A Delta Journey: Gourmet Coffee in Jackson’s New District
Growing up, my family used to meet in October for family reunions in Jackson, Mississippi. It was the “big city” in Mississippi; it had a …
Folklore
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, …
Haute Cuisine and Hill Country Blues at Home Place Pastures in Como
Home Place Pastures was originally founded in 1869 or 1871, depending on the source, as a cotton plantation in the wilderness east of the railroad …
Celebrating The Legacy of the Mississippi Hill Country Blues at Waterford
Last year, the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic took a one-year hiatus, but most years, in June, a large two-day picnic is held at Betty …
Friday Night at The Blue Front in Bentonia
Bentonia, Mississippi is not a big town. It’s not even the biggest town in Yazoo County, yet the unique blues style of musicians from this …
Mayor Jane Rule Throws a Birthday Party For David Katznelson With Blues and Fife and Drum
San Francisco-based David Katznelson is the owner of Birdman Records, a really cool group of blues and roots labels, which includes subsidiary labels Birdmanophone and …
Delta Easter: Desecration of Po Monkey’s, One of the Holy Sites of the Blues
From Drew, I decided to head across to Merigold. I had wanted to see Po Monkey’s juke joint for the first time in real life, …
A Wet And Busy Juke Joint Fest in Clarksdale
I usually enjoy myself quite a bit at the annual Juke Joint Fest in Clarksdale, but this year’s festival was both wet and harried, as …
Headstone Dedication for the Late Memphis Bluesman Charlie Burse
It had rained all day, but T. DeWayne Moore of the Mount Zion Memorial Fund had sent me an invitation to the dedication of a …
Breakfast, Worship And Black History at Salem Missionary Baptist Church at Mason, Tennessee
A while back, I had crossed paths on Facebook with the Rev. T. Ray Greer, pastor of Salem Missionary Baptist Church in the countryside just …