It Shined: The Saga of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils

From the furtive music scene, which was once located in Springfield (MO) during the 1970’s, a host of Ozark-tinged musicians in numerous bands forged their own styles of country-rock. A love of playing music and sharing the fun was always at its core.

“The Ozarks have always been magical, not just for musicians…there’s plenty of clean air, clean water, blue skies and nice hills,” said Michael “Supe” Granda. “If that isn’t enough to inspire a musician, then I don’t know what is.”

One of the more prominent bands to come from the Missouri milieu was the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, best-known for radio staples “Jackie blue,” and “If You want To Get to Heaven.” Granda recently completed a book about the band’s legacy. As its constant anchor through the years, his viewpoint not only covers the national “break-out” and subsequent tours including the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago triangle, it works as a social history of the time period and the music industry’s disastrous taste for trends.

The nearly 500-page tome, published by AuthorHouse, is a reader-friendly account of the band’s journey filled with warmly humorous anecdotes, the inside drama of riding the musical whirlwind and some of the tragic casualties with their personnel. The first-person narrative belies itself as a gracious testament to a group of musicians blazing a trail on their own merits.

“In order to get the original manuscript under 500 pages, I had to cut out 60-70 pages of stories…I guess this has given me a head start on the sequel,” Granda said.

Factual research and photo appropriations came through Bill Haines, a columnist and music researcher for Nashville-based SHAKE! Magazine.  Haines says, “I’m glad Supe involved me in writing his book, in my capacity of research and photo restoration…I made some suggestions to Supe about the book, the decisions were his call and I think it all turned out pretty darned good.”