WINFEST! Celebrating 40 years of music and fun, this little book showcases each year’s performers and T-shirts in full color! Whoever dreamed in 1983 that forty years later this upstart music festival would still be going strong, a beloved event treasured by locals and regional fans alike, not to mention the many musicians and performers who have graced the stage with their talent and sense of adventure! Each year, a new, colorful t-shirt design featuring the performer names as well as the event date have preserved the legend of Winfest and are now presented for posterity in the pages of this booklet. Created as a labor of love by those who saw a need to find financial support for local nonprofit ventures, Winfest has stood the test of time, weather, and changes in the culture, truly a testament to the determination and dedication of the entire community of Winslow, Arkansas. Buy now at Amazon!
Category: Music
Fayetteville’s Black Diamond Orchestra
Jazz as a musical genre arose in the heart of Black America. Growing from so-called ‘plantation music,’ the style originally involved fiddle, five-string banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, upright bass and sometimes lap dulcimer.
“The music always had a strong ground beat, the rhythm of work, full of field hollers, forerunners of ‘the break,’ and insistent call and response patterns, blue notes, falsetto voices with melisma. …The plantation songs soon became drenched with the rhythms of the Southern churches, both offsprings of African drumming and went straight into Folk Blues and Country Music and Jazz…”[1]
Through touring vaudeville shows, widespread audiences came to love this exuberant musical style. And after Embus Young, a member of one of Fayetteville’s earliest Black families, performed with Al G. Field’s Minstrels, he spearheaded a local Black jazz group called the Black Diamond Orchestra. The group quickly came into wide demand, performing as early as 1903 at Monte Ne. Regular bookings continued through the 1920s and 1930s for all kinds of public and private events including sorority and fraternity dances at the University. Further commentary (1925) regarding benefit performances at the UA Peabody Hall and Leverett Elementary stated that “Colored programs are becoming quite the thing in Fayetteville, with an aroused interest in negro music and African folklore.”[2]
This investigation of Fayetteville’s Black Diamond Orchestra portrays the group’s members and their local family histories as well as affiliated performers like the Jubilee Singers and Half Pint Thompson. The spotlight of fame shining on Fayetteville’s Black community brings to life a neglected part of local history, the concluding chapter of The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville, available at the Washington County Historical Society and at Amazon.com
[1] “Plantation songs,” John P. Birchall Accessed Jun 1, 2022 @ https://www.themeister.co.uk/ dixie/plantation_songs. ‘Melisma’ is a musical style that allows several notes to be sung to one syllable of text.
[2] FDD Mar 26, 1925, p. 1.
Owen Mitchell, Jazz Man
Owen Mitchell started teaching music when he was seven years old. A neighborhood boy wanted to learn to play piano so Owen shared what he knew. That was 1892. He would go on to become the first jazz band leader in Fayetteville.[1]
Mitchell didn’t start out with jazz. Upon entry to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1903, Mitchell pursued a degree in chemical engineering while continuing to follow his passion for music as a sideline. Mitchell graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1908 and for a time taught the subject at the University, probably as a graduate assistant. But he was never far from his love of music. Apparently something of a polymath in musical arts, described in one of many newspaper accounts of his performances as a “musician of unusual ability,” Mitchell played trombone, piano, and several other instruments. He understood music theory and composition, and served an important role in Frank Barr’s orchestra which performed at multiple social events around town.
During these early years, Mitchell traveled to St. Louis and Kansas City to experience what big city musicians had to offer, and he often accompanied Barr to help teach community bands in Cane Hill, Westville (Oklahoma), and other towns. [2] Eventually his love of music pulled him away from chemistry altogether, and he went on to lead Owen Mitchell’s Orchestra. The band was among the first to be heard on the new University radio station, KFMQ, in 1924. By January 1925, Mitchell’s radio programming split fifty-fifty between fox trots and waltzes. Within months, fox trot numbers filled two-thirds of the orchestra’s air time. Members of the group included violin, cello, and bass plus trumpet, clarinet, trombone, French horn, and drums. During summer months, the group played every evening at Riverside Park where a dance pavilion accommodated growing crowds.[3]
Other jazz groups quickly sprang up to meet public demand for popular new styles of jazz for community events, club gatherings, parties, and University dances. Through the 1920s and into the 1930s, Owen Mitchell kept ahead of the wave with music for dance fads like the Charleston, Black Bottom, and Lindy. Yet he maintained his ties to classical music both with University groups as well as teaching private piano lessons at his home on West Center. He traveled widely and advocated for the UA music department, making a plea in 1933 for better practice facilities. His leadership in innovative new musical styles fostered other jazz groups and informed a new generation of Fayetteville musicians.
