Mary & Friends, film fans fill weekend with movies, music.
Steenburgen, singers/songwriters raise $70,000 for Oxford American
Actress Mary Steenburgen brought her Nashville, Tenn., singer/songwriter friends to Little Rock’s South on Main on May 15 for the Oxford American fundraiser, Mary & Friends.
The Academy-Award winning North Little Rock native was joined by Matraca Berg, Kim Carnes, Greg Barnhill, Shawn Camp, Shelly Colvin and Jeremy Spillman onstage in the style of the famed Nashville Bluebird Cafe where they took turns performing songs they had written and telling the stories behind some of the songs.
The songwriters played two sets with a live auction in between. The first set included newer songs. Steenburgen, who for the past eight years has been co-writing songs with the featured songwriters, sang a song in the second set. The other songwriters sang their wellknown hit songs including Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes,” Camp’s “Two Pina Coladas” (recorded by Garth Brooks), and “Arlington,” co-written by Spillman (recorded by Trace Adkins).
The live auction included several unique items from Steenburgen and her equally famous husband, Ted Danson. The top items of the evening included a private tour of Jim Henson’s workshop with Steenburgen. The lively bidding between two contenders inspired Steenburgen to tell auctioneer Craig O’Neill she would double the deal and offer two trips if both bidders would pay the top bid of $7,500. (They did!) The same happened with the next item up for bid, a private tour with Danson of the set of CSI: Cyber. Danson also agreed to double the deal, and the two top bidders agreed to $7,000 each.
Before the show, Chef Matt Bell was busy cooking over an outdoor fire pit while guests bid on silent auction items and enjoyed cocktails from bartender David Burnette. The Southern supper was served buffet style and included ribs, flank steak, pulled pork and grilled sea bass. Macaroni and cheese, field peas, coleslaw and potato salad were sides.
About 135 guests helped raise about $70,000 for the Oxford American, said Eliza Borne, managing editor. The nonprofit quarterly literary magazine is dedicated to featuring the best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South, she said. The magazine also presents concerts, readings and other live events at South on Main.