Cindy Mangsen and Steve Gillette

There is a rumor I’ve heard going around about some football game thing happening on Saturday evening. Like, the first time two 10th-ranked or better teams have played each other in Fayetteville since 1979. Anyway…

Music, sweet music. That’s what we wanna talk about.

Songwriting duo Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen will team up for a show tonight (Nov. 4) at GoodFolk Productions in Fayetteville. Songs by Gillette have been recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings the Kingston Trio and more. Mangsen, his wife, has performed on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” among other programs. Tickets, which are $15, should be reserved by calling 521-1812.

Elsewhere, Mississippi Fever will take over Legacy Blues for a 9:30 p.m. show and Cletus Got Shot will be at Smoke & Barrel Tavern.

Other shows this weekend include a set by Ryan Montbleau Band at George’s Majestic Lounge on Sunday (11/6, with tickets here) night and one by the Shannon Wurst at Pesto Cafe on Sunday evening.

Need some other tips? Look at our live music calendar, or just ask us in a comment below. We’re always happy to help you find good music that’s live and local.

Shannon Wurst

Local songwriter Shannon Wurst will on Tuesday (July 26) officially release her first album for children, “Green and Growing: roots music for eco-kids.” Inspired by time Wurst spent volunteering at the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Kidsville, the album discusses responsible environmental practices. Wurst will perform songs from the album at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Fayetteville Public Library.

Cletus Got Shot

Fayetteville trio Cletus Got Shot, who released the album “Unamerican” earlier this year, will perform an early Christmas Eve (that’s tonight) set at Smoke & Barrel Tavern in Fayetteville. The show begins around 8 p.m. and will conclude by midnight, when the bar closes for Christmas day. Admission to the show is free.

It’s a pretty light weekend, music wise, but there are still other things to see. Shannon Wurst, for instance, is at Pesto Cafe on Sunday (Dec. 26) night.

Oklahoman and guitar slinger Steve Pryor is at George’s tonight (Dec. 24) for Happy Hour and Candy Lee performs during brunch at Greenhouse Grille on Sunday.

Take a gander at the list to the right if you want to know what else is going on during the weekend.

Oh, and one other thing.

Merry (almost) Christmas.

Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon. Photo by KEVIN KINDER, NWA Media

We’ve devoted a lot of ink — and digital ink, too — to coverage of the first Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Music Festival, which concluded Oct. 16 after a three-day run on Mulberry Mountain near Ozark.

What more could we possibly say?

Not much, really, although we did summarize the festival in Friday’s What’s Up! section in my semi-weekly Listen Here! column. You can read all about that here, if you are a subscriber to our newspaper or its online content.

Anyway, instead of showing more, we thought we’d let you listen in, because that’s what music is all about, right?

Local musician Shannon Wurst was kind enough to let us film her while she played, and the resulting video of the song “Concrete and Clay” follows.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ve also put together a slideshow of some of the images we captured while we were on the festival grounds. Providing the musical soundtrack to the slideshow is festival band (and local act) Charliehorse with the track “Hillbilly Band.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

What was your favorite Harvest Fest memory?

Jeff Austin, left, and Adam Aijala of Yonder Mountain String Band. All photos by KEVIN KINDER, NWA Media

The good vibes — and the soft sway of strummed guitars, banjos and mandolins — kept right on rolling during the second day of the Yonder Mountain String Band Harvest Music Festival.

Everything that happened during Thursday’s opening forays happened again on Friday (Oct. 15), albeit in larger quantities.

The crowd had been arriving at the festival site all day, so by the time I arrived back on the site in the early hours of the afternoon it was already larger than the previous day. This is no Wakarusa-sized crowd, mind you, but it may prove to be the largest Harvest Festival yet. Crowd size at one of these festivals is so preposterously difficult to estimate (since a fair number of campers never leave their campsite) but the numbers may prove to align themselves closely with festival director Brett Mosiman’s prediction of about 5,000.

Despite the volume of people, the festival still kept its charm, and logistically, things seemed smooth, from a fan’s point of view.

The lines to the portable toilets were not too long, the flow of foot traffic out of the campsites was never unbearable and the bands kept order and went on about when they were expected to go with very few exceptions. To get 10 bands and their equipment on and off — and sometimes on again — the same stage is no small feat, but there seemed to little problem doing it yesterday.

They’ll do it all over again today (Saturday, Oct. 16), too, and you have to believe it’ll keep the vibe moving right along.

Speaking of bands on stages, I saw quite a bit of that.

