Country Star Julie Roberts Returns To ‘Rison In The Fall Festival’ With Special Guest

Roberts sets out to help festival grow to largest entertainment lineup in the event’s history.

RISON – On the heels of last year’s record-breaking Rison In The Fall Festival, organizers are raising the bar for this October in its 32nd year… with the help of last year’s headliner, Julie Roberts.

This year’s festival, hosted by Rison Shine, is set for Saturday, October 15.

Roberts, a Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music-nominated country music star, author and actress, asked festival organizer Douglas Boultinghouse if she could come back and do it again, but bigger with an all-new show and a special guest, Erin Enderlin.

“The fact that Julie loved her time in Rison and wants to come back speaks volumes about our town and the festival, but more so, the people in it,” Boultinghouse said. “She wants to help us grow and build on the success of last year and we are so excited to welcome her back for an encore performance… And getting Erin to make her debut at Rison In The Fall is just icing on the cake for us.”

Boultinghouse said he and co-organizer/founder Roy Phillips are even bringing in a bigger stage, more lights and more sound. The stage will be placed at the intersection of Main and Third Streets to allow viewpoints from both streets throughout the festival.

In addition to the crowd-favorite hits “Break Down Here,” “Wake Up Older” and “Men and Mascara,” Roberts plans to feature new music from her new album, “Ain’t In No Hurry,” due out October 28.

“Rison In The Fall is one of my favorite festivals I’ve ever played,” Roberts said. “Being welcomed back and getting to share the night with one of my favorite performers, Erin Enderlin, is going to be a blast! I love the people of Rison and the energy of the entire town.”

12-time Arkansas Country Music Award winner Enderlin, a native of Conway, will join Roberts on the concert stage to perform her own original music and songs she’s written for top artists in Nashville.

“I always love coming home to Arkansas, but this time is going to be extra special,” Enderlin said. “I’m such a fan of Julie’s work and her as a person. I can’t wait to open the show for her.”

Enderlin, named Arkansas’ Entertainer of the Year, is also a go-to writer for stars looking for heavyweight country with classic panache––Alan Jackson’s “Monday Morning Church,” Lee Ann Womack’s “Last Call,” Luke Bryan’s “You Don’t Know Jack” and a host of other songs recorded by Randy Travis, Joey + Rory, Reba McEntire, Terri Clark, Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, Rodney Crowell, and more are all Enderlin-penned.

She is currently working with Roberts to write songs, and will co-produce Roberts’ album with acclaimed artist and producer Shooter Jennings.

“This year, I’ll be coming back with a finished album and I can’t wait to share some of that music with everyone,” Roberts said.

Enderlin also just released a new album of her own, the latest installment of her Campfire Covers series, on which she gives her unique takes on some of the biggest country hits from the 90s Country era.

“Julie and Erin are working together to create a really special show fans of country music will not want to miss,” Boultinghouse said.

Those in attendance will be some of the first to hear new music penned by Roberts and Enderlin.

The Rison In The Fall Festival is set to kick off at 1 p.m. in Downtown Rison. It will feature vendors from businesses all over the state, food trucks and more throughout the evening.

Prior to Roberts and Enderlin taking the stage later in the evening, the festival will also feature performances from regional acts Vintage and the Austin-Hendricks Band.

Both bands will perform classic hits from legendary rock and country artists. More information about each band is included at the end of this article.

Shae Carson with the Cleveland County Community Theater will also perform, showcasing previews of new shows coming from the local talent group.

“We have a wide variety of music styles this year and will be starting the entertainment early in the afternoon,” Boultinghouse said. “Bring your lawn chairs and enjoy the shows!”

Entertainment Schedule – Concert times are approximate.

1:00 p.m. – Johnny Cash Tribute with statue presentation from Kevin Kresse and performance from Erin Enderlin in FBT Park
2:30 p.m. – Rison Paws For A Cause Dog Pageant in FBT Park
4:30 p.m. – Austin-Hendricks Band on Main Street Stage
5:30 p.m. – Cleveland County Community Theater Performances and Award Ceremony on Main Street Stage
6:30 p.m. – Vintage performs on Main Street Stage
7:30 p.m. – Erin Enderlin performs on Main Street Stage
9:00 p.m. – Julie Roberts performs on Main Street Stage

Updates about the festival will be shared through the official Rison In The Fall Festival facebook and instagram accounts, as well as through the Cleveland County Herald and on clevelandcountyarkansas.com

Johnny Cash Tribute

**Kevin Kresse’s Johnny Cash sculpture that will be in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.**

A special tributes to Johnny Cash is planned, celebrating the world-famous music icon born 90 years ago at the Crossroads community north of Kingsland in Cleveland County.

