folk music – The Recollection Agency

Mo’ Curious: The Songs We Nearly Forgot, or Reimagining an Ozark Folk Music Archive

In 2024, Springfield musicians Mark Bilyeu and Cindy Woolf were awarded the Library of Congress inaugural Artist in Resonance award. The award enabled the couple to travel to DC to study archival recordings of Ozark folks songs made by ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson Cowell in 1936 and 1937.

With this support from the Library of Congress, Mark and Cindy as The Creek Rocks also issued a CD, ‘Wonderful Days, Wonderful Country’. The 2026 release features a dozen interpretations of songs originally sung by men and women living in the Ozark Mountains during a time just prior to the ascendance of radio and television.

In summer 2026, I interviewed Mark and Cindy at their home studio outside Springfield, Missouri. They shared their musical origin stories, explained their evolving sound as The Creek Rocks, and talked about what folk music means in a modern world. This podcast blends together that interview, historic Ozark folk songs and modern recordings from The Creek Rocks. I think you’ll like it.

Mark Bilyeu and Cindy Woolf research at the Library of Congress. The Springfield duo were the LOC’s inaugural Artists-in-Resonance, an award that allowed them to study folk songs gathered in 1936 by Sidney Robertson Cowell and reinterpret them for a new audience. *Photo credit: Doug Peach / Library of Congress*

Sidney Robertson Cowell photo credit New York World telegram / Roger Higgins

Mo’ Curious: Memories From the Left End of the Dial

Back in 1972, radio station KOPN was founded to serve the Columbia, Missouri area. The station was licensed for broadcast early the next year and now – over 50 years later – the community radio station that wasn’t expected to survive is still going strong.

In 2022, the KOPN Oral History Project captured memories from the station’s founders, former staff and long-time programmers. This podcast episode draws from those oral histories to tell a history of the station.

An history about the life and times of Columbia, Missouri’s community radio station, KOPN.

Radio station KOPN is real and can be streamed here.

Thanks for listening to this podcast about the history of the 24th state. Catch more podcast episodes at MoCurious.com.

Stay curious, Missouri.