Here’s a little about each of the bands I caught:

5 p.m. — Shannon Wurst, Nomadic Dreams Village

Shannon Wurst, left

The Arkansas songbird Shannon Wurst, who calls Fayetteville home, has been traveling throughout the country in promotion of her most recent solo album “What’s More Honest Than A Song?” To Harvest Fest, she brought a full band with her, and they delivered renditions of both songs she had composed for a solo setting and a few she originally recorded with 3 Penny Acre, the Fayetteville band she was a member of for about a year. Check back later for a video of her onstage.

5:30 p.m. — Split Lip Rayfield, main stage

Disclaimer alert: I try hard to mask my admiration for bands and rate them objectively, not just in this post, but in all of the groups I cover. But it’s hard to keep that mentality with a band you’ve watched perform live approximately 15 times like I have with Split Lip Rayfield. So, take this with a grain of salt if you must, but the trio from Kansas was sharp on Friday evening, playing with fervor when they wanted to and delivering bluegrass ballads anytime they wanted to do that. They kept it at a higher tempo most of the evening, which is a wise move. There missteps all came during the slower songs, as it became harder for the fans to dance along with them. When they played high-speed numbers such as “Rig or Cross,” “Crazy” and “How Many Biscuits Can You Eat?” the crowd was positively boiling in front of them.

7:30 p.m. — Leftover Salmon, main stage

Vince Herman and friends in Leftover Salmon have played at the Harvest Festival before, and they acknowledged how nice it is to be back at the site. But they didn’t just acknowledge it, they altered lyrics in songs to accommodate the settings. Perhaps that could happen at any venue, and perhaps it does, but the lyrics sounded authentic here, and the band played with such joy it would be easy to forgive them even if they loathed Arkansas.

Matt Flinner of Leftover Salmon

They localized it even further, giving Fayetteville-based KXUA DJ Daniel Gold a shoutout, telling the crowd, which was considerable at that point in the night, that it was Gold’s birthday. Happy birthday, Daniel.

The group wasn’t just there to shout out birthday wishes, of course, and they spent the night showcasing the sounds of banjo and guitar. Keyboards got their turn too, especially during the middle of the set during a boogie that had the crowd moving.

Update: It was NOT Daniel Gold’s birthday. That was something Vince Herman said to be funny.

9 p.m. — Charliehorse, Nomadic Dreams Village

The local country rockers Charliehorse got a showcase on the festival’s smallest stage, and had to compete with the end of Leftover Salmon’s set for listeners, but a decent crowd welcomed the opening notes of their set. The band has gone through a few lineup changes recently, most notably adding guitarist Isayah Warford, who has been featured in many local music projects. I only watched Charliehorse play two songs, but his presence was immediately made known with a screaming solo.

9:30 p.m. — Yonder Mountain String Band, main stage

They’ve got their name on the marquee, so to speak, so Yonder Mountain String Band is by default the biggest deal. It’s also up to them to prove themselves worthy of that designation.

Their set started about 30 minutes late, the largest exception to what I told you earlier about everyone starting on time. Their set was late, however, because they allowed Leftover Salmon a longer set than was scheduled, so I doubt there were too many who complained.

They made up for being a little tardy by playing into the early morning hours of this morning, offering songs of their own such as “East Nashville Easter” and those of others, like a high-tempo and short take on The Beatles’ “Get By With a Little Help From My Friends.”

They got a little help from their friends, too, as a mandolin player I did not catch the name of (sorry!) and guitarist Larry Keel joined them on mandolin and guitar, respectively, for a few songs.

That resulted in one of the highlights of the night, a mandolin duel between the guest mandolin player and Jeff Austin, YMSB’s mandolin player. That transitioned into a guitar duel between Keel and Adam Aijala, guitar player for Yonder. I think the guests won, although that’s not the point of such exercises.

Yonder

It’s to give the crowd something different, and Yonder certainly went the extra mile to make sure that would be the case, at least while they were onstage. The most advanced light show of the festival accompanied their set.

They took a break after about 80 minutes of playing. They came back for a stomping second set with included the traditional “Man of Constant Sorrow” as one of the closers.

They get another shot to try and top it tonight, with another show at 9:30 p.m. on the mainstage. Also taking place today are (or were, depending on what time you read this) Elephant Revival, Sam Bush, Keller Williams and The VooDoo Lounge Gypsies, among many others.

Check back for photos from today’s activities tomorrow.

Mountain Sprout

This year’s Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Music Festival, in addition to the national bluegrass talent, has not forgotten about our area’s talent.

Mixed in with headlining acts such as Yonder Mountain String Band, Split Lip Rayfield, Railroad Earth and more are local acts such Shannon Wurst, Charliehorse, 1 Oz. Jig and many more.