Kevin Kresse, the Arkansas artist who is sculpting the Johnny Cash statue that will represent Arkansas in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C., will help kick off the start of the Rison in the Fall Festival at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, in Rison.

Kresse will be talking and visiting with the public at FBT Community Park in downtown Rison about the statue he is completing of Cash, and will also have statues of Cash that will be available for public photos.

The event will include a few Cash songs (one train song special to the county) that will be performed by 12-time Arkansas Country Music Award Winner, Erin Enderlin, from Conway. She will also perform on the festival’s concert stage later in the evening.

Rison Paws For A Cause Dog Pageant

The highly-popular Rison Paws For A Cause Dog Pageant is confirmed to return for its third year. Roberts and Enderlin are both eager to be judges of the pageant, which benefits the local animal rescue group.

Paws organizer Rhonda Fletcher has added a new photogenic submission category for cats.

Click here for more information and entry forms for the dog pageant.

Boultinghouse said that some people have inquired about the Miss Rison In The Fall pageant and the BBQ Cook Off. Those two events are not on the schedule for this year’s festival.

“This year’s schedule is too tight to fit them into the festival and accommodate stage and vendor set up,” he said.

He and Phillips have met with Rison Shine members and are looking at a new way to bring those two events back for the 2023 festival next year.

Vendors

The festival is still accepting applications from vendors of crafts, information, retail items and more.

Anyone interested in setting up for the festival should contact Boultinghouse at (870) 510-2433 or message the Rison In The Fall Festival Facebook Page.

Forms can be found online at here.

The vendor fee is $50 for an approximate 10×10-foot space.

Boultinghouse said the festival’s allotted spaces for food trucks are currently full.

As of Monday, Oct. 3, only 8 vendor spaces remain.

A full list of vendors will be announced Wednesday, Oct. 5.

About Julie Roberts

Years before her first single, “Break Down Here,” turned her into a country headliner, Julie Roberts was a young girl with a dream in rural South Carolina, raised on the sounds of traditional country music, blues, and old-school soul.

“The radio was our escape,” she remembers. “Whenever my parents had a fight and Dad had been drinking, my mom and I would get into her car and turn it up as loud as it would go. Every guitar lick, every melody, every bit of hurt in someone’s voice became ingrained in my head. Those songs are still with me now.”

On her newest album, “Ain’t In No Hurry,” Roberts builds a bridge between the sounds that shaped her past and the resilience that fuels her present. She’s a survivor, having sustained a critically-acclaimed career throughout a period that included the dissolution of her first record deal, the loss of her home due to the 2010 Nashville flood, and a life-changing diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, which is now in remission. Produced by Shooter Jennings and Erin Enderlin, “Ain’t In No Hurry,” tackles those challenges head-on, with Julie singing about love, loss, roots, and redemption in a voice that’s never sounded bigger.

“It’s a record of strength,” she says. “I’m reinventing myself here, both musically and lyrically, while still paying tribute to the traditional elements that people know me for.”

“Ain’t In No Hurry,” was recorded first in Los Angeles over a three-year period, with Roberts and Shooter Jennings taking as much time as needed in the creative search for the right sounds and arrangements. Then came the Nashville focus, bringing in Erin Enderlin and her unmatched songwriting prowess to write and produce the final songs. Roberts calls it her “career record,” pointing to a 12-song tracklist that mixes southern soul, Telecaster twang, bluesy ballads, heartbreak love songs, and fiddle-filled numbers into the same space.

