Take a Trip to Taney County for the McClurg Jam

We had been talking about doing it for years, but stuff just kept coming up. Honestly, Monday night isn’t the most convenient night, but convenience isn’t what the McClurg Jam is all about. Convenience is a modern trapping, and McClurg is timeless. Every Monday night in McClurg, the tiniest of towns in northeastern Taney County, the community gathers at the McClurg General Store for old-time Ozarks mountain music, a potluck and a time to catch up with neighbors. This jam started in the mid-to-late ’80s, but the tradition goes back generations.

It takes more than an hour to get there from Springfield, each passing town getting smaller and smaller while each passing mile gets windier and windier. I brought with me my always-up-for-quirky-adventure friends Nate Black and Sarah Jenkins. We rode down through Ozark, Sparta, Chadwick and Bradleyville before making a sharp right turn and coming upon a small white general store. I’ll often go by a setting like this and think about what it was like when it was more alive, but this old general store on this hillside could not be more alive than right now.

Sarah, Nate and I love to try out new experiences like this, but there’s always a slightly uneasy moment right before you open the door, knowing there are regulars inside, and you are not one of them. We walk up the porch, our potluck contribution in hand, and step in.

Any apprehension immediately melts as inside is honest-to-goodness authentic, rural, traditional Ozarks culture happening in front of us. There are no pretenses. There’s not even really a show, per se. The beauty is in the ordinariness of it all. It’s an open space with hardwood floors, a wood-burning stove toward the back, and built-in shelves lining the walls that once carried goods for sale. An American flag hangs in the back corner.

The walls are lined with all varieties of seating. They’re nearly all occupied, and all oriented toward the center of the room. We head to the back and see a couple of familiar faces. Tom Peters, who took ownership of the general store and the house next to it in 2022, and Kaitlyn McConnell with Ozarks Alive. They give us a warm welcome and a lay of the land. We set our enchiladas down next to cheesy potatoes, homemade pies and coffee in small Styrofoam cups.

We sit facing the reason we’re here. The music. On this night, eight people of all ages are playing fiddles, guitars, upright bass and accordion. They play together seamlessly. Honestly, I don’t play an instrument or sing, so all music seems like magic to me, but this night is for sure magical. To our right are older men in the recliners, at least two in their nineties. They used to join in the jam, but now they’re here for the community of it. If the point of the get-togethers isn’t a traditional show, it is definitely the community. Pockets of people chat and laugh while the musicians play. When the musicians finish a song, everyone claps, and the musicians talk and begin a new song. They’re part foreground, part background.

It’s not often that you get to step into true authenticity, true tradition, true community. When you hit the intersection in Bradleyville, you could turn right on 76 and head to Branson to see a bedazzled show sourced from this tradition, or you can turn left to experience the unvarnished source itself still jamming, as it always has.

At the end of the night we hop in the car, still beaming from this experience outside of time and place, down the country roads. Each passing town gets bigger and bigger while each passing mile gets straighter and straighter. We return back home to Springfield, a place constrained by time. It’s getting late and tomorrow is a Tuesday.