All of those artists will play during the course of the festival, which takes place through the early morning hours of Sunday at Mulberry Mountain, located on Arkansas 23 north of Ozark.

One of the more prominently featured local acts is Mountain Sprout, a collection of wooly bearded pickers and players from Eureka Springs. The quartet, which began after a few of the songwriters in the group moved to the area following Hurricane Katrina’s assault on the Gulf Coast, performed last night on the festival’s main stage and will perform again from 2:30-3:30 a.m. Sunday on the festival’s Harvest Stage.

Two years ago, Mountain Sprout, as they say it, “crashed” Harvest Fest. They weren’t invited as an official artist, so they played beside an RV for anyone who would listen.

There were invited back to play at Wakarusa, the summer festival that takes place on the same grounds where Harvest Fest is held, then invited for last year’s Harvest Fest. They’re back again this year, too.

I chatted with lead vocalist Grayson VanSickle about the band’s growth, the difference between serious songs and funny songs (Mountain Sprout is definitely more on the humorous side of things) its sometimes bawdy song topics and the Harvest Festival gigs.

You can read that story here, if you are a subscriber to our paper or its online products.

If you can’t catch them at Harvest Fest — ticket info here — the group will perform Oct. 23 at George’s Majestic Lounge and will also play several times in Eureka Springs during Halloween weekend.

The Honey Dewdrops

We told you a little earlier about the Fayetteville Roots Festival, which comes to Greenhouse Grille in Fayetteville on Sunday (Aug. 29).

So, maybe it’s time we told you about one of the bands. We asked a few questions of The Honey Dewdrops, and they were kind enough to answer them despite being quite busy on a tour through Colorado.

The Honey Dewdrops, the husband and wife duo of Kagey Parrish and Laura Wortman, perform at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Here’s what we wanted to know and what they had to say:

Kevin Kinder: “Tell me a little bit about your upcoming record, “These Old Roots.”

The Honey Dewdrops: Our new record is based around traditional or roots themes and sounds with nine original songs and one traditional. We write our own songs and we’re influenced by old country and Southern Appalachian mountain music — with this cd we take what we love about those styles (true stories, earthy instrumental work, harmony singing) and make something new. We recorded the songs live (no overdubs, punch ins, etc.) because we love the energy and in the moment sound you get listening to live recordings. It’s also nice to just play and sing the songs, that’s what we love to do.

KK: When will it be it released?

THD: It’s out now and will be for sale at Fayetteville Roots.

KK: Does it follow in the path of “If The Sun Will Shine,” [the band’s previous album] or does it take another direction?

THD: It follows “If the Sun Will Shine” in that it’s the two of us singing and playing songs we wrote. We feel like the duets are a great way to make music and we’re invested in exploring how that works, this is another duet cd. The sound of “These Old Roots” takes a slightly different direction because we focused on writing songs that take traditional sounds in a new or contemporary direction. Our goal was to take the older influences and write some new songs from the southern mountains. We weren’t going for bluegrass or old-time sound specifically. We’re interested in the energy and emotion from the old songs and how we can translate that today.

KK: Considering that you recorded the songs around a single microphone with no dubbing, does it feel authentic to your live sound?

THD: Yes, what we sound like live is what we sound like on recordings.

KK: Where have you found songwriting inspiration for this album?

THD: Think we already answered this one a little above. Inspiration came from older American folk music. Most of that involved playing string instruments and singing and came before bluegrass. The energy and emotion in those songs have been a big influence. To us the stories and emotions feel true and appealing. That music’s look at life seems to us to be just that, nothing more, and that is very powerful.

KK: Tell me what winning “A Prairie Home Companion”’s 2008 talent show has meant for your career.

THD: We sent our songs to the contest on a whim. We’d been teaching full-time and playing as a hobby for several years. Both of us grew up listening to the show and heard the announcement about the contest and decided we had nothing to lose. At the time, we’d only recorded two or three songs and that’s what they listened to on our Myspace page.

The experience was really good for us. We’d never performed in front of so many people. Getting to do such a serious and professional show opened up a wide world of possibilities including quitting our jobs and playing music full-time. After the show, folks asked us for CDs (which we didn’t have then) and we got a swarm of emails from listeners telling us how much they enjoyed our sound. It was a real boost of confidence and we like to say that our appearance on ‘APHC’ made us take ourselves much more seriously. We recorded our first record and quit our jobs a year later.

KK: We’re having our first Fayetteville Roots Festival this weekend, and clearly, roots and Americana have been finding new fans recently. What do you think is responsible for for the genre’s upswing?

