Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song
By Stephen Koch • Illustrated by Katherine Strause
By Erin Wood
Bonnie Dodd became known as a songwriter and steel guitar player, particularly in country and Western swing music. Nicknamed “Little Blossom” by iconic singing cowboy Tex Ritter, her songs of heartbreak have been recorded by everyone from country music legend Hank Williams to the family gospel group The Staple Singers (“I’ll Take You There”). Yet, like too many Arkansas women musicians, her contributions have been underrecognized.
In an exciting attempt to shine a light on these stories, Dodd is one of 30 women featured in the forthcoming book From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song, written by Arkansongs host Stephen Koch and illustrated by Little Rock artist Katherine Strause, now in preorder and forthcoming this summer.
From A to Z across the decades, alongside vivid color portraits, readers will encounter a wide variety of women and musical styles, including gospel (Rosetta Tharpe), opera (Marjorie Lawrence), blues (Sippie Wallace), folk ballads (Almeda Riddle), dance-pop (Beth Ditto), classical (Florence Price), and country (K.T. Oslin), along with many others.
In May, the first plaque along the Hot Springs Music Trail was dedicated at The Arlington Hotel, and it featured Dodd. (The Music Trail, a collaborative project with Arkansongs and the Garland County Historical Society, has two more plaques forthcoming, featuring The Vapors and musician Louis Jordan.)
To preorder your signed copy of From Almeda to Zilphia, visit etaliapress.com.
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs etaliapress.com, Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
