OHR Presents: The Dillards

Ozark Highlands Radio

This week, bluegrass superstar, beloved television personality and founder of the legendary bluegrass group the Dillards, Rodney Dillard, recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park. Rodney is accompanied on this show by multi instrumentalist George Giddens, Gary Smith on upright bass, Corey Walker on guitar, and Beverly Cotton Dillard on clawhammer banjo. “Rodney Dillard has had a long and varied career resulting so far in two Grammy Nominations, induction into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, a well-known acting stint on the Andy Griffith Show, many other movie, commercials and TV appearances, recipient of The Outstanding Missourian Award, and worldwide acclaim for his over 50 years of recording both traditional Bluegrass and his own brand of ‘DILLARDGRASS.’ Rodney Dillard as founding member of the legendary group, ‘THE DILLARDS’ (aka the Darlings) is seen nearly everyday somewhere in the world thanks to the still enormous popularity of The ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW reruns. Rodney continued to modernize and innovate the sound of Bluegrass as he wrote and collaborated to write such now classic songs as ‘There Is a Time, The Darlin Boys, Ebo Walker, and Dooley.’ By the late 1960′s Rodney had transformed the Dillards into the driving force creating new sounds in the West Coast music environment. Later, called ‘The Father of Country Rock,’ Rodney was among the first Bluegrass musicians to ‘electrify’ traditional Bluegrass instruments while also adding drums, steel guitar, and orchestra. The band’s unique flare for song writing and arrangement affected a broad range of important future musicians in the Bluegrass and Pop music world alike. Rodney is credited with helping set the stage for the ‘Country Rock’ movement and burgeoning progressive sounds of Bluegrass.” - https://rodneydillard.tv/bio/ In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1981 archival recording of Ozark originals Jean and Pam Simmons performing the song “Scotland the Brave,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins investigates the history of tourism in the entertainment Mecca of the Ozarks: Branson, Missouri.