THD: We all saw a real turn of things after the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” because of the soundtrack. It’s just been progressing since. There’s also been an increase in these types of festivals where the center of attention is really ON the music and not the scene. The purity and honesty of this genre can reach everyone in a way — the more publicity Americana music receives, the more people it reaches.

KK: What was it about this style of music that attracted you to it?

THD: The old songs we’ve been listening to for years are interesting, dark, genuine — coming from a time when this type of music was an expression of a hard life being lived. We’re big fans of songs that look at the human condition and conflict and this type of playing and singing is rooted in those things.

KK: You mention this trip to Fayetteville will be a return trip for you. When was the last time you were here and what was the gig?

THD: During the radio show, we got to know Pat Villines and Mattie Speece (the second-place finishers) really well and they are from NW Arkansas. We had a lot in common and really wanted to do a few gigs together. That summer, we traveled to Arkansas and played several shows with them including Mike Shirkey’s GoodFolk Productions in Fayetteville. It is still one of our favorite shows that we’ve played. We also made a stop through last year for a house concert hosted by 3 Penny Acre.

KK: Are you familiar with any of the other talent on the Fayetteville Roots Festival roster? Have you played with any of them before?

THD: With all the traveling we do, names of musicians are always popping up in conversations or at the venues we play. Everyone in this genre makes a very similar circuit because of the types of venues. We’re really close with the 3 Penny Acre folks and have known Shannon Wurst for just as long. We’ve also met several of the acts at the International Folk Alliance Conference held in Memphis every February. We haven’t shared the stage with any of the others but certainly know who they are and love their music. Bryan Hembree has put together an excellent line-up of talent and we’re really looking forward to hearing the other bands as well as playing at this inaugural festival.

Shannon Wurst

Shannon Wurst knows she had a good thing going in 3 Penny Acre.

Their sound was pure, fun and, as she says, representative of the Ozarks.

But she also knows her dream: to be a solo artist. So the Alma native, who has also had brief careers as a whitewater rafting guide and a dog musher, is going it alone.

On the heels of her amicable departure for the Northwest Arkansas folk band, Wurst will release her second solo album, “What’s More Honest Than A Song?” at a show tonight (March 5) at the Smoke & Barrel Tavern in Fayetteville.

Wurst will also use tonight’s show as the starting point for a tour that will take her to the West Coast, East Coast and everywhere in between. Her tour is with a group titled the Swamp Family Band, composed of a group of songwriters who will take turns backing each other’s songs while on the road.

Wurst classifies her sophomore effort as a more honest effort in than her first album, 2007′s “Sunday Pie,” in that she wrote most of the songs featured on the new album.

It’s also a green effort — all of the album packaging is made from recyclable material and Wurst has even included a few flower seeds to plant for everyone who buys the record.

Tonight’s show is expected to begin about 10 p.m.

Before you go, take a listen to a couple of Wurst’s new tracks. The first is a reworked version of a 3 Penny Acre track that supplies the album title, “White Walls,” about a friend’s recovery from alcoholism.

The second is the song “Ivory Bill,” which Wurst wrote for the Arkansas Heritage Commission and performed at schools across the state.

“White Walls”:

White Walls

“Ivory Bill”:

Ivory Bill

3 Penny Acre

We know that good things come to an end.

And one did on Friday night at GoodFolk Productions in Fayetteville, where local folk act 3 Penny Acre played their last set together as a quartet as guitarist/vocalist/banjo player Shannon Wurst has announced her intentions to pursue a solo career on a full-time basis.

It was just two years ago that the group came together, and I was at the first concert.

As playing 100 or so gigs per year will do to a band, the group that was onstage Friday night was a much improved version of their former self. Their interplay was crisp, their harmonies rich and their presence commanding.

The night included a set by Wurst as a solo artist and then a set by 3 Penny Acre as a trio, including members Bayard Blain on mandolin and guitar, Bryan Hembree on guitar and Bernice Hembree on upright bass, seemingly to prepare everyone for the inevitable split.

The four then converged for a combined set that culminated in hugs and bittersweet tributes.

Wurst’s solo tracks will be part of the album “What’s More Honest Than A Song,” which she intends to release later this month.

The songs played by 3 Penny Acre as a trio come courtesy of the album “Highway 71,” which is expected to be released in May.

The bulk of the songs played during their combined set were primarily from the band’s self-titled 2009 album.

This is a band of infinite charm and a knack for writing a story songs of depth and poignancy. That certainly won’t end as they go separate ways, but, considering some of the accolades the band has earned together, there is some uncertainty about the future.

Good things often do come to an end. Let’s hope that other good things can come from those ends.