The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour returns to the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, MS for a very special show featuring Mississippi’s new Poet Laureate Ann Fisher-Wirth.
Musical guests will be Louisiana-native songwriter A.J. Haynes and Fairhope, AL songwriter, Molly Thomas with accompanist, Wet Willie co-founder, guitarist Rick Hirsch.
The show is hosted by Jim Dees with Paul Tate and the Yalobushwhackers with vocalist Mary Frances Massey.
The show is presented by the R&B Feder Foundation with additional support from Gulf Hills Hotel & Resort, Ocean Springs, and Visit Mississippi.
Airtimes:
Wednesday, Sept. 3 – 10 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN
Thursday, Sept. 4 – 8 am (CT) WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN
Thursday, Sept. 4 – 6 pm (CT) WUMS 92.1 FM University of Mississippi
Saturday, Sept. 6 – 3 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN
7 pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9 pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, Sept. 7
3 pm (ET) WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
Archived here: Thacker Mountain Radio Hour / WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN.
Ann Fisher-Wirth is the Mississippi Poet Laureate for the term 2025-2029.
Her recent books of poetry include Paradise is Jagged (Terrapin Books, 2023).
Also, with co-editor Laura-Gray Street, she has published, Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity UP, 2025).
A senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute, Ann has had Fulbrights to Switzerland and Sweden. A Fulbright Specialist Award to lecture on ecopoetry at Cappadocia University, Turkey, was cancelled by the current State Department.
She has had residencies at Djerassi, Hedgebrook, Storyknife, among others.
Ann has received the 2023 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Literature and Poetry from the Mississippi Arts Commission, as well as three Mississippi Arts Commission Poetry Fellowships, the MS Institute of Arts Poetry Award, and fifteen Pushcart Prize nominations.
Ann retired in 2022 from the University of Mississippi, where she taught in the MFA program and directed the Environmental Studies program.
Ann was a valued instructor in yoga for many years at Southern Star in Oxford.
Alabama based singer songwriter Molly Thomas has released the single, “Crash,” from her forthcoming, fifth studio album, Tumble Home. The ten-song collection is due in September 2025.
Written and recorded in the aftermath of an August 1, 2023 car accident that nearly took her life, “Crash” is an unflinchingly intimate track.
Her previous recent releases include the singles “Everything’s Going to Be Okay” and a cover of John Prine’s “Hello in There.”
Thomas was born in Mississippi and spent work years in Nashville before making Fairhope, AL her home.
Veteran guitarist Rick Hirsch (Greg Allman, Bonnie Bramlett, Joan Armatrading) is a founding member of the blues/soul rock band, Wet Willie, and co-wrote their #10 hit, “Keep on Smiling.”
After decades in Los Angeles, Hirsch now lives part-time in Mobile, AL and works with songwriter Molly Thomas.
He is a member of the Alabama and Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Songwriter A.J. Haynes is an artist, singer, songwriter, educator and activist.
Her latest single is, “For the Canaries.”
A.J. is the leader of genre-expansive soul power band Seratones, acclaimed both nationally and internationally.
The Seratones’ albums include, Get Gone (2016), Power (2019) and Love and Algorhythms (2023 New West Records).
Rolling Stone called the band’s sound a “fitful collision of punk, soul and jazz echoing out of a shed strewn with whiskey bottles,” while Pitchfork praised the group’s “soulful grease and punky grit.”
A.J. Haynes and the Seratones rocked their set at this year’s 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They were joined onstage by Thacker pals, Marcella Simien and Talibah Safiya.
