The Creek Rocks Album Release Concert

As The Creek Rocks, Springfield musicians Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu have found their niche and an enthusiastic audience by seeking out, arranging, and performing the folk music of the Ozarks region. Their debut album, Wolf Hunter, for example, consisted of folk songs found in the collections of Max Hunter of Springfield, Missouri, and John Quincy Wolf of Batesville, Arkansas. The audio recordings from these collections are accessible online, just as they were for The Creek Rocks, so that anyone can listen. Note that both Hunter and Wolf began recording in the late 1950’s. For this latest project, The Creek Rocks have gone back further in time, to a collection that represents a largely forgotten musical history of Springfield, Missouri, and her surrounding communities - a collection, unlike those of Hunter’s and Wolf’s, that is not housed nearby or readily available for listening. When Sidney Robertson Cowell visited the Ozarks in December of 1936 and January of 1937, it was the first time that the musical folklore of the people of Springfield was recorded and preserved for future generations as audio artifacts. Once made, the recordings were sent to the Library of Congress. As the first recipients of the American Folklife Center’s “Artist in Resonance Fellowship,” The Creek Rocks were given the opportunity to travel to Washington to listen to and research Cowell’s collection. The fellowship came with the understanding that once home, they would then create a new musical project inspired by the music they had heard. And so it is with this new album, and the concert celebrating its release, that The Creek Rocks wants to give back to Springfield the music that Springfield itself gave to the nation 90 years ago. Cindy and Mark will be joined by friends at the Fox Theater in downtown Springfield on Saturday, August 15th.