All On A Mardi-Gras Day: “I Run Through Water and Swim Through Mud”: Black Indians Uptown
The gangs of Black Indians (sometimes called Mardi Gras Indians) who appear in elaborate costumes on the streets of New Orleans on Mardi Gras, St. …
Dance
The Orpheus Parade on Lundi Gras in New Orleans
Lundi Gras is really a holiday in New Orleans, with schools and some businesses closed, and a lot of people off work. My friend Darren …
The Final Approach to Mardi Gras with TBC Brass Band at Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge
After a long drive across Mississippi through drizzly, wet weather, I was late getting into New Orleans, and thought I might actually miss the start …
Breakfast in New Orleans, Lunch in Jackson, and a Christmas Parade in Como
The actual day of my birthday was much colder than the day before, but my friend Darren Towns of TBC Brass Band and I headed …
A Day With the TBC Brass Band in New Orleans
With my birthday falling on Monday December 2, I decided to celebrate a day early by going to New Orleans for the Dumaine Street Gang …
A Delta Journey: A Chilly Homecoming in Grambling
When I woke up in West Monroe, the first thing I noticed was how extremely chilly it was, and that didn’t improve all that much …
Commemorating a Holy Site of the Bentonia Blues
2019 was the 71st anniversary of a community institution in the town of Bentonia, one of the last Mississippi juke joints. Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ family …
The Human Jukebox and the Mighty Sound of the South Fight It Out in Memphis
The historically-Black college band tradition of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and the corps-style tradition of the University of Memphis are vastly different, and while …
Celebrating The Legacy of R. L. Boyce at Como, Mississippi
What Sherena Boyce, daughter of Hill Country bluesman R. L. Boyce, started as a birthday party for her dad in August of 2017 has now …
The Last Black Fife and Drum Picnic in America
Fife and drum music was once found in Black communities throughout the South, but by 1970, it was found only in Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee, …