Business of the Arts: Tradition In Store

Buying the former McClurg general store might have seemed like an iffy investment for Thomas Peters, dean of Library Services at Missouri State University. He won’t disclose what he paid for it in January 2022. But judging by what Peters counts as valuable – traditional music, fellowship and Ozark mountain air – it’s a blue chip stock.

That’s blue chip, mind you – not bluegrass. Every Monday at 6:30 p.m., the store, perched high in the Ozark hills in the northeast corner of Taney County, hosts a musical gathering known as the McClurg Jam. In the center of the old store’s single room, Peters has set out a circle of wooden chairs, and one by one they’re claimed by people with instruments, including guitars – both four- and six-stringed versions – plus a banjo, a standing bass, a mandolin and the all-important fiddle.

Throughout the area, there are rumblings about regionalism, with efforts to pull together and capitalize on assets – not just a central location and ready workforce, but a lifestyle and tradition, and quality of life often linked to traditional culture.

If Ozarks culture matters to regional identity in a real sense – rather than merely as an elegy to a simpler time – what happens each Monday in the McClurg General Store may just be a different kind of investment.

No one can say precisely when the jams started – they began, as such things do, organically, with someone grabbing an instrument, someone else joining in, and then everyone tacitly agreeing to make it a regular thing. What is known is that people have gathered for decades to play a genre that is distinct from bluegrass. They call it Ozark or old-time music, Peters says.

“I’m not a musician, but what I’ve heard is the fiddler kind of leads, and it’s a big downbeat,” he says. “It starts fast, because we want to get people up and dancing.”

That’s clogging or jig-stepping, he says, and there’s a corner of the McClurg store where plywood has been nailed down in case anyone wants to cut a figurative rug.

A musician, Steve Assenmacher, overhears Peters’ summation and offers his own.

“If it makes you want to listen, it’s bluegrass. If it makes you want to get up and dance, it’s old-time,” he says.

And then, Assenmacher calls for a waltz. He picks up a fiddle – over the course of the evening, he’ll switch from fiddle to mandolin to guitar – and he and the circle’s leader, David Scrivner, remind each other of how the “Red and White Waltz” goes. Within seconds, the other five musicians join in, and they’re off.

Community hub
The crowd has parked in all directions in the yard out front before climbing a dozen steps to the porch of the white wood-framed store. Most have brought a potluck dish to share, including a tall butterscotch meringue pie that vibrates with every foot-stomp.

Nobody is putting on airs. The facilities – which consist of an outhouse out back – have a way of keeping folks humble.

Some people have driven 50-plus miles from Springfield. On this night, that includes Betsy Fogle, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, with her father, Brian Fogle, former head of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc., and her brother, who is visiting from out of town.

Also in the room are David Stoeffler, CEO of the Springfield Daily Citizen, and local journalist Mike O’Brien – though the two are there just to listen, rather than covering the story.

Others in the room come from right up the road, including Ava and Sparta, not to mention exactly half the population of the town of McClurg – Peters himself, owner of one of the two houses there.

Talk is lively between songs, but when the music starts, conversation ceases and feet and hands start to keep the beat.

The musicians launch into a familiar tune, and everyone is invited to sing along. It’s not a question of if one remembers the words; they’re kind of etched inside, and it would be hard not to join in.

Some glad morning when this life is over,

I’ll fly away.

To that home on God’s celestial shore,

I’ll fly away …

The only commerce in sight is a wooden box on the wall marked “donations.” Peters says he gets enough donations to pay for the lights and the air conditioner – a single window unit that is enough to keep the room pleasant on a hot summer night. In the winter, a pellet stove casts off heat from the middle of the room.

He’s been asked for merch, usually by people who find the store through media stories, but that’s not something he has devoted much thought to. The traditional music venue has been featured in major print publications and on network television, as well as in regional media, and tourists do find it. They get the same welcome as everyone else and are welcome at the potluck, even if they come empty-handed.

“Sometimes when someone like The New York Times runs a story, it’s like, oh, we’re going to get all these tourists,” Peters says. “We don’t. It’s mostly just word of mouth, family members, friends.”

Every Monday is a little different, Peters says. Usually there are 20-30 people in attendance. On Memorial Day, it was more like 60.

“One time, it was snowing, and Steve and I were the only two who showed up,” Peters recalls. “His wife had made some ham-and-cheese hot buns, so we ate some of those and sang some carols and that was it.”

Ozark identity
It’s easy to get into a conversation with the people at the store.

Kate Assenmacher is a retired teacher who moved to rural Ava from Michigan. She bought her farm in 2000 and started attending the jam sessions with her neighbors. Now she doesn’t miss them.

“Over the years we’ve lost a lot of the old-timers, and it’s sad – but we have some really young musicians, so hopefully they’ll continue to come and play,” she says.

Gordon McCann has brought his guitar to the circle of musicians. The nonagenarian has spent half his life preserving Ozarks music and culture in writings, scrapbooks and recordings, which he has placed in Peters’ official care at the MSU Libraries.

Beside McCann is an empty chair, in case anyone else takes a notion to join in.

Peters says there are similar weekly jams in other places – Stone County has the McDowell Jam, and there’s another in Ava, plus one in Clio, just south of Jenkins.

“There used to be more,” he says. “COVID took a real toll on it.”

The pandemic led Peters to buy the store from the out-of-state owner, after the jam slowed and then stopped for the bug – moving outside, discontinuing the potlucks and then kind of fizzling out.

Peters’ investment in the store was an effort to keep the cultural outlet alive.

Jams like the one in McClurg are vestiges of a tradition of music sometimes passed down over the course of generations and sometimes taken up by people who discover and want to be part of the tradition, according to McCann, who took up guitar as an adult.

Peters says he plans to keep the Monday night jams going and growing – he’s even considering expanding the gatherings into the porch area with some minor renovations – and he is excited to introduce newcomers at the start of each night’s event.

Maybe Peters is onto something after all.