OXFORD, Miss.—Lucy Gaines started her first day on the job as director of “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” in 2024, navigating the crew’s van through the narrow backroads of Neshoba County.
“When you sign up for a job and are walking into your first day, the first things that pop in your head are like, ‘OK, I need to act professional; I need to dress professional,’” the Jackson, Mississippi, native later told the Mississippi Free Press.
Instead, she arrived on the job to see the rest of the crew dressed in casual wear, ready to start loading up the van in the summer heat. Hours later, the group was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on dirt roads built only wide enough for one car. Closer to the Neshoba County Fair, she had to squeeze through several tight turns to avoid hitting any cabins built on the grounds.
“You just have to go in knowing that you’re going to be slowly inching forward in traffic and may be held up at an intersection,” Gaines said. “If another band is coming out or another exhibit is leaving, (well), we’ve been stuck for like an hour before.”
The rest of the day was a blur. After arriving in the 100-plus degree weather, she set to work coordinating all the little details required to set up for a radio show. The politicking, music and aromas of the Neshoba County Fair that surrounded the new director and her crew surprised her.
“I had never been; it was like stepping into another world,” Gaines said. “It’s almost like a Mardi Gras kind of culture, but set in a dust pit in Neshoba County.”
While that first day was hectic, Gaines says it set the pace for her at “Thacker Mountain” and led her to see every day as a chance to try new things. Soon after, she’d get to meet one of her favorite authors, Jesmyn Ward, while hosting a show at Ocean Springs’ Walter Anderson Museum of Art.
“It felt like, ‘OK, this is it,’” Gaines told the Mississippi Free Press. “I’m now meeting one of my heroes. That wasn’t on my bingo card, but it was pretty unforgettable.”
‘A Feeling of Connection’
“Thacker Mountain”’s spring season shaped up to be yet another one of those opportunities. When the crew turned on the mics and cued up the band for its second show of the spring season in February, several new crew members joined the production, with film gear in tow and “MPB” insignias on their shirts. As each member of the ever-growing crowd entered the showroom, they passed a flyer notifying visitors that they may appear on film and that those recordings would likely end up on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
This show, hosted at the Hendricks Building in Water Valley, Mississippi, instead of its usual Oxford Powerhouse home, is the first that Mississippi Public Broadcasting recorded for broadcast this fall on public television stations across the state.
Past the location shift and busy camera crews darting around the rustic, brick-walled room, it was the same show that’s run for some three decades. As the sun started to set and showtime neared, fans from across north Mississippi filed in, some grouping up to chat with Gaines and show host Jim Dees, catching up after an unexpectedly late start to the season.
By the time the lights started to dim and the house band began to blare their tunes, almost no seat was empty.
“I think our radio listeners will get something new from television that they haven’t otherwise,” Gaines said. “I hope they get a feeling of connection to the show and see how much of a family it is.”
Named for a foothill in Lafayette County, the “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” is a weekly arts event recorded at The Powerhouse Community Arts Center in Oxford or other venues around the county. The show brings in guest musicians, hosts prominent authors for interviews and usually wraps up each night with a session from the team’s house band.
When the radio show first formed in 1997, the title was meant as a tongue-in-cheek joke. Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books, meant for it to reflect the show’s modest ambitions, mirroring Thacker “Mountain”’s name and belying that it’s hundreds of feet short of that designation. Their first show was broadcast from Off Square Books, the branch of the bookstore company that focuses on selling surplus books and other materials that the other stores don’t have room to stock.
“I’m sure they all thought, ‘Well, this probably won’t even be here next year,’” Dees told the Mississippi Free Press.
Nearly three decades later, the show has seen a constantly growing audience, with listeners tuning in from across Mississippi, as well as stations on Alabama Public Radio, Memphis’ WYXR and, in a bit of an outlier, Taos, New Mexico’s KNCE. Gaines said that the KNCE’s director reached out to Thacker Mountain due to his own interest in folk and blues music.
“Of course, we’re not going to say no,” Gaines said. “They’re kind of our exotic friends on the map.”
The Transition to Tape
Mississippi Public Broadcasting filmed its first “Thacker Mountain” session on Feb. 19, 2026, and plans to have crews taping all future shows. MPB will cut the shows down to 30-minute episodes, and the first batch of episodes should air this autumn.
