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Charley Sandage lives, shares and celebrates Arkansas folk culture — Ozarks Alive [1]
['Kaitlyn Mcconnell']
Date: 2025-07
Charley’s story is a verse in a song that far predates his presence above the White River, where he lives atop a bluff with his wife, Vicki. The meandering waterway is an inherited – or, at some points, commandeered – point of connection that links generations and cultures who have used its waters for travel and trade.
That was before the start of Mountain View, a town of about 2,800 people and the seat of Stone County that was officially organized in 1890.
For the first decades of its existence, Mountain View’s history was similar to other small Ozarks communities: An emphasis on agriculture, timber, and changes in the wake of World War I and II, during which people left the area and didn’t return — and issues with poverty.
The latter concern found opportunity in the mid-20th century as economic developers looked for ways to help increase revenue and their search merged with typical Ozarks can-do attitude: Use what you have. And what they had was people who knew the old ways because they never really left them behind.
“Stone County, Arkansas, is statistically among the poorest of the country,” says Charley of its place in the early 1960s. “That was an era in which there were a lot of grant possibilities. And the University of Arkansas Extension Service had some economic development specialists, and they sent one over into this area. He was stationed in Batesville — Leo Rainey — and he's looking at this impoverished little community over here, and he's seeing a deep well; a lot of traditional crafts people. And he said, ‘You know, we can make something to that.’”
They also had a man named Jimmy Driftwood, a famous native son who rose to national prominence writing songs like “The Battle of New Orleans.” His place on the national stage helped shine more light on Mountain View’s crafts and musical talent – which was just emerging to the forefront as a marketing and grant-getting opportunity.
When the newly organized craft guild’s show proved successful in 1962, it set planning in motion for the first Arkansas Folk Festival in 1963. But for that, they needed musicians. Jimmy was approached, and his first impulse was to recruit Nashville folks — but no one was interested. So locals became the stars instead.
“It was, ‘Hey, get your fiddle out of the closet. We’re going to meet on Friday night down at (the doctor’s) office and see if we can’t remember how to play some old tunes,’” Charley recounts of the times back then.
“There was a really deep and wide tradition, but like in so many other places, they weren't doing much anymore. Jimmy knew all this. So then going over on Friday night to the doctor's office got to be a little bit of a thing, and then it outgrew the doctor's office. Wound up summers they played on the steps of the courthouse, winters that would go up into the court room. Mountain View may be the only county seat anywhere in the U.S. with a dance platform built alongside the front steps.”
The effort was a success, and so was the first festival, which drew crowds that swelled the size of the town.
“Most of the talent was homegrown, and none of the performers were paid,” noted the Helena World newspaper after the first festival’s finish. “The population of Mountain View (983) swelled into the thousands as visitors flocked to the festival.
“When the performers had sung themselves hoarse, the audience took over and the singing continued into the wee house Friday and Saturday nights.”
Down Deeper in the Arkansas
That all happened before Charley got to town. Born in Hot Spring County in 1943, he grew up in a little community called Donaldson, about 150 miles south of Mountain View.
Music was important to him from a young age. An early lesson was instilled through shape-note singing tradition from his time as a Primitive Baptist, a conservative, decentralized denomination whose members generally believe that only those elected by God will be saved.
“I grew up on unaccompanied shape-note, four-part harmony. It’s quite a thing,” he says, referring to traditions like Sacred Harp, which use shapes instead of the traditional seven-note staff to indicate notes to sing. “One result from the church exposures – I hear harmony. I just do.”
His parents ordered his first guitar from Sears and Roebuck, but he didn’t get too far since he didn’t have anyone to play with. Years later, he got another from a classmate for about $10, paying his ticket into a lifetime of music.
That foundation progressed into folk and rockabilly ‘n’ roll, skills honed with peers at school dances despite his Baptist upbringing.
“Dad, who became a minister, would’ve preferred that we didn’t play for dances – but we played for dances,” Charley says.
After high school, education remained in his future. He began college with plans to become a teacher, and his first role — a temporary position while he awaited military service in Oahu, Hawaii — sealed the deal. Teaching “six sections of ninth-grade civics," was enough.
“I found I really liked teaching,” he says.
That early section of his life also included other life moments: Marrying his first wife, and adopting his daughter, Laura. Working on a doctorate. And in the mix was that trip to Mountain View in the early 1970s that changed the trajectory of his life.
“I was in Fayetteville in grad school, and came over for the first time for the festival,” he recalls of the Arkansas Folk Festival. “At that time, the square was the center of everything. There were little clusters of people literally all around the square.”
Who caught his attention was that aforementioned family band: The Simmons Family, a group composed of Tom Simmons, Jean Simmons and their daughter, Pam Simmons Setser, who have had their own enduring influence on Mountain View’s musical legacy.
That introduction would set in motion years of friendship, collaboration and soon, Charley’s return to Mountain View.
Coming to Mountain View
[END]
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[1] Url:
https://www.ozarksalive.com/stories/charley-sandage-lives-shares-and-celebrates-arkansas-folk-culture
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