Ozark odyssey — Small mountain town preserves music, history, lore of earlier time

Taylor began playing the banjo with he was 12. "Around here, there wasn't much else to do," he said, joking. But his dad played; his granddad was a fiddle player. "I was raised where music was so a part of life it was like eating," he said.

He wouldn't have it any other way. "Music has afforded me a lot of friends over the years — people from all over the country."

At the first notes of Taylor's concert, audience members get up to dance, line dances and country dances that they do with an infectious exuberance.

The music is interspersed with some gentle humor: "Did you know the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas?" Taylor asked. "Yep. Anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush." And, "do you know what karaoke is to Arkansas folk? Pallbearers in Oklahoma — you know, carry-Okies."

But the music is the heart of the show; music that not only fills the present with toe-tapping, knee-slapping fun but also evokes a connection to past generations that is almost tangible.

It's the same feeling you get on up the hill a ways at the Ozark Folk Center, a state park established in 1973 to preserve and interpret the Ozark mountain way of life.

The focus is both music and crafts, said Jimmie Edwards, a center director.

The Craft Village features 24 buildings and outdoor areas that offer craft demonstrations and daytime music programs associated with life in the Ozarks from 1820-1920.

"These are the crafts that people needed to survive," Edwards said.

They include blacksmithing, broom-making, spinning, weaving, soapmaking, quilting, tinsmithing and candlemaking. They're housed in cabins and buildings indigenous to the area.

There are also gardens filled with herbs and plants native to the Ozarks. Herbs were especially important in mountain culture, used not only as food but also as medicine, Edwards said. Special herb festivals, demonstrations and workshops are held at the center throughout the year.

Other plants were also important. Native wildflowers were used as dyes. Other plants were used as textiles. They are all grown in the terraced hillside garden, which has been recognized as one of the premiere herb gardens in the South.

The center also features live music performances of traditional, pre-World War II music at venues in the park and nightly in the theater.

The Dry Creek Lodge offers an economical place to stay. The Skillet Restaurant offers down-home country cooking that includes everything from Southern barbecue and corn bread to fried green tomatoes and sweet potato pie. "Just don't ask for seafood," Edwards said. "We don't get much of that."

But you can pile freshly baked rolls high with peach or apple chunky — none of the namby-pamby apple butter here.

There's also the Homespun Gift Shop, which sells some of the craft items made on site, as well as other Ozark souvenirs.