OCEAN SPRINGS — The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour returns to South Mississippi this weekend with a show in Ocean Springs.
The critically acclaimed show is hitting the road this summer away from its home base in Oxford for a series of shows before returning home for its fall season. The first show of fall is scheduled for Thursday, Sept 7 at 6 p.m. at the Graduate Hotel.
This weekend, the show will take place at the Ocean Springs Community Center. Ocean Springs has become a home away from home of sorts for the prestigious program and an almost annual stop on its Summer Tour.
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Local residents certainly look forward to the Thacker Mountain shows.
“My wife Sara and I are longtime Thacker Mountain Radio fans. We have attended the live taping of the show in Ocean Springs a number of times,” Pascagoula resident Danny “Toad” Smith said. “We have also attended two or three tapings of the Thacker Mountain show at Delta State University.”
Smith and others enjoy the diversity that the program brings to its fans each time a show is recorded.
“Readings by authors with Mississippi connections are always featured, and the list of writers we have heard is long, and includes Natasha Tretheway, Jesmyn Ward, Rick Cleveland, David Sheffield, Mary Miller, and Keith Spera, among others, “Smith added “Musical guests also highlight the show along with the house band, the Yalobushwhackers, led for many years by the late Gerald “Duff” Dorrough. The list of musicians we’ve heard is long and we’ve enjoyed so many of them.”
The latest show announced the upcoming event on its Facebook page recently.
“The tradition continues as Thacker Mountain Radio Hour returns to Ocean Springs on August 26 for a live recording, hosted by Jim Dees and house band, the Yalobushwhackers.
6PM door | 7PM show | 8PM party
This show is held in one of the most charged cultural spaces in the South, the Ocean Springs Community Center, surrounded by Walter Anderson’s landmark murals.
Featuring literary guest Sarah Adlakha, author of “Midnight on the Marne.” With musical guests Marina Orchestra, a New Orleans-based beach rock outfit plus Mississippi’s native son, Cary Hudson.
The Yalobushwackers will play after the show so make plans to stick around!”
The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour just celebrated its 25th anniversary recently. It has brought listeners an eclectic sampling of literature and music over the past two decades plus, and that started back with the first episode broadcast from Off Square Books on Oct. 15, 1997.
Thacker Mountain Radio Hour was founded by former Oxford musicians Caroline Herring and Bryan Ledford, and Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books.
Over the years, the show has featured hundreds of authors and musicians. It now broadcasts around 30 shows per year, with 12 each in the spring and fall along with five or six on the road in cities across the Southeast.
Thacker Mountain’s longtime host, Jim Dees, has emceed nearly 600 shows over the last two decades plus. Dees, who is also an author and contributing editor at Oxford Magazine, joined the show in 2000.
Thacker Mountain Radio is now broadcast by Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Alabama Public Radio, along with the University of Mississippi’s student-run station Rebel Radio 92.1, WYXR Memphis and Chattanooga’s NPR station WUTC.
“We have always enjoyed our Thacker Mountain experiences, and usually see old friends and have also met new ones, including Jim Dees who emcees the show,” Smith concluded. “We haven’t attended Thacker Mountain in Ocean Springs in a few years due to Covid and other complications, but we have VIP tickets for the show this weekend and are very much looking forward to another entertaining evening.”
