OHR Presents: Leyla McCalla




Ozark Highlands Radio show

Summary: This week, New York born Haitian-American classical & folk music sensation and former Carolina Chocolate Drops member Leyla McCalla recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with Leyla. Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark original & hammered dulcimer legend Jay Round performing a medley of traditional Irish tunes. Author, folklorist, and songwriter Charley Sandage presents an introduction to Ozark geology, featuring an interview with Arkansas Geological Survey supervisor Angela Chandler. Leyla McCalla is a Haitian-American living in New Orleans, who sings in French, Haitian Creole and English, and plays cello, tenor banjo and guitar. Deeply influenced by traditional Creole, Cajun and Haitian music, as well as by American jazz and folk, her music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful and witty — it vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive and contemporary. Violist Free Feral - Guitarist, banjoist, and triangle Daniel Tremblay Leyla’s debut album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, was named 2013’s Album of the Year by the London Sunday Times and Songlines magazine, and received additional raves from a number of other publications, including the New York Times, Boston Globe and Offbeat, for its haunting mixture of music and message. - https://leylamccalla.com In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers an archival recording of Ozark original & hammered dulcimer legend Jay Round performing a medley of traditional Irish tunes, from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. Author, folklorist, and songwriter Charley Sandage presents an historical portrait of the people, events, and indomitable spirit of Ozark culture that resulted in the creation of the Ozark Folk Center State Park and its enduring legacy of music and craft. This episode gives us an introduction to Ozark geology, featuring an interview with Arkansas Geological Survey supervisor Angela Chandler.