Arkansas Country/Roots Music Star Bonnie Montgomery Added To Pat Green’s Free Concert on Saturday, March 16, To Kick Off Weekend of Fun For First Ever 21st Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade®
(PHOTO CAPTION: Arkansas music star Bonnie Montgomery will join the Saturday, March 16, free public concert starring Pat Green in advance of the First Ever 21st Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade® in Hot Springs. — Photo courtesy Visit Hot Springs.)
HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, Arkansas — Arkansas country/roots music star Bonnie Montgomery has been added to the Saturday, March 16, free public concert by Pat Green to open the weekend of fantastic fun surrounding the First Ever 21st Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Hot Springs.
“We’re pleased to be able to add Bonnie Montgomery to the free concert,” Visit Hot Springs Marketing Director Bill Solleder said. “She’s established herself as one of the best in the country/roots genre, and she’ll be a perfect complement to country legend Pat Green’s performance on the Bridge Street Stage as the kickoff to Parade Weekend.”
Sunday’s 98-foot parade will feature Dallas Cowboys running back legend Emmitt Smith as the celebrity grand marshal and “Yellowstone’s” Forrie J. Smith as the official starter.
Saturday, March 16, will be a full day of fun on Bridge Street, with The World’s Shortest Zero-K footrace amd entertainment by DJ Courier preceding the concert.
The schedule:
• 3 p.m. — Bridge Street Entertainment District opens
• 4 p.m. — Zero-K race, with prizes for best costume and slowest finisher
• 5 p.m. — DJ Courier entertains
• 7 p.m. — Bonnie Montgomery performs
• 8 p.m. — Pat Green performs
With roots in White County, Arkansas, Montgomery is lauded for her polished parlor songs, her lawless country barnburners and for the classical opera arias she’s penned at the piano.
Dale Watson called her “a sophisticated badass who was born to sing.” Counterpunch Magazine hailed her operatic compositions as “white trash arias.”
“Billy Blythe,” her 2016 short-length opera about President Bill Clinton’s youth in Hot Springs, has earned accolades from The New Yorker and Huffington Post, and her second full-length album “Forever” drew praise from Paste magazine for its “timeless songwriting.”
Her new album is “River.”
She was named the 2020 Entertainer of the Year with the Arkansas Country Music Awards, ACMA 2019 Americana/Roots Artist of the Year, the title of Outlaw Female at the 2016 Ameripolitan Awards and the titles of Best Americana Artist and Best Female Vocalist at the 2018 Arkansas Country Music Awards.
“Billy Blythe” received worldwide coverage from dozens of networks and news sources from the BBC to CNN. The opera had its world premiere at Opera Ithaca after developmental workshop performances in Arkansas and New York City and has gone on to be performed by opera companies and colleges and universities around the country.
Montgomery has supported major acts in the U.S. and abroad, including The Gossip, Billy Jo Shaver, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ramblin Jack Elliot, Hayes Carll, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Shovels and Rope, Joe Ely, and more.
Texas country music star Pat Green “has had more recognizable hits than you can shake a stick at, and he will be a great start to St. Pat's weekend,” Visit Hot Springs CEO and parade founder Steve Arrison said. “St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, so we decided to open the weekend on Saturday with a free concert on Bridge Street.”
The World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade annually attracts more than 30,000 fans from across the country to Bridge Street, which Ripley’s Believe It or Not declared the World’s Shortest Street in Everyday Use. It features an array of 40 or more zany entries that include a troupe of marching Irish Elvis Presley impersonators, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, wacky floats, marching bands and assorted marchers who adopt the parade’s irreverent take on the boisterous holiday.
For more information call Steve Arrison at 501-321-2027.
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