The story of Mitchell’s contributions to Fayetteville’s music scene in the early 20th century is found in The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville, available at the Washington County Historical Society and at Amazon.com
[1] “First” is not proven, since we do not know when he started his jazz group versus when the Black Diamond group started.
[2] The comment regarding his ability followed his solo piano performance of Grieg’s “Norwegian Bridal Procession.” Similar praise followed his performance of Grieg’s “Concerto in A Minor” the following month. FD Apr 3, 1914, p. 4. and Jun 9, p. 1.
[3] Riverside Park was a project of the Parker Brothers who operated a large nursery where the Fayetteville airport is now located. They first intended the park as a swimming spot and built bathhouses, restrooms, and other accommodations alongside the West Fork of White River.
Henry Doughty Tovey, a man for all seasons
Who could have guessed, then or now, that in 1908, little old Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas would eagerly invite a gay man to their midst. Not that Henry Tovey advertised his sexual orientation or, perhaps, even acknowledged it to himself, much less others. But his role over the next 25 years as professor of piano and music as well as his larger-than-life presence in community, state, and even national arenas of music education could not help but reveal that he was not of the ‘traditional’ male ilk.
The fact is that homosexuality was widely tolerated and even admired in certain circles of American culture during that time period. As noted in a 2019 article, journalist Sarah Pruitt wrote:
- On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge. Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who…in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.” The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a black fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight alike.[1]
Whether this broader scope of acceptance had managed to trickle down to Northwest Arkansas is debatable, but Tovey’s credentials fit two very important priorities for the university and community. For one, he had graduated from one of the finest music conservatories Illinois had to offer, studied abroad with acclaimed artists, and had gained acclaim in a brief tenure at Ouachita College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, provoking critics to pronounce he held a “warm place in the hearts of our music lovers.”[2] Such expertise in the performing arts had become a priority to the university on the heels of the Gilded Age. Secondly, then as now, university professors and their families occupied an elevated position in Fayetteville, deriving mostly from far-flung origins and bringing with them not only higher education but also more sophisticated cultural characteristics than those possessed by the ‘locals.’
Tovey immediately became the darling of the town’s elite, invited to join fledgling social groups determined to open Fayetteville to the wider world. For example,
- In November 1908, he joined Fayetteville’s Musical Coterie at its second meeting at the home of Mrs. F. O. Gully on Mont Nord, where the group declared “a most auspicious opening” for the beginning of the season. Their objective was to “arouse increased interest in the finest of all fine arts—music… We should have an annual Music Festival here every year… [which] would bring people from all parts of the state and from neighboring states to Fayetteville.”[3]
Tovey was uniquely suited to the task before him, and he set about his destiny with great zeal. Not only did he help build a greater appreciation of classical music in Fayetteville and the rest of the state with his innovative teaching method utilizing the Victrola and recordings, a method soon adopted across the nation, he also promoted civic efforts to include town beautification, music education in the public schools, and the establishment of a country club and the Fayetteville Rotary Club. Perhaps most laudable was Tovey’s embrace of the rural people of Arkansas:
- In a 1997 music journal article, Tovey is described as part of the Progressive effort to improve rural life with the use of music. “…[R]eformers focused on improving the economic and social conditions of rural people. Rural reformers expanded university offerings in music… In 1918, the Arkansas legislature voted to require music in the schools due largely to the efforts of Henry Doughty Tovey…
From his enormous musical talent to his elephant collection and regular hosting of delightful luncheons he prepared mostly for wives of prominent town and university notables and served at his home near campus, Tovey lived as a type of Renaissance Man. For example, one menu included “Bouillon * Toasted Wafers * Escalloped Oysters, Potatoes en Cream * French Peas * Chow Chow Pickle * Olives * Salt-rising Bread Sandwiches * Coffee * Tomato Aspic Moulded with Olives and Almonds * Mayonnaise Dressing * Cheese Sandwiches * Orange Parfait with Whipped Cream * Bon-Bons.”
