Summary: This week, a pair of fascinating internet born musical celebrities, Hillary Klug & Abby the Spoon Lady recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with these online auteurs. The internet and its many social media outlets have created a space where regular folks can showcase their talents to the entire world. This vast endless digital showcase is mentoring a renaissance in folk music, culture, and expression. Occasionally, these online expressions take on a life of their own and go “viral.” It’s happened over and again, turning regular people living relatively quiet lives into international superstars quite literally overnight. In this episode of Ozark Highlands Radio, we feature two of these celebrious viral VIP’s. Hillary Klug is a buck dancer, award winning fiddle player and street performer from Nashville, Tennessee. She began as a dance & fiddle teacher but became a street performer after realizing that she could make a good living fiddling and dancing for tourists in Nashville’s art district. Quite by accident, Hillary became an internet sensation when in 2018 she posted a video to Facebook of herself performing that went viral. Now, with over one million Facebook followers and over one hundred thousand YouTube subscribers, Hillary is an international celebrity. For her performance recorded here at Ozark Folk Center State Park, Hillary is accompanied by her teacher and mentor, five time Tennessee fiddle champion and multi-instrumentalist Jim Wood. Also accompanying Hillary is multi-instrumentalist Ben Ayers. Together, they present an eclectic mix of traditional old-time music and original tunes, along with Hillary’s fancy percussive foot work. - https://hillaryklug.com Abby the Spoon Lady, born Abby Roach, is an American musician, radio personality, and free speech activist. Her music focuses on the American roots genre. In 2017, she posted a hastily made YouTube video for her friends for an event called Play Music on the Front Porch Day. The video went viral with over 44 million views and Abby became an international celebrity overnight. She now has almost a half million followers on Facebook and almost 400 thousand subscribers to her YouTube channel. Abby first started street performing and busking as a means to make money traveling across the United States, primarily hopping freight trains. She taught herself to play the spoons and traveled all over the United States by hitchhiking and railroad. She states that landing in Asheville, North Carolina, was completely an accident and that she took the wrong train. Today she hosts storytelling events where she discusses the lifestyle of the American hobo. She spent a good amount of her time traveling, recording the stories, interviews and songs of other American travelers. Abby is an advocate for street performance and free speech. In 2014 she was instrumental in developing a group called the Asheville Buskers Collective which advocates for street performance within the city of Asheville, North Carolina. Today she records buskers through a project called Busker Broadcast, and records interviews and songs of travelers passing through Asheville. Abby is accompanied on her Ozark Folk Center performance by singer-songwriter and one many band, Chris Rodrigues. - https://spoonlady.com/about/ In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a recording from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives of harmonica virtuoso Lonnie Glosson making his harmonica literally talk. 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. In this episode, Charley speaks with Ozark Folk Center broom maker Shawn Hoefer about the history and process of traditional broom making.
