Ozark Highlands Radio

This week, San Francisco based early 20th Century American music preservationist duo Meredith Axelrod & Craig Ventresco recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with these time traveling minstrels. “Delightfully engaging and unassumingly comic, Meredith Axelrod envisions the limitless potential of early twentieth century music, whether it be Ragtime, Music Hall, Pop Standard, Boogie Woogie, Tin Pan Alley, String band, Jazz, Country, Blues or even Jug Band music, and embodies the spirit that brought the music into existence. Her vocal style is unusual, probably because she learned to sing by listening to how folks did it a century ago – through the medium of cylinders and 78-rpm records. The dominant theme throughout Meredith’s expansive repertoire is that, whatever the genre, these are songs she learns from the original sources (records and/or sheet music) which were released between the 1890s and the 1930s. Part of the allure of old time music is hearing the original recording