The town and the state mourned his untimely end, but his contributions to his chosen community and state continue to resonate today. The story of this man and his amazing realm of accomplishments is part of The Music Men of Turn-of-the Century Fayetteville, available at the Washington County Historical Society, or from Amazon.com
MC 779 Lighton Family Papers, Box 28, Folder 7,
Photograph 888, Digital Collections,
Univ. of AR, Fayetteville
[1] Sarah Pruitt, “How Gay Culture Blossomed in the Roaring Twenties.” Accessed June 27, 2023 @ https://www.history.com/news/gay-culture-roaring-twenties-prohibition
[2] “Miss Croom’s Recital,” The Southern Standard, Nov 1, 1906, p. 3.
[3] FD, Nov 7, 1908, p. 3.
Frank Barr, Bandman
UA Cardinal Yearbook
The question of when and how Frank Barr picked up a cornet and learned to play remains unanswered in the mists of time. Yet at the age of eighteen as a student at the University of Arkansas in 1892, this young man not only played but would soon become the bandleader for the University Cadet Band. He would go on to direct the University band for twenty years as well as recruiting youth for “Barr’s Boys Band” through the 1930s. But these were not Frank Barr’s only contribution to the community of Fayetteville and the surrounding region.
Ambitious and hard-working, Barr seemed to be in many places at once. He ventured throughout the region helping local community bands develop. He traveled in an ever larger arena to establish a string of silent movie theaters, perhaps because at that point in the media, music was expected to be performed while the movie reels rolled. He also prevailed upon Fayetteville town fathers to support a community band, to serve in various settings. The Commercial League Band went on to please multiple regional audiences.
Above: At Monte Ne. Frank Barr third from left with his son Clinton standing in front of him. Monte Ne’s creator William “Coin” Harvey always ensured that his resort guests stayed entertained during their visit. Whether it was by going to plays, listening to music or attending dances, his guests were assured to have a good time while at Monte Ne. This 1910 photo of the Commercial League Band from Fayetteville shows the ensemble standing in uniform on the wooden walkway around the edge of Big Spring.
Barr’s work with the Commercial League Band expanded to include playing at the skating rink as well as dances, the park, and open air concerts on the Square. In 1909, Barr took over a fledgling silent picture project that had operated briefly at the Ozark Opera House. He began showing the films, first in an open air setting at the corner of West and Dickson, then within months at 17 N. Block which he named Lyric Theater. He soon built a new theater at the northwest corner of Block and Meadow, tailored to the needs of an audience with its sloped floor and state of the art ventilation.
Alongside his growing responsibilities to the University, the community, and his various pursuits in promoting music, Frank and his wife Annie suddenly found themselves confronted with unthinkable. Their only child Clinton developed a serious medical condition, an ailment of his lungs. In August 1912, Frank and wife Annie took Clinton to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where two operations were performed. Another operation was performed in early January 1913, and before the end of the month, Annie asked Frank to come to Rochester as Clinton would require yet another operation. By June 1913, the situation with Clinton Barr had not improved. In a telegram to close friend Al Rife, Frank Barr described what his family faced.
“Necessary for another operation, could not live without it. Operation not so serious as before, lungs in far worse condition than ever, the x-ray locating nest of pockets, some the size of walnuts. Don’t know when can get in hospital. Opening made by previous operation will assist in this operation.”