Anna Neel, MPB’s chief operating officer, said she expects the television edition of the show will have a broader audience, bringing more eyes to Mississippi musicians and artists.
“We hope to expose them to a national audience, really setting Mississippi on a national stage,” she said.
With the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s defunding, Neel also said there is a greater need for local programming produced in-state, as opposed to paying for programming from other states.
The “Thacker Mountain” crew intended to begin recording with the first show of the year, but complications stemming from Winter Storm Fern in January saw that first show cancelled and delayed the process.
In recent years, “Thacker Mountain” has done one show a year in Water Valley, the first of which drew one of the largest crowds they had ever seen. Gaines said it was a happy accident to start recording at the same place the radio show had previously found success in something new.
Aside from the few extra hands on deck for each show, “Thacker Mountain” won’t see too much change on the audience’s side, save some extra aesthetic tweaks to make the stage TV-ready, Gaines said. “Thacker Mountain” regulars will notice the new blue velvet chairs on stage, placed just right for the camera during the show’s author interview segments.
“Working with television brings never-ending surprises,” Gaines said. “The first show we did with MPB was definitely the scariest. … This is our first season where we’ve had to consider what things look like on the stage. Everything requires a bit more foresight, but it’s all worth it in the end to see it on the cameras.”
‘Enough Ham in Me’
Back in 2000, when Dees lived in the Lafayette County village of Taylor, his neighbor asked him to fill in as a host for “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour.” He thought she was joking. Lyn Roberts, manager of Square Books, told him that the current host was moving away and that they had a spot they needed to fill until they could find a permanent replacement.
“I have just enough ham in me to give it a shot,” he recalled, “but it was strictly a neighborly thing.”
That first night at Off Square Books, Dees said his biggest concern was less on his own performance and more about getting out of everyone’s way. The bookstore was built with a raised section near the back of the building that acts as a stage. The floors were cleared and refilled wall-to-wall with chairs. As Dees got up on the stage and looked out at the crowd packing the small store that night, he realized he knew half the people in attendance.
“It was more about not wanting to let anyone down,” Dees said.
Still, he told the Mississippi Free Press that realizing most of the eyes were on the band and the visiting essayist helped him keep calm during those first few shows. As time went on, however, he realised he got along well enough with the crew and decided to stick around.
In between reading a book a week and organizing interviews with authors, he credited his work as an Oxford Eagle reporter for helping him power through the prep work.
“In my reporting days, I was always looking for that weird, quirky thing,” Dees said. “That little detail that makes everything kind of sparkle.”
In the 26 years since, “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” has largely stayed true to its roots, Dees said. While the show has seen bands, producers, locations and even theme songs come and go, the core components of highlighting local musicians and authors have stayed the same. More surprisingly, he feels his enthusiasm for the show is as strong as ever.
“I get asked if I would get a bit burned out or get tired of it,” Dees said. “I just have not gotten to that point. If anything, I’ve gotten recharged after COVID.”
‘Going to Church’
“Thacker Mountain” has brought regional and nationally recognized writers—including Jesmyn Ward and Donna Tartt—to Oxford. The show hosts residential authors as well, like John Grisham. Author Tom Franklin said “Thacker Mountain”’s regular crowd guarantees a large number of eyes, many of whom may not have come to an event purely focused on readings, and that audience draws a number of prominent writers to the city.
“It’s a way of going to church,” Franklin said. “They come because it’s fun, it’s weekly, and it’s regular.”
Franklin, as well as his wife, former Mississippi poet laureate Beth Ann Fennelly, have both appeared on the show multiple times as guest authors. His first appearance on the show was back in 2000, around the publication of his short story collection “Poachers.”
That show was hosted on the outdoor stage in the University of Mississippi’s fabled Grove, which was great for the music performers, but not necessarily built for readings.
“I just remember being really nervous,” Franklin said. “But I also remember thinking how cool it was that I was on the radio now (and that) I better not make any mistakes!”
Dees sees the show’s partnership with Square Books as the real ace in the hole. Founded in 1979, the locally owned bookstore has built up a reputation for building rapport and going the extra mile with visiting authors.
