Square Dance: Ozark Highballers w/ Willi Carlisle calling

The Ozark Highballers are a three to four piece string band from Fayetteville, Arkansas, carrying the spirit and drive of the rural Ozark string bands of the 1920s and 30s into the present. Featuring the dynamic melody duo of Roy Pilgrim on fiddle and Seth Shumate on harmonica, accompanied by Clarke Buehling on five-string banjo and Aviva Steigmeyer on guitar and vocals, the band formed in May 2014 when Roy and Aviva returned to Fayetteville and crossed paths with Seth and Clarke at the farmers market. It was either with them or against them, so they joined forces.

Since then the Highballers have brought old-time music to square dances, festivals, workshops, and front porches across the country. Their program reaches deep into regional Ozark traditions: square dance music, classic banjo pieces, ballads, and sweet harmonies rooted in an Arkansas repertoire that deserves to be carried on. They have performed and taught at the Brooklyn Folk Festival, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall, Stephen Foster Old-Time Week, Bluff Country Gathering, St. Louis Folk and Roots, the Colorado Rocky Mountain Stringband Festival, the Los Angeles Old-Time Social, and the Ozark Folk Center, and received the Artist 360 grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance.