The Beat Goes On: North Little Rock’s atg Pavilion to Honor State’s Musical Giants

Feature photo above: Set to open in October, the atg Pavilion will feature sculptures of notable Arkansas musicians and provide a covered space for smaller events.

 

A few years ago, noted Arkansas painter and sculptor Kevin Kresse found himself in northeast Arkansas, stopping for the night in Forrest City. It was a sleepover that would change the face of central Arkansas forever.

 

Known for many things, including a complicated racial past, Forrest City is also the taproot from which sprang some of the greatest musical artists of the 20th century, headlined by soul crooner Al Green.

 

 

Kresse, who is as steeped in music as he is in sculpture, struck up a conversation with locals about the Rev. Green at the hotel, only to be met with blank stares. The employees had no idea who he was referring to, let alone that he had come from Forrest City. Kresse left town stunned.

 

“Neither the manager nor the front desk knew who I was talking about,” Kresse said. “Driving back from the Delta, I was just thinking about all the influential musicians that came from Arkansas. I thought, ‘We really have not done anything to highlight and trumpet all these amazing artists.’

 

“That’s when I started on my own build-it-and-hopefully-they-will-come project, just sculpting these artists on my own with no idea of what was going to happen.”

 

Kresse’s vision is now coming true in the form of the atg Pavilion, coming soon to the Argenta Arts District in North Little Rock. The contemporary sculptural addition, set for a late October opening, is being completed as a true public/private partnership between North Little Rock Tourism and the Argenta Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

 

Karen Trevino, president and CEO of North Little Rock Tourism, said the development will complete what officials are calling the Argenta Music Complex, made up of the pavilion and Argenta Plaza. She said the pavilion will serve several functions, including as a covered setting for smaller events and as a living classroom and gallery featuring Kresse’s bronze busts of the artists, all while broadening North Little Rock’s reputation as a musical center in Arkansas and gaining Arkansas more exposure for its cultural contributions.

 

 

“A group of us came together and started talking, and it turns out we all had been thinking that we ought to do something like this,” she said. “The more we talked, the more we realized that this is a really big idea, recognizing artists who were so influential in not just American music but transformative of all music. What came out of here affected the music that was going on in the United Kingdom, and those artists came to America to learn about the blues, to learn about rock ‘n’ roll.”

 

The project came together as a result of an alignment of movers and shakers, people with a vested interest in the community and, above all, a love for the state and its culture, including its musical legacy. Most of all it illustrates how small and close knit the state really is, since the various pieces of the vision all came together on the strength of relationships.

 

For example, Greg Spradlin, owner of marketing company Arkansas Explorer, was working with the family of the late Levon Helm, noted Arkansas musician and member of The Band, to which he would recruit Kresse to participate.

 

“They wanted to create a bust [of Helm] as kind of a memorial project in his hometown of Marvell, Arkansas. That was about 2014,” Spradlin said. “They were looking for an artist to create the bronze bust of Levon, and they were originally looking at someone in Las Vegas, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Meanwhile, I’d known Kevin as one of Arkansas’ foremost artists and sculptors and has been for years. 

 

“In Arkansas, everything starts with, ‘I know a guy,’ and that’s how Kevin got involved, and it became kind of a passion project for him.”

 

Kresse, in turn, in addition to filling up his living room with one musician’s bust after another, was casually scoping out potential locations where the bronzes could be placed for the public to view, learn about and enjoy.

 

“I was poking around at different little places just on my own,” Kresse said. “One idea was that wide alleyway behind the Butler Center [for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock]. I was thinking, well, I could do one sculpture and then, every year, add another one. That would have been fine.”

 

Enter John Gaudin, local investment manager and who many in North Little Rock consider the godfather of Argenta, having led the effort to convert it from a shabby, dangerous-after-dark stretch into one of the most vibrant arts and entertainment districts in all of Arkansas. Gaudin and Kresse had known each other for more than three decades, and when Gaudin heard the artist’s vision might bloom across the river, he leaned in.