The complicated and amazing story of Frank Barr reveals a man of vision and formidable emotional strength as he managed to keep up with the many demands before him. He and Annie mortgaged their properties to pay for Clinton’s medical expenses. He poured his energy into his Boys Band, playing in local parades and providing music for the new Lyric Theater. First reported in August 1912 when they were praised for their performance at the A.H.T.A. (Anti-Horse Thief Association) picnic at Elkins, the Boys Band was soon in demand around the region. In June 1913, they traveled to St. Paul to play for a three-day reunion. “The reunion people can rest assured that they will be furnished with good music,” the paper reported. “And besides, it will be quite a novelty to hear the Kids play. They always make a big hit wherever they go, and it will be a big drawing card for the Reunion.” The band performed so nicely that fall at the Washington County Fair that they were invited to perform at the state fair at Hot Springs.
Barr’s life is a fascinating testament to one man’s love of music and for his family. Read the whole story in The Music Men of Turn-of-the Century Fayetteville, available at the Headquarters House offices of the Washington County Historical Society, or from Amazon.com
The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the world of entertainment experienced a massive shift. The invention of electronic media—radio, recordings, movies—brought music to remote homes and new audiences. Sweeping Fayetteville, Arkansas, and its outlying areas before its new wave, the familiar sounds of minstrels and brass bands soon made room for opera, jazz, and the Roaring Twenties.
Key to these transformations were three men and an innovation in the Black community, each taken singly in these chapters. Frank Barr spanned the days of military brass bands to the innovation of his boys’ band that performed soundtracks for silent movies. Henry Tovey, an import from the conservatories of Illinois, took the University of Arkansas fine arts program to unexpected fame. Owen Mitchell, a musician of unusual talent, embraced jazz and led one of the area’s most popular swing bands. Finally, the Black Diamond Orchestra rose from the heart of Fayetteville’s Black community to popular acclaim across the region.
The world of entertainment enjoyed by so many today grew from these roots, from the talented few who generously shared their knowledge and passion and gave music a future of unexpected and thrilling potential.
Paperback $19.95 Amazon Also available at Headquarters House, Washington County Historical Society, 118 W. Dickson
Good Times: A History of Night Spots and Live Music in Fayetteville, Arkansas
In 2019, Fayetteville, Arkansas found itself named among the top three American cities for live music, placing third after Austin, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana. In this history of Fayetteville’s nightspots and musicians, we celebrate the ancient human tradition of music and dance. These were – and still are – the places where live music finds its most enthusiastic audience, where musicians practice a craft as old as time, where the drumbeat and lyrical voice travel straight to the heart.
Among the hundreds of start-up bands pursuing their moment in the spotlight, some of Fayetteville’s bands and musicians have gone on to national, even international fame. Standing behind these musicians are the promoters, nightclubs, and rehearsal spaces that supported and encouraged them.
Perhaps more importantly, a steady stream of new talent, new sounds, new ideas attract passionate new audiences to join in the good times. How can this be? What strange cocktail of talent and public appreciation come together here to produce such a rich legacy of irresistible music and the places and professionals who enable its existence? Only a historical view of this Ozark city, its musical artists, and its creative commons can begin to illustrate the full picture.
Multiple 5-star reviews!
Paperback $26.95 Amazon Washington County Historical Society
Black Diamond Orchestra
The Black Diamond Orchestra first appeared in Fayetteville’s entertainment venues in 1903. They would continue to enjoy bookings in a wide variety of programs for the next thirty years, one of the longest running local talents in the town’s history. Even more remarkable, this entity rose from the depths of the “Holler,” otherwise known as Tin Cup, where the majority of Fayetteville’s Black population lived.
Engagements for the orchestra over the next several years included private parties and receptions as well as bookings by the Shamrock Club, White Chapel Club, and other civic and university entities. By 1911, the group had become a featured event at gatherings such as a Kappa Sigma fraternity dance and a celebration at Fern Dells, “the handsome country home of Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Stuckey on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of their marriage. Over 300 guests were “allowed perfect liberty of choice in the viands [and] left likewise free to choose the place he was to sit and partake of them while listening to the strains of the Black Diamond Orchestra … After the last guests had been served the orchestra was removed from the basement to the stair landing of the big hall where music was furnished throughout the evening and dancing was indulged in by the young and old…”
In September 1924, the University of Arkansas’ new radio station KFMQ featured the Black Diamonds asking listeners to send postcards if they heard the broadcast. “Weeks later, the Fayetteville Democrat reported that the station received postcards from listeners as far away as Canada, New Mexico, and Washington D.C.”
