Expanded event shares wide range of music

By Murray Bishoff Special to the Cassville Democrat

The Kings Prairie Fall Festival, an outgrowth of the annual Kings Prairie community’s benefit concert since 2000, took place on Sept. 12 on the grounds of the historic Kings Prairie school, east of Monett. 

The event, primarily a music show in past years, raises funds to sustain the school building, one of the few one-room schoolhouses left in the area. 

This year’s event started with a craft market that opened at 10 a.m., featuring eight vendors, fewer than last year when the craft show began. Organizers offered both lunch and supper. 

Music started from the outset. Neva Welters began with a set of hammered dulcimer music. Gospel music by Ruby Cook, followed by the band Sanctified, filled the afternoon, concluding with the bluegrass band Bluebilly Pie. 

Evening music switched to rock with the band Totally Unrehearsed. For an event originally organized around traditional country music and performers who played live music on area radio stations from the 1930s into the 1960s, the band’s sound may have come as a bit of a shock. 

Their dozen selections ranged from standards such as “House of the Rising Sun,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Sweet Home, Alabama,” “Proud Mary,” and Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” to country singer Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time,” Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” and the Georgia Satellites’ song “Don’t Hand Me No Lines and Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” 

Over the years, the Kings Prairie Festival has seen heroic efforts by performers filling in for late cancellations. This year, the duo of Kerry and Heather Hays, performing as the duo Turtles on a Log, took the closing slot on three days’ notice. 

The Hayses offered light and folk rock covers of songs like the Eagles’ “Desperado,” Cat Stevens’ “Baby, It’s a Wild World,” John Legend’s “Fifteen,” and lively selections like Neil Diamond’s “Cherry, Cherry.” In a mellow mood, they concluded with John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Paul McCartney’s “Let It Be” as the sun was setting. 

Kerry Hays said he did not know the festival’s traditional sing-along ending, Albert E. Brumley’s “I’ll Fly Away,” but promised to learn it by next year. 

Between sets, organizers held an auction for 21 donated baskets of goods and services from local merchants. Those not present were called to arrange a pick-up time.