Lovers of Arkansas musical history joined Stephen Koch, the host of National Public Radio’s award-winning Arkansas-musical-history segment, “Arkansongs,” in celebrating 25 years of the show through live music, videos, an interview and a historical gallery.

The anniversary celebration started at 2 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts’ Windgate Gallery as visitors walked through a collection of Arkansas musical archives gathered from the UCA Archives, the Old State House Museum, and Arkansas sculptor, Kevin Kresse.

Inside, guests were greeted at the door by a statue of the RCA dog, “Nipper,” who stood guard over relics such as Jimmy Driftwood’s guitar and Grammy, Louis Jordan’s saxophone, Levon Helm’s bust and more.

At 3 p.m., guests were invited into the Windgate Performance Hall for a special presentation from Stephen Koch.

Koch started his show with a live performance of songs by Louis Jordan and Sister Rosetta Tharpe which he accompanied with his acoustic guitar.

After his musical introduction, Koch provided historical context to select archival videos of artists such as Almeda Riddle, Black Oak Arkansas, Jimmy Driftwood, Sippie Wallace and Ronnie Hawkins. This portion of the show was then followed by a 10-minute Q&A with Provost Patricia Poulter.

Attendee and junior Kyla Oler said, “I thought it was so interesting to learn about all the musicians who were born or lived in Arkansas for some time. There were and still are so many talented people from our state that we don’t even know about.” 

“Sometimes Arkansas history can get lost behind other, wealthier or more popular states’ history, which can really hinder how our state is perceived. Arkansas has and will continue to produce incredibly talented musicians, so we just need to make sure we’re helping promote them,” Oler said.

Oler said her favorite part of the show was watching the archival video of Sippie Wallace: “I had no idea who she was before this event and enjoyed seeing a glimpse into her life.”

Koch started “Arkansongs” with producer Keith Merckx in 1998.

During a phone interview, Koch said that the show’s concept had come to him at a young age, back when he was “bouncing on [his dad’s] knee to Louis Jordan’s ‘Beans and Cornbread.’”

“My dad was a DJ. And there was a guy called Louis Jordan and he was basically that guy that invented rhythm and blues music in the 40s and influenced James Brown, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles … All the people that we think of as being influential, this guy Louis Jordan really was their inspiration,” Koch said.

“And so growing up, I knew that this guy, Louis Jordan, was from Brinkley, Arkansas, which was in my little neck of the woods. Then, growing up a little bit more I heard about Levon Helm and I knew he was from Arkansas. And then the guy that was on the good Schoolhouse Rock, which was an animated educational program, he was also from Arkansas.”

“So all these people that were fantastic musicians and life-changing musical linchpins for me were all from Arkansas, so I kind of always had this in my mind about exploring this,” Koch said.

Koch, whose background is in journalism, said that when he would do travel reporting, often, the only things people knew about Arkansas were Bill Clinton and the 1957 Little Rock Central High crisis.

“We had this incredible musical heritage here in the state and we really ignored it,” Koch said. “It’s an economic issue as much as it is a cultural issue.”

“The other thing about Arkansas music, to me, is like Mississippi has done a great job in claiming the mantle of blues music and Tennessee has country music and Arkansas has a very legitimate claim to both of those … but we’ve had punk rock innovators, opera, western swing, country music, blues, jazz. All these people from the state have been innovators and it’s almost like our strength in terms of diversity is our weakness in terms of marketing.”

“To me, Arkansongs isn’t just about music. It’s about geography, politics, culture and even food, and so to me this is a great entree for anyone that doesn’t know a lot about history, to jump in a place that is not intimidating.”

Koch referred to Louie Jordan’s “Saturday Night Fish Fry” as an example.

“A song like ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ also in a very sly way speaks about racism and police brutality against Black people. It’s not just a song about a fish fry. It’s really great, these historical layers you can infer from what is on its surface, you know, a silly song,” he said.

“History is often so dry to people, and to me as a student, it was never presented as something that was vital and interesting to me, and now it’s all so vital and interesting to me because I got into it largely through music,” Koch said.

After 25 years, Koch is still able to find artists to highlight in his show.

“I’m still finding so much. I should be done by now, right? I’ve done Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash and that’s what’s so cool to me is, wow, it just keeps going.”

Koch’s newest book “From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song” highlights 30 female Arkansas musical artists who have been historically overlooked.

“I was sort of assessing where I was in terms of the whole ‘Arkansongs’ cannon and really saw I didn’t have enough women being featured, and this has historically been the case … I really sat down to try to focus on only writing scripts about women musicians during that time and that’s still pretty much the case … and this turned into a book project because these women were so fantastic,” he said.

Koch’s newest book is set to release in May. Koch published a book titled “Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas” and worked on the documentary films “Music in Arkansas Origins: 200 B.C. to 1941 A.D.” and “Is You Is: A Louis Jordan Story.”

“Arkansongs” plays its seven-minute segments at 6:51 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. on KUAR. “Arkansongs”’ online archive can be accessed at arkansongs.org.