Woodyfest 2013: Still on the Hill

Arkansas Duo Brings Ozarks Energy to Okemah

Bring­ing their “low-tech” PowerPoint to the Brick [Sidenote: This is the third post in our cov­er­age of the six­teenth annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. We’ll be alter­nat­ing our report­ing with essays and photo gal­leries from the twenty-sec­ond fes­ti­val in 2019, so check in often for a mix of old and new Woodyfest good­ness.] Street Café in 2013, musi­cal duo Still on the Hill had the audi­ence in stitches. Quilting stitches, that is; the PowerPoint slides con­sisted of text and images on hand­made quilts, dis­played as sto­ry­telling aids.

Husband and wife Kelly and Donna Mulhollan sang and told sto­ries of their native Arkansas Ozarks, played a vari­ety of unique and strange home­made instru­ments, [Sidenote: The instru­ments were mostly made by Ozark old-timers and each has its own story — sto­ries which the Mulhollans shared with humor and enthu­si­asm.] and held up the afore­men­tioned quilts to illus­trate their tales.

The more ani­mated of the two, Donna held the audience’s atten­tion with her kinetic demeanor and pierc­ing blue eyes: eyes that com­manded: Do. Not. Look. Away. But that is to say, Kelly is the more laid back only by com­par­i­son. The two do, indeed, pos­sess enough energy to air-con­di­tion Texas:

If we ever lose power in Northwest Arkansas, we could tap into the energy of Still on the Hill and have enough left to air con­di­tion Texas!

The duo have cre­ated numer­ous Ozark-cen­tric doc­u­men­tary projects, includ­ing 2010’s Ozark Project and 2015’s Once a River. In 2016 Still on the Hill com­pleted their doc­u­men­tary project Still a River, a his­tory of the Beaver Lake water­shed and the White River in Northwest Arkansas. Upon its com­ple­tion the National Park Service granted them ten addi­tional pro­grams to be per­formed through­out Arkansas.

2013 was Still on the Hill’s fourth and most recent Woodyfest performance.

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