 

“He had this idea of doing something small, recognizing five or six musicians, and then Kevin got the commission to do the Johnny Cash sculpture for the U.S. Capitol at the statuary hall,” Gaudin said. “He kind of threw all his eggs in that basket for a while, and when he was done, we started talking about if he was going to do a second copy [of the Cash statue] somewhere in Arkansas. He said he’d love to, but he didn’t have any plans, and nobody had contacted him about anything.

 

“I started thinking about it and talking to Karen and Scott Landers, who’s a local philanthropist here. I said, you know, I think this is something that has legs if we did something recognizing the icons of Americana music that came out of our state. We started brainstorming, and I knew there was a strip of property on the Argenta Plaza that would be an ideal place for something.”

 

As each piece fell into place, the vision for what would become atg Pavilion came into sharper focus. Spradlin and Kresse spearheaded a committee that compiled a list of musicians to be included in the display, a roster of 21 groundbreaking musicians across a variety of genres.

 

“It was really interesting the feedback we got. As soon as it was announced that we were doing this, people came out of the woodwork saying, ‘Oh, you forgot so-and-so,’”  Trevino said. “The list boils down to transformational artists. There were a lot of artists who had a lot of talent and had recordings and did things, but did they make such a difference in the industry such that it changed the way that music was seen worldwide? That was the list we were going for.”

 

Honorees will be represented in the pavilion display by a bronze bust, sculpted by Kresse and done in phases, except for Cash. The Man in Black will be a central figure in the space thanks to an 8-foot exact replica of the 2024 statue Kresse was commissioned to create for display in the U.S. Capitol, one of two works representing Arkansas and the first statue in the collection honoring a musician.

 

 

Spradlin, an Arkansas music fanatic on par with Kresse, said he found the process of compiling the list of artists to be displayed exciting, as well as daunting.

 

“The music that’s made here is the most diverse out of all the other Southern states, other than Tennessee. We punch way above all the other states,” he said. “If you just considered our counties in the Delta, we are comparable to Mississippi in terms of our blues history. Then you factor in the Ozarks, which transformed the modern folk movement that started in the ‘50s and ‘60 that spawned Bob Dylan and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and the whole folk scene. South Arkansas produced Lefty Frizzell. We produced Glen Campbell. We produced Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime.

 

“We’re not talking about C- and D-level musicians nobody ever heard of. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a fashion icon, social icon, a rock ‘n’ roll icon. There is no Jimi Hendrix, there is no Johnny Cash, as he would tell you, without Sister Rosetta Tharpe. There’s certainly no Elvis. There’s no Little Richard. I mean, we have the most diverse, rich musical soil here, and we’re long overdue for recognizing our role in creating popular culture.”

 

Meanwhile, just as much work was going into fashioning the structure that would house the collected sculptures. Gaudin and Kresse had a mutual friend in Landers, founder of design software company atg, which stands for Advanced Technology Group, who not only became a major financial backer but lent his design team to draft what the building would look like.

 

“Kevin was saying a lot of these musicians played in old barns and churches and stuff like that, so we didn’t want a real building. We really wanted a structure,” Gaudin said. “Because the strip of land was long and narrow, it lent itself to a type of a pavilion. Scott’s people came up with the design that’s kind of an homage to the Thorncrown Chapel [in Eureka Springs], which gave it a good indoor-outdoor kind of a feel.”

 

 

“Scott’s design team took that and ran with it and gave it more of a high-end barn look, almost like a temple meets a barn,” Kresse said. “When I saw it, I went, ‘Oh, that’s really more apropos. I could see this at night, the way the light could really do some wonderful things.’ Their idea was way beyond my original dream.”

 

For his part, Landers said he got behind the project because of the multiple benefits it delivers to the community and visitors alike regarding the state’s history, present-day attractions and future potential.

