OHR Presents: The Secret Sisters

Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s beautiful 1,000-seat auditorium in Mountain View, Arkansas. In addition to the music, our “Feature Host” segments take listeners through the Ozark hills with historians, authors, and personalities who explore the people, stories, and history of the Ozark region.

This week, Grammy nominated Muscle Shoals Americana & contemporary bluegrass singer-songwriter mega-duo The Secret Sisters, recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with these superlative siblings.

The Secret Sisters are an Americana singing and songwriting duo consisting of vocalists Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle. The sisters’ music has been compared to artists like The Everly Brothers. Laura and Lydia are from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. With a love for music coming from both sides of their family (their grandfather and his brothers forged a group called The Happy Valley Boys,) they grew up with a zeal for country music and sang songs with their family by country music artists such as Don Williams. The girls first learned to harmonize through singing a cappella at their hometown church.

The sisters have produced three albums. Their third album, “You Don’t Own Me Anymore” produced by Brandi Carlile, received the duo’s first Grammy nomination. Aside from touring the world with their unique brand of Southern story telling and impeccable harmonies, the Secret Sisters have appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and have a song featured on the movie soundtrack for “The Hunger Games.”

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1983 archival recording of autoharp master Ron Wall performing the traditional tune “Home Sweet Home,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

Writer, musician, and traditional dancer Aubrey Atwater presents “Devil Songs.” Aubrey will guide us through the dark angel’s appearance in generations of traditional folk songs with musical examples and her own cultivated insight.