plate 1. A bass fiddle glows in the half-darkness of a bluegrass festival night. Starvy Creek Festival, Conway, Missouri. September 18, 2011.

Bluegrass on the Lake 7PM Show Schedule:

• July 23, Brightwater Junction, Kimberling City Mall, Kimberling City, MO

plate 2. Casey Lee Penn, Benton, Arkansas.

Ozark Music Spotlight: Casey Lee Penn

“Casey encompasses all the qualities of a real artist,” says Cindy Clark of the Clark Family Trio. “She is a vocal delight!” As a writer, “she seems to find just the right words for describing the flavor and bright spots. Casey is more than a music critic. She’s a fan!” As a songwriter, “her contributions to the music world have been given some pretty high recognition by her songwriting peers. ‘Oceans I’ve Cried,’ which she wrote with friend and fellow musician Rodger King, is a heart-melter.”

An aspiring songwriter and musician, Penn’s day job is as creative director of her business, Pennwords Writing & Design. Her nonfiction writing appears in magazines such as Bluegrass Unlimited, Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society, and Talk Business & Politics.

Born in Wyoming, Penn remembers always loving the fiddle but seldom being around someone playing it. “We seemed to live far from where the music was,” she recalls. “That was not true – Wyoming has always had its share of music – I just wasn’t aware of most of it as a kid.

“As it was, I grew up around music in church and on the radio. I grew up loving the feel of my voice and felt, instinctively, that I could sing. I love the Lord, and singing in church with my family was always part of my life.”

These days, Penn is finding opportunities to use her voice – in church, yes, but also outside of church, where she enjoys the feeling of connecting emotionally with an audience. It’s been a slow process.

So how does a young girl in Wyoming find herself in the Ozark hills of Arkansas? “When I was 10, my dad surrendered to preach. We moved to Arkansas so he could attend the seminary. It was the hardest — and in the end, most wonderful — trip of our lives,” she recalls. “I’ve never regretted growing up in Arkansas. I do wish, at times, that I’d have landed a little closer to the Ozarks, where I could have been exposed earlier to a little front porch picking and singing.”

Other than a few years of piano and violin lessons, and singing in church, Penn wasn’t around a lot of music. “I didn’t have folks to sit around and play music with, and we didn’t live in a place where music was the ‘big’ thing,” she said. “It fell to the back burner, and though I missed it, I spent years enjoying other passions – writing, mostly – and just growing up.”

By 19, Penn was married, working and earning a degree in mass media and writing from Henderson State University. There wasn’t time for a lot of extras, but there was music in the family. “Thankfully, I married into a family that loved and played bluegrass gospel. I pulled my fiddle back out and learned to improvise along, and did some singing. My husband and I played with a family group at our church and around the region in some fellow church services.”

As life got busy, as it tends to do, music again went to the back burner. The family played together less, and there was a career to mind and kids to raise. Still, the desire for music was there inside. “I thought sometimes about performing, recording, and otherwise using my talent, but I didn’t do anything about it for too many years,” said Penn, who admits sometimes feeling alone in her wish to play and sing “out.”

“It isn’t fair to say that any one kept me from pursuing music,” said Penn. “Singing was something I spent some time thinking about. I could not see a responsible path to it, so I kept that particular ambition to myself. On occasion, I pushed my way onto a stage somewhere to get it out of my system for a while, but that was the extent of it.

It took tragedy to push Penn a little harder toward the Ozark music scene. “2011 was a difficult, but life-changing year for me. My dad died unexpectedly, and it was a hard loss, and a spotlight on life’s brevity. I am still learning from it. I find myself much more empathetic to others who suffer loss or falter as they travel life’s rocky pathway.

“In short, I woke up! I found myself looking at life vividly and what was missing was very clear to me: my music. I decided to make something happen. I got involved with a fiddle workshop here, a small performance there. Before I knew it, I was consumed with possibilities!”

Since getting more serious about music, Penn has been taking opportunities as she can to learn, grow, and search for her fit in the music world. Penn has begun performing periodically at the Ozark Folk Center. Other performances have included Mt. Ida Front Porch Stage, Central Arkansas NSAI Showcases, and private events around Arkansas. She also joined the Central Arkansas Chapter of Nashville Songwriters Association International. “I have a handful of songs under my belt and have met and performed with some great artists.”

Recently, Penn and co-writer Rodger King performed together and won the Arkansas Talent Search Songwriting Division. A resulting album, for release this spring, will feature their songwriting together and as independent artists.

“I’m writing songs and singing, and I have a group of friends and family that play with me regularly. I call on them as ‘bandmates’ more all of the time and I’m enjoying every minute of learning and growing with them.

“I realize I’m getting a late start,” she says. “I’m committed to being a mom, wife and small business owner. I don’t want to walk away from any of those things, but at the same time, I’m searching for my place in this business of music.”

plate 3. Sassafras grove, Baker Creek Farm, Mansfield, MO. Photo credit, J. Heston. October 24, 2007.

“So the days slipped over the wood-fringed ridges. The soft green of tree, and of bush and grassy slope changed to brilliant gold, and crimson, and russet brown, while the gray blue haze that hangs always over the hollows took on a purple tone. Then in turn this purple changed to a deeper, colder blue, when the leaves had fallen, and the trees shows naked against the winter sky.” — Harold Bell Wright, 1907