Each year, on the last weekend in June, blues musician Kenny Brown and his wife Sarah host the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic at Betty Davis’s Ponderosa at Waterford, Mississippi. For two days, people come from all over the world to celebrate the music of Hill Country and Cotton Patch Soul Blues musicians from the region, especially the living descendants of the Burnside and Kimbrough families, as well as their disciples and students. This year’s event was the hottest on record, but the music matched the temperature, as people heard such greats as Robert and Kinney Kimbrough, Kenny Brown, Duwayne Burnside, Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, Kent Burnside, Joe Ayers, and his son Trenton’s band Wolf Eagle. Also featured on Friday night was Robert Finley, the amazing Louisiana soul singer whose first recording was made when he was in his sixties.
In addition to great music, attendees also enjoyed good food, plenty of arts and crafts, T-shirts and records, and some fans camped on the grounds for the entire weekend. For fans of the traditional forms of blues from the Mississippi Hill Country, the annual Hill Country Picnic is an event not to be missed.