“Colored programs are becoming quite the thing in Fayetteville, with an aroused interest in negro music and African folk-lore. On Friday night a colored troop of entertainers including a local celebrity, E. Young, formerly end–man with Field’s Minstrels when that company had colored end-men, will give an entertainment at Peabody Hall, University of Arkansas, as joint colored church and white school benefit. The Leverett school PTA is sponsoring the event, featuring Black Diamond Orchestra.”
Much more about the celebrated Black Diamond Orchestra and its personnel in The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville, available in paperback for $19.95.
Owen Mitchell and Fayetteville’s Jazz Men
the Arkansas Travelers
Owen Mitchell started teaching music when he was seven years old. A neighborhood boy wanted to learn to play so Owen shared what he knew. That was 1892. He would go on to become the first jazz band leader in Fayetteville. … In increasing demand, the Owen Mitchell Orchestra performed for dances across the region to audiences eager to break out of the war years’ gloom and embrace the new styles of music and dance. The band was among the first to be heard on the new University radio station, KFMQ, in 1924. By January 1925, Mitchell’s radio programming split fifty-fifty between fox trots and waltzes.
… In a lengthy 1949 article in the Northwest Arkansas Times, reporter Doug Jones provided an overview of the local music scene.
“…What I’m talking about are the guys that have and are still living in and around Fayetteville that plenty of local citizens have heard about. All in all, there has been a lot of pretty good music produced in this area, homegrown and home-consumed.
“To those who have followed music, there have been trends in this town reflecting the jazz of the whole country. There might be a few raised eyebrows when I say jazz, but that’s what it was and still is. Jazz music is the basic foundation for all native American popular music. Even more important, to those who haven’t heard, jazz is the only original art form this country has produced. Everything else, Europe or China did first. But jazz is ours, and more and more it is becoming recognized by critics as a true art form.”
From Chapter 3, The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville, available in paperback at Amazon. $19.95
Henry Tovey, A Renaissance Man
Henry Doughty Tovey will always be best known as the composer of the music for the University of Arkansas Alma Mater. For everyone who ever attended school there or came to University events like football games, the melodic strains and rich harmonies of that song evoke deeply-felt memories. Without question, Tovey had tremendous musical talent. But that was only a hint at what this man would give to the university, the town of Fayetteville and yes, even the State of Arkansas over the twenty-seven years of his life here.
…Tovey spent the summer of 1909 with friends in Chicago where he discovered the latest version of the Victor gramophone. He immediately purchased one along with a large number of recordings of standard operas including performances by world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso… The gramophone came to serve a key role in Tovey’s grand scheme to offer music education throughout the entire state. Ultimately, his concept caught fire across the nation and even in other places around the world. … Tovey’s growing reputation regarding this teaching method resulted in an article about him published in The Musician, the national journal of music instructors… “The address by Henry Doughty Tovey of the University of Arkansas, which we give in this issue in part, is highly interesting in the demonstration it makes of the wonderful educational power of the talking machine and because it presents such a practical way of working out results. In his plan there is suggestion for every music teacher, for he can use the talking machine in the home and suggest selection of records, and this will have splendid educational results both on the pupil and the entire home.”
…In April 1917, Tovey received notice from Schirmer’s of New York City that their new book, “Energy of American Crowd Music,” would include a chapter about Tovey and his work. No record of this book has been found, but an article thus entitled stated in the preface that “everything we see hear, feel, experience in any way becomes subject matter for music, poetry, painting and sculpture. The things seen and heard in Kentucky or New England or the Ozarks become material for us…”
Much more about this trailblazer in The Music Men of Turn-of-the-Century Fayetteville. Available in paperback, $19.95.
denelecampbell 