Fayette County, Tennessee is historically a twin of Marshall County, Mississippi which lies to its south, both demographically and geographically. Both counties had Black majorities, and were heavy cotton-producing areas despite a lot of hills and ravines. But while Marshall County became well-known for the Hill Country style of blues, Fayette County has remained much more unknown, despite the evidence that there must have been a blues culture there.
And indeed there was. Fred McDowell, although usually associated with Mississippi and with the town of Como, was actually born in Rossville, Tennessee in Fayette County, and in the early 1970s, Bengt Olsson documented the bluesmen Lattie Murrell and William Floyd Davis in the county, as well as fife and drum musicians like Ossie Broadnax and Hallie Manson. People he interviewed told him about older blues musicians such as Red Harvil and Johnny Wilson, and a large annual picnic near Oakland, Tennessee called the Owens Picnic was recalled by Homesick James, David “Honeyboy” Edwards and others. it has been claimed that both Charley Patton and Memphis Minnie performed there.
Nevertheless, a rich blues past has not slowed the pace of significant demographic change. Fayette County is no longer a Black-majority county, as its Black residents have left for more economic opportunities elsewhere, and whites fleeing predominantly-Black Memphis have moved into Fayette. Oakland and Rossville are now thoroughly suburbanized, and the former town even has a Wal-Mart. Outside of Saine’s Club, an important rural juke between Moscow and the county seat of Somerville, there has not been much blues in the county in many years.
Thankfully, this year, the young and ambitious new mayor of Moscow, Tennessee received grant funding to start a blues festival, which he named the Ghost River Blues Festival, after the mysterious, swampy stretch of the Wolf River between Moscow and LaGrange. (Memphians, if you didn’t know, Ghost River Brewing takes its name from this river as well). While there is always a bit of trepidation about any new festival, the first year was an amazing and tremendous success. Fans came out in beautiful weather to see Joe Ayers from Holly Springs and his son Trenton, the Otha Turner Boys fife and drum band from Senatobia, Big Don Valentine and the All-Stars from Memphis, and the band Chris Pitts and Memphis Prime.
The day gave me opportunities to see the old Main Street of Oakland, enjoy a great catfish lunch at Wolf River Cafe in Rossville (despite rumors, they are very much still open for business), tour the old buildings on the Moscow square, and meet some wonderful older men in front of Wolf River Bar-B-Que. It was a great day, one that left me tired, but in a most satisfied way.