Former Dillard and current fiction writer Mitch Jayne has just learned that he will be receiving the 2008 Governor’s Humanities Book Award from the Missouri Humanities Council.

The award is in recognition of his book, Fiddler’s Ghost, published in 2007. It has been widely praised by critics for its lovingly authentic portrayal of the culture of Missouri’s Ozark region, including its dialect and history.
The award letter indicates that…

“Each year the Missouri Humanities Council and the Governor of Missouri celebrate the accomplishments of people who have made exceptional contributions to our understanding of Missouri, its people, and its stories.

The Book Award recognizes an individual or group whose book has increased our understanding and appreciation of Missouri’s history and culture..”

The award will be officially conveyed in October during a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City. Mitch isn’t 100% sure, but believes that this may be the first time the Governor’s Award has been given to a work of fiction.

Mitch’s wife, Diane, reacted to this honor as follows…

“I told Mitch that if a person lives long enough, the governor will either give them a full pardon or an award.”

Congratulations Mitch!

Fiddler’s Ghost, the most recent novel from former Dillard’s funny man Mitch Jayne, has been selected as among the Best Books of 2007 by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The book, released this summer by Wildstone Media, tells the tale of a young schoolteacher and his wife who settle into their new home in the Ozarks, only to find it inhabited by Hiram, a fiddle playing ghost. Critics have praised the book for Jayne’s rich embrace of the idiomatic language of the Ozarks, and his authentic representation of the culture.

Congratulations to Mitch for this recognition. You can find more details about the book on the Wildstone site.

Former Dillards bass player Mitch Jayne has just released his latest book of fiction.

Fiddler’s Ghost is the story of a young couple who move to a small Ozark town where the locals folks live by customs that seem generations out of date. As they learn about the people and their ways, they encounter Hiram, a musical ghost who haunts the old home where they had settled.

Jayne has long been recognized as a clever humorist, and a master of the dialects and ways of the Ozark Mountain people. Anyone who had the chance to see the Dillards live in the 1960s will recall the dead pan, pipe smoking Jayne telling tales and spinning yarns between songs.

Since leaving the band, he has focused on writing, and has three novels published, one of which (Old Fish Hawk) has been made into a motion picture.

I asked Mitch about how he came to write Fiddler’s Ghost.

“Ghosts have a different schedule, and before I followed Hiram, I had to follow a musical life myself for several years, and write a book (Home Grown Stories and Home Fried Lies) about that and other Ozark happenings. My ghost didn’t care. Having already wisped around the universe for a hundred and thirty-odd years, he wasn’t a bit jealous of time, and for all I know spent some of it watching Andy Griffith re-runs, and expecting Dan Randant, my publisher, to remind me that Hiram still waited in the wings of an unexplored stage for me to finish what I began so long ago.”

Fiddler’s Ghost is published by Wildstone Media, and is available from them directly, and from Amazon.com.

Many a current bluegrass fan first encountered the music watching The Andy Griffith Show on television. During the early-to-mid 1960s, The Dillards appeared on this hit show in regular guest spots as The Darling Boys, hillbilly musicians who would come to town from time to time, generally with hilarious results. This helped propel the band to folk and bluegrass music stardom, with the band headlining festivals and recording for Elektra Records for the next decade or so.

They began to experiment with adding percussion and electric instruments to their original bluegrass sound, and became early pioneers of the then burgeoning folk rock scene in the late 60s and early 70s. Collaborations with such mainstream artists as Gene Clark and The Byrds followed, with the band becoming less recognized as a bluegrass act.

Rounder Records is set to reissue an album from 1979, Decade Waltz, which comes from this folk rock period for The Dillards. Rodney Dillard and Dean Webb are featured, along with Herb Pedersen, Jeff Gilkinson, Douglas Bounsall and Paul York. It is scheduled to be available tomorrow, June 27.

No audio up on the Rounder site at this time.