“They take the authors out for drinks, make sure they’re really taken care of,” Dees said. “I think that’s part of the allure. Authors have heard of Square Books in Oxford.”
The show has embedded itself in the literary history and culture of northeast Mississippi, operating out of the same town where William Faulkner lived. Dees said that, despite harkening back to Faulkner’s time, there is an irony in broadcasting “Thacker Mountain” from Oxford, as the author hated radio.
“He would have told the audience he hated all of us because we’re on the radio and we’ve got amplification,” Dees said.
That commitment to the South’s literary history continues with a lineup of special shows for the ongoing season. On April 17, “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” hosted a show at the Union County Historical Society and Heritage Museum in New Albany, Faulkner’s birthplace.
“What we’ve done is select musicians and an author who reflect Faulknerian themes, but brought into the current day,” Gaines said.
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow was the featured writer for the show. Her poetry and prose work deals with both history and memory to make sense of the present and future in a way that Gaines said is very much reminiscent of Faulkner. Also keeping with the theme of the old walking hand-in-hand with the new, Bear Ryan and the Delta Snakes performed, a group noted for its members’ handmade cigar-box instruments. North Mississippi Hill Country Blues figure Cam Kimbrough also took the mic for the mid-April show.
Next month, on June 4 at 6 p.m., the “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” will pay a visit to the Eudora Welty House & Garden in Jackson. Invoking the writer’s love of music, “Thacker Mountain” plans to have local band Soul City Swingers bring a jazzy, punchy selection that mirrors the Fats Domino concert Eudora Welty herself once attended.
“It’s really exciting to bring my current work down to a place I love so much,” Gaines said. “Being a Jackson native, I am a huge Welty fan.”
Also joining the show is Lady Adrena, who has also recently toured with Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience.
As Welty was known for both her short stories and her memoir “One Writer’s Beginnings,” “Thacker Mountain” has selected Fennelly, author of “Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs” as their featured writer for the Jackson show.
‘Climbing the Mountain’
Independent YouTube and podcast productions interviewing artists have become more common ways for artists to get their work in front of audiences. Separating “Thacker Mountain” from the newcomers in the field is the crossroads of old and new the show seeks to capture, Dees said.
The show puts on the airs of an old-fashioned radio program while seeking out rising literary voices. In the 2026 season’s first show, audiences were treated to a reading from “Superfan,” a novel examining the excessive parasocial nature of modern fanbases, followed immediately by Keith Johnson, great-nephew of Muddy Waters.
“We take all comers,” Dees explained. “Like I said, it’s, ‘Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen.’ And here’s this firebrand, radical pink-haired somebody … doing this sort of outrageous stuff.”
While the show has managed to draw in big names, it also hopes to be a springboard for artists still looking for their big break.
“So many kids growing up in Mississippi … think that they have to leave and go somewhere like Nashville or New York City to make it as a successful performer or writer,” Gaines said. “That’s not true. You can do it right here.”
With each show providing something new to audiences, one element stays the same throughout each show: The Yalobushwhackers, the team’s house band. The band has been a part of the show since 2005 and will often collaborate with visiting artists.
“I’m very proud that we have so many people that are willing and want to be on the show,” said Paul Tate, bandleader and guitarist of the Yalobushwhackers.
Next year will mark “Thacker’s Mountain”’s 30th year on the air. Gaines said that the team already feels grateful every time they hit the funding goal for a new season and that they’re “over the moon” about the upcoming anniversary.
“While we don’t have any outrageous plans for the 30th just yet, I can guarantee it will be a big party,” she said.
Reflecting on the time she’s spent with the show and the growth she’s seen since joining, Gaines noted that the show’s title is a little less of a joke now and is instead more indicative of its role in the local arts scene.
“We are a foothill that appears like a mountain,” Gaines said. “I’m OK with that (title) because culturally we still see ourselves as the humble little guys out there doing big things—climbing the mountain.”
When in season, “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour” is usually staged on Thursdays at 6 p.m. at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center in Oxford. You can also listen live through the show’s YouTube page and on Rebel Radio 92.1. Shows are rebroadcast via Mississippi Public Broadcasting on Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m., while archived episodes can be found on Spotify and YouTube. Visit Thacker Mountain’s website for more information on future shows.
