Ozarks duo share vocals and instruments that 'reflects layers of history ... and the recognition that rural voices are important'

Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu perform at the Library of Congress in August.
(Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

Since the 1800s, music from the American Ozarks has combined instrumentation and vocals from northern Europe, West Africa and German traditions. The region's rugged topography and relative isolation helped its music develop a distinct and often haunting musical style.

While the Ozarks are no longer as isolated as they were more than 200 years ago, its talented musical artists, including the married duo of Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu, known as The Creek Rocks, are determined to keep the musical heritage alive, reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder.

When The Creek Rocks play, their music draws from "folk tunes and ballads, passed down from other continents and cultures before finding their way to the Ozarks," McConnell writes. The duo's sound ultimately reflects "layers of history... and the recognition that rural voices are important. . . .They are the voices of lived experience, linking generations and stories."

When the couple performed at the Library of Congress in August, the "echoes of generations of Ozarkers reverberated through the auditorium," McConnell adds. The Creek Rocks were "chosen as the library’s American Folklife Center’s inaugural Artists in Resonance, a fellowship founded to 'support artists in creating new musical works inspired by and sourced from collection materials in the Center’s archives.'"

The artists have dedicated part of their life's work to "research and document local folk culture," McConnell explains. "As part of the fellowship, Bilyeu and Woolf traveled to D.C., where they conducted research in the library’s archives."

As part of their fellowship, they focused on a musical collection by Sidney Robertson Cowell, who "visited the Ozarks in the mid-1930s," McConnell reports. Cowell's collection includes recordings from "local musicians in Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina."

The Cowell collection helped Bilyeu and Woolf hear and feel the distinct difference in Ozark music from this time period. McConnell writes, "'Ozarks folk music, as revealed by these collections, is all about the voice,' Bilyeu said – a key difference is in the way the songs sound. The tunes Cowell collected seemed even more 'ancient,' as Woolf put it, due to their musical structure."

Hear The Creek Rocks perform at The Library of Congress here.

When a town's major employer closes, changes and uncertainty abound

Noel has been in the poultry business since the 1950s.
(Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

When one business dominates a town's economy, its closing can create a domino effect of change. Noel, Missouri, pop. 2,100, became one of those towns. In August, Tyson Foods "announced that it was shuttering the town's poultry processing plant, and by October, it was closed – eliminating about 1,500 jobs," reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder. "It leaves a question other communities have faced: What is the next chapter in a place that so heavily relied on one employer for the town's collective income?"

Unlike nearby Ozarkian towns, Noel boasted "cultural diversity, in contrast to the rest of the region, which is still largely white," McConnell writes. "In the 2020 Census, more than 1,450 residents of Noel – nearly 70% of the town's population – identified as Asian; Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; or Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander."

McConnell writes, "I drove to Noel in late November, the first time I was in town since it became known that Tyson would shutter the plant. A handful of vehicles remained in the plant's parking lot as I drove by. Tyson's bright-red logos are gone, but discoloration remains." 

Just weeks after the plant closed, "many of the immigrants have already moved away," McConnell writes. "The Hispanic residents seem to be the ones most likely to stay. . . . Another change is at Community Baptist, which closed its doors in late November. The reasons for that are complex – there were ongoing issues tied to funding – but the proverbial straw broke the camel's back when all the ethnic congregants left."

The town's mayor, Terry Lance, told McConnell: "Losing that many jobs is going to naturally affect every other business in town, from the grocery stores to everyone. We really don't know just how much yet."

McConnell writes, "In a typical Ozarkian make-do-or-do-without attitude, Lance is looking for the silver lining. Maybe the former plant can simply be torn down, Lance says, and the town can revert to its deeper tourism roots."