After Sherena Boyce and myself attended the Jimmy “Duck” Holmes party behind Sean “Bad” Apple’s juke joint in Clarksdale, we went different directions. She wanted to go to Kent Burnside’s performance at a new club called Gentleman Lyfe, which usually hosts more of a hip-hop crowd, but I wanted to catch Johnny Rawls’ performance at Hambone.
However, when I got to Hambone, I was somewhat disappointed. Rawls typically has a large band with horns on his albums, but at Hambone, he had a stripped-down trio band instead. Worse, the place was so crowded that I could not get anywhere near the stage. So I left there and headed around the corner to Gentleman Lyfe for Kent Burnside’s performance. Sherena got there about an hour after I did, but although Kent gave some rousing performances of Hill Country standards, the long day had taken a toll on me, and I was running on fumes. Ultimately, I left to head back to the hotel and to bed.
Although the scheduled outdoor shows ended at 5 PM, Sean “Bad” Apple, who recently converted the old Club 2000 on Issaquena Avenue into the Bad Apple Blues Club, had a private invitation-only Jimmy “Duck” Holmes performance in the backyard of his club, which my friend Sherena was able to talk our way into since she knew Jimmy. The performance before a small crowd sitting on the ground was intimate, in Homes’ usual way, and was intended to highlight his new CD release. Sherena managed to buy copies of the disc and a T-shirt as well.
After dinner, I began my first night of the Juke Joint Fest at Red’s Blues Lounge in Clarksdale to catch Grenada bluesman Frank “Guitar” Rimmer Jr. To my amazement, the place was packed with people. After a year of almost no live music, it was so good to see people back in a nightclub enjoying good blues in person. Unfortunately, Red’s has always been restrictive with regard to filming and sometimes even photography, so after Rimmer’s first set, I headed around to Bluesberry Cafe to catch Robert Kimbrough Jr, son of the late Junior Kimbrough. Robert was the first blues artist I met at my very first Juke Joint Festival back in the day; at that time he was selling a burned CD with a few songs on it. He has come a long way since those early days, with four studio albums to his credit. His performance at Bluesberry Cafe included songs from his new album The Pain Won’t Stop and several covers of songs recorded by his late brother David Kimbrough III, notably “Home Alone.” As at Red’s, there was a significant crowd at Bluesberry Cafe too, and the mood was jovial on the streets. It was a great way to kick off this year’s Juke Joint Fest.
I am not sure how my friend Sherena Boyce became aware of Australia Jones “Honeybee” Neal, but at some point a couple of years ago, she began to tell me of this female blues artist who was kin to the late Paul “Wine” Jones and who sounded something like Jessie Mae Hemphill. Since that time, we had wanted to help her market and promote herself as an artist, but the pandemic got in the way. Finally, here in April 2021, with the worst of the pandemic seemingly subsiding, we set up a time for her to come to Clarksdale so we could shoot still photos and video footage of her that we hope will enable her to gain notice and get more live performances.
“Honeybee,” as she likes to be called, lives at Indianola, in the Delta, but her guitar style more resembles the Hill Country style of blues than that of the Delta. She is furthermore a traditionalist, and has avoided the influence of most modern blues; her repertoire consists of old, traditional lyrics like “Baby, Please Don’t Go” or “Catfish Blues.” Her appearance should be welcomed at a time when most blues is of the Southern soul variety, and where female blues artists are few and far between outside of Southern soul.
Sean “Bad” Apple, blues musician and entrepreneur extraordinaire in Clarksdale was gracious enough to provide the use of his new club, the Bad Apple Blues Club, for our video and photo session on a Saturday afternoon before a small crowd of people who were in Clarksdale for the full week before Juke Joint Festival. His club, in the former Club 2000 building on Issaquena Avenue, has something of the authentic juke atmosphere of Red’s, but if the color scheme of Red’s revolves around red, Apple’s club revolves around blue. The space is tiny, but the atmosphere is warm and convivial. As for Australia Jones “Honeybee” Neal, she is a new voice of Mississippi blues that we will be hearing about for some time to come.
Mattie B’s is an old ballfield and juke joint in far western Marshall County, where for the last month or so, they’ve been having live Hill Country blues with Duwayne Burnside. The address is Byhalia, Mississippi, although the club is really closer to Independence, in Tate County. Beginning on Sunday nights in November, the blues night has moved to Friday nights since the third week in December, and will continue in January after a hiatus for the holidays.
On one particularly cold and wet Sunday night, the crowd was late in arriving, and the musicians were just chilling, hanging out, and playing pool.
Memphