Thacker Mountain Radio Draws Packed Crowd In Return Trip
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Singer-songwriter Charlie Mars performs during Thacker Mountain Radio’s live show at the Hendricks Building in Water Valley on Oct. 16. Mars debuted a new song, Nothing You Can Do, before a packed hometown crowd.
WATER VALLEY – The Hendricks Building was packed Thursday evening, Oct. 16, as Thacker Mountain Radio made a return trip to Water Valley for its weekly public radio show.
The Oxford-based program, hosted by Jim Dees and featuring house band The Yalobushwackers, set up for a free one-hour performance from 6 to 7 p.m. The night marked only the second time the long-running show has recorded live in Water Valley.
Opening the evening were the Yalobushwackers, warming up the crowd before singer-songwriter Charlie Mars took the stage. Mars, who has built a national following with his laid-back Southern sound, debuted a new song written just two weeks earlier.
“This is a song I just finished about two weeks ago, and I haven’t played it before. I thought I would play it for you in my hometown. It’s called Nothing You Can Do,” Mars told the audience.
“But if you are ever tired of running, getting high… I hope you know around here there are people that love you.”
Mars performed three songs to enthusiastic applause before the evening turned to a gripping author segment.
Rick Jervis, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for USA Today, discussed his new true-crime book, The Devil Behind the Badge. The book recounts the shocking story of Juan David Ortiz, a Texas Border Patrol agent turned serial killer who murdered four women in Laredo in 2018. In a twelve-day rampage, Ortiz lured his victims—Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Ann Luera, Griselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz—into his white truck and drove them to remote areas where he shot and killed them.
Jervis spent more than three years researching material for the book, interviewing investigators, family members, and people from the victims’ community. He told the audience it was important to him to tell the stories of the women themselves—each of whom worked as a sex worker. His remarks held the audience’s attention with the same journalistic precision that earned him national recognition.
Closing out the show, Ghalia Volt brought fiery slide guitar and soulful vocals to the Thacker stage. The Belgian-born blues artist is known for her raw, percussive “one-woman band” style—playing guitar, drums, and singing simultaneously. After busking the streets of Brussels, Volt journeyed across the American South to study the blues firsthand, later recording Mississippi Blend with North Mississippi artists Cedric Burnside and Watermelon Slim. Her later albums, One Woman Band and Shout Sister Shout!, blend Hill Country rhythms with desert-blues energy, earning her international acclaim.
Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, produced in Oxford, features a mix of author readings and musical performances. The show airs weekly on multiple public radio stations and presents about 30 live recordings each year—roughly a dozen each in spring and fall, plus several road shows across the Southeast.
