mathus declares. “While recording at Zebra Ranch we felt we were watched over by the late Jim Dickinson in absentia.”
Dickinson, our beloved friend and First Yalobushwhacker (2005-09), is still with us through his beautiful family, his unparalleled musical legacy and, of course, his posthumous, don’t-miss memoir, I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone.
For novelist Smith, who has an international readership and two produced screenplays under his belt, Saturday’s Thacker party will be yet another milestone in his multi-faceted career.
“The Thacker party will be the first time we’ve played this record all the way through in front of an audience,” he notes. “We’re excited and I have to admit, I’m a little scared.
“But I can’t wait for Saturday night!”