There are revamped covers of older songs, including a stirring makeover of K.T. Oslin’s chart-topping “Do Ya” and an overhaul of Ray Lamontagne’s “New York City’s Killing Me” (the latter song turned into a duet with Jamey Johnson and rebranded as “Music City’s Killing Me”). There are sharply written originals, too. From the rhythmic pulse of “Big Moon” to the sultry vibe of “The Concept of You,” and the haunting introspective ballad, “Ain’t in No Hurry,” the album shines a light on the full range of its frontwoman’s abilities. Roberts shares writing credits for the first time with Waylon Jennings on “Devil’s Pool,” a song idea he had never fully developed until Julie added the verses. The closing track, “I Think You Know” is a moving ballad that Jessi Colter wrote years ago, waiting for just the right person to record it. Julie makes it shine.

Roberts wrote “The Song Goes With Me” in recollection of her difficult split with Universal Music. She’d been with the record label for years, taking a job as a receptionist before working her way toward the top of the company’s artist roster. Her debut album was released in 2004, and by the decade’s end, Roberts had sold more than one million copies of her first two records alone. It was a wildly successful run, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much when her partnership with Universal came to an abrupt end in 2010. Of course, it didn’t help that she lost her record deal the same week as the 2010 Nashville flood, whose torrential waters destroyed her home, too.

Roberts left town for a bit. She needed to regroup and rebuild. Then, just as she’d done as a child — back when a young Roberts would blast the radio to clear her mind after another family argument — she put her faith into music. New songs were written. New shows were booked. New opportunities were seized. When Shooter Jennings asked her to come to Los Angeles and record an album that could define her legacy, she jumped at the chance. Where I’m Stayin Tonight is the result: a record that sinks its roots deep in to the music of the American South, saluting older sounds while creating more than a few ones, as well. It’s an album about building a new future without ignoring the pieces of one’s past.

Part of building that new future was the birth of her first child, a son, in the Fall of 2021 with husband Matt Baugher. “I never imagined that I could feel this much joy,” says Roberts. “It puts life into such a clear perspective and makes me even more excited about sharing that life journey through new music.”

In the Fall of 2022, Julie will also be featured in Kathie Lee Gifford’s latest film project, an oratorio called “The Way,” which hit theaters on Sept. 1. Roberts sings the biblical character of Sarah, who longs for a child with Abraham. She appears alongside Jimmie Allen, Danny Gokey, BeBe Winans, Nicole C. Mullen and more in the stunning retelling of the Gospel story.

Visit JulieRoberts.com

About Erin Enderlin

While she first turned heads as a godsend to those aching for an artist with some golden-era country backbone, Erin Enderlin’s acclaimed 2017 record Whiskeytown Crier cemented her as something even more: a literary songwriter and superb vocal stylist with a knack for sharply drawn––and often sad––characters.

She was recently featured as a breakthrough artist in the 2020 American Currents exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and she has surged to the forefront of new artists rooted in the genre’s rich history.

Recently Erin garnered some high profile fans making Rolling Stone’s Top 20 Country/Americana Albums of the Year in 2019, and in 2020 being featured by Rosanne Cash in her Oxford American Music Issue article and playlist, as well as being interviewed and featured by Elton John on episode #261 “Erin Enderlin” of his Rocket Hour show.

2021 continued to build on Erin’s success with the release of Barroom Mirrors EP, frequent performances on the Opry, and being named Arkansas’ Country Music Entertainer and Writer of the Year.

Visit ErinEnderlin.com

About Vintage

Vintage is a Little Rock-based classic rock cover band that has performed all over Arkansas, Memphis and recently in Nashville, Tenn. Expect a high-enegery rock show performing some of the greatest hits in music.

The band features teens from central Arkansas that were highlighted on THV11 earlier this year.

Vintage is Zachary Glover on vocals and lead guitar, Aiden Woolbright on bass, Trevor Tucker on keyboard and saxophone, and Taylor Bellott on drums.

About The Austin-Hendricks Band

The Austin-Hendricks Band, based out of Pine Bluff, will perform country and rock covers on its return to Rison In The Fall.

Billy Hendricks and his bands have played the festival in years prior. The bands have also opened for acts including Joan Jett, 38 Special, Foreigner, Confederate Railroad, Delbert McClinton, Eddie Money and Black Oak Arkansas. The band features Brian Austin on lead and rhythm guitar, Billy Hendricks on vocals and rhythm guitar, Mike Robertson on bass guitar, and Brian Dickerson on drums.