Hayes Carli
Local songbird with as bonafide a country pedigree as you’ll find anywhere, Mandy McBryde (3:30 p.m.), sings heartfelt and witty originals with a twang. It’s charming, it’s infectious and it’s opening up Sunday’s lineup.
For a town that churns out its fair share of great bar rockers, the trio of Jonathan Wilkins & The Reparations (5 p.m.) stand tall. Beer-splattered, swaggering rock with a dollop of country twang, they’re long-standing favorites around town.
Sweet Eagle (6:30 p.m.), simply put, is all the best dudes playing the best music. It’s shredding, power-chord ’80s rock with all the testosterone and none of the glam shtick (thank God). Even with only a handful of shows under their belts, these guys have an unfiltered, metric ton of buzz.
Jim Mize (8 p.m.), Fat Possum recording artist and criminally underacknowledged Conway-based musician, follows up with tracks from his Dixiefied oeuvre; right beside the slide guitars and shuffling drums, listen close for his painstaking songwriting.
So Hayes Carll (9:30 p.m.) may not technically be an Arkansan, but the Houston-born singer/songwriter graduated from Hendrix in 1998 and one of his albums is entitled “Little Rock,” so if any Texan deserves a double-citizenship, it’s Hayes. An heir to the thrones held by Townes Van Zandt and John Prine, he’s been celebrated by practically every publication worth its headphones. Heck, even Don Imus called his trademark song “She Left Me For Jesus” the “greatest country song ever.”