More about ... <br/>Music in Eureka Springs

Eureka Springs is a small town with a big musical footprint.

Venues

Basin Park (4 Spring St) frequently hosts music. The free Basin Park Concert Series brings regional acts from a variety of genres to the park’s bandshell in spring and summer. Ivory Coast native Angelo Yao leads Drumming in the Park on first Saturdays from spring to fall.
The Aud (36 S Main St), seating just under a thousand, hosts a variety of touring acts throughout the year.
New Delhi Cafe (2 N Main St) has an indoor stage with live music several days a week.
Chelsea’s Corner Cafe & Bar (10 Mountain St) has live entertainment most nights of the week, including local acts and touring bands.
The Gravel Bar at Wanderoo Lodge (216 W Van Buren) has an outdoor tent featuring live entertainment most nights of the week.
Gotahold Brewing (409 W Van Buren) often features regional musicians on its outdoor stage in the “beer forest” behind the brewery.
The Farm Campground & Events (1 Blue Heron Ln) sits in wooded hills about a 10-mile drive from downtown Eureka Springs. It hosts a variety of music festivals, including Hillberry every October.
Opera in the Ozarks (16311 US 62) stages multiple productions during the summer.

Multi-venue events

The Ozark Mountain Music Festival, affectionately known as OzMoMu, is held every January at the Basin Park Hotel, the Aud, and other downtown venues.

The Eureka Springs Blues Party features local and national blues and funk acts throughout downtown Eureka Springs the weekend after Memorial Day each year.

The Ozark Folk Festival, the nation’s longest running folk festival, features a variety of Americana music at the Aud and Basin Park in late summer.

Bikes Blues & BBQ, held every fall, is the world’s largest motorcycle rally for charity. Blues concerts are held at a variety of venues in Eureka Springs and elsewhere in northwest Arkansas. The Farm is the rally’s official campground.

Eureka Springs Americana playlist

Eureka Springs supports many genres of music, but Americana is part of its soul. Many people think of folk and bluegrass as locked in time, but subgenres have evolved with the times to become something wholly new and familiar at the same time.

Below is a Spotify playlist with a sampling of modern Americana musicians who use Eureka Springs as a cultural hub, and for many, home.

Musical history

My book Welcome to Eureka Springs: The I-Sh*t-You-Not History of America’s Quirkiest Town features chapters on hymn composers William Evander Penn and Thoro Harris, ragtime pianist Emil Seidel, jazz saxophonist Ben Kynard, hippie folk festival organizer Edd Jeffords, Willie Nelson concert promoter (and pot dealer) Cap’n Don McGuire, and Hillberry festival founder Jon Walker.

Those are merely an introduction to the town’s rich musical history. Countless musicians, songwriters, and industry personnel have lived or regularly performed in the area.

Here are a few random tidbits that didn’t make the book:

Famed guitar maker Ted Newman Jones worked exclusively with the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards in the early 1970s. For part of that time, he lived in the Eureka Springs area, honing his craft with local shop owner Leo Erickson. He later opened Newman Guitars in Austin, Texas, building instruments for Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson, George Jones, and many other top performers.
The eccentric Reverend Gerald Hanson bought the Basin Park Hotel in the late 1970s, and put a museum (now long gone) in the top floor. A bank of windows had to be temporarily removed so a crane could lift one of Elvis Presley’s Cadillacs into it.
Charles Christian Hammer was a virtuoso of Spanish classical guitar who studied in Mexico. Known for his poofy blond hair and puffed-sleeve shirts, he lived in Eureka Springs for much of his life.
Eurekan wind chime artist Ranaga Farbiarz built the world’s largest tuned musical wind chime. With its largest pipe more than 35 feet long, the wind chime was installed in a shop (381 Highway 23 South) in the Eureka Springs area in 2004.
You can make your own music on the oversize musical sculptures at the Eureka Springs Music Park (288 N Main St). If you run through the wind chime arbor just right, you can hear “Give Peace a Chance.”