 

“You know, what keeps coming to my mind is the opportunity it presents for education,” he said. “What really drew me to this was introducing the general Arkansan and the visitor to how impactful music has been out of Arkansas. I think that story is untold. I don’t think many people really understand the impact that the musicians in Arkansas have had worldwide, and this gives a very approachable, very easy way to explore this.

 

“At the same time, as we expand the facilities in Argenta, we expand our ability to bring more and more music into the neighborhood. That’s going to bring more people into the neighborhood and allow even more education, so it’s this cascading effect”

 

While not technically a music venue, the pavilion’s use is envisioned for certain community events both by itself and as part of the larger Argenta Music Complex. Chris Kent, executive director at the Argenta Downtown Council, said combined with other musical venues and events in the neighborhood, the pavilion further solidifies the district’s reputation.

 

 

“I think the gap that this fills really puts us on the map as a music destination,” he said. “Simmons Bank Arena has recently been tagged as one of the most-attended venues in the United States and the world, for that matter. We have other smaller spaces and venues for music, and what this does is tie things together and show us as a regional destination and a national destination instead of just local.

 

“While the original concept of the plaza was as a gathering place, not really designed to be activated as a musical venue, with the pavilion being built, we’re also having a new [plaza] stage built that will allow us to accommodate bigger acts, more regional touring acts and more national acts to come through. All together, I see the [complex] hosting more live music events, and we’ll be able to do more inside the pavilion, which will provide protection from the sun and rain.”

 

The pavilion is also envisioned as a prime educational piece on Arkansas history. Everett Gaither, vice president of marketing and communications at North Little Rock Tourism, said all ages of local residents, Arkansas natives, and guests from all over the country and the world will learn something by visiting the attraction, as well as experiencing nearby arts, dining and entertainment.

 

“This is one piece of the wider scope of what’s happening in Argenta,” he said. “There is a ton of construction going on right now in our downtown with the opening of the event center and the new hotels and the things that have been going on over the last five to seven years in Argenta, in our downtown, that are really making it a cultural hub for our region.

 

“Yet I was having a conversation this morning about how the majority of people in the U.S. don’t have a direct connection. We’re still kind of an unknown. There are very few things that they know about Arkansas, so this is a great way for us to tell a story that goes beyond North Little Rock. Argenta continues to develop these new and exciting things to see and do and learn right in front of us. It’s just very exciting to be a part of all of this at this time.”

 

The pavilion is the city’s boldest move yet to leverage music tourism, a multibillion-dollar industry, not only as a standalone attraction but as part of a wider network of the honored musicians’ hometowns. Each community will receive for display a bronze bust like the one that will reside in North Little Rock to help them promote the artist right in his or her community of origin. Future plans include lining up communities into the Arkansas Music Trail, formalizing the guest experience.

 

“There’s such a demand for authentic music tourism around the country,” Gaudin said. “You’ve seen it in Mississippi and Alabama and some of these other places. We felt like we really have as good as any other state in the lineup, we just weren’t taking advantage of it.

 

“One way to tell those stories is to acknowledge their hometowns in each part of the state. To do a bronze in each of these communities is, we think, really important for economic development in these cities, celebrating a hometown hero in a place like Brinkley or Colt or Mountain View.”

 

 

Landers said it is easy to see what would bring people across state lines and even international destinations to follow their love for music and to learn more about creators.

 

“Music isn’t political, and even when it’s political, it’s not political,” he said. “You go visit Scotland, and you listen to the music that’s being sung in the pubs. All of it’s got a political undertone, but nobody really sees it that way.

 

“You and I can find any 10-year-old and listen to their playlist, and it’s probably got favorites of mine from when I was a teenager or even today. Music just transcends across generations, across religion, across race. It becomes this unifier that brings people together. Frankly, we need a lot more of that.”

 

SEE THE FEATURE BELOW AND IN OUR SEPTEMBER 2026 ISSUE OF AY MAGAZINE

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