Branson Centennial Museum's Tuesday Talk presentation is hillbilly variety shows

Submitted to Branson Globe

The Tuesday Talk series hosted by the Branson Centennial Museum will feature Thomas A. Peters, Dean of Library Services with Missouri State University and an expert on hillbilly variety shows. In the talk, Peters will cover the common elements that have made this show style a crowd pleaser for the last hundred years and counting. The free presentation will take place at the Branson Centennial Museum, 120 S. Commercial Street, in historic downtown Branson, on Tuesday, September 20 from 12:30–1:30 pm.

“Every hillbilly variety show combines four basic elements,” explains Peters. “The playing of music on instruments such as the fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass and mandolin; singing, dancing and comedy.”

Peters will retrace ten decades of an entertainment phenomenon that began with tent, medicine and toby shows, house parties, pie suppers and other types of rural entertainment that eventually found success on the vaudeville circuit. These roots in the Upland South grew into radio shows, like Springfield’s own Ozark Jubilee, as well as television success stories. Hillbilly variety is the live entertainment style that formed the foundation of today’s music show industry in Branson.

The Tuesday Talk series is presented free-of-charge by the Branson Centennial Museum and White River Valley Historical Society. Various topics of local and historical interest are presented by knowledgeable speakers on the third Tuesday of the month from 12:30 until 1:30 p.m. The Museum is at 120 South Commercial Street.

For more information on this presentations and future events at the Branson Centennial Museum, go to www.wrvhs.org or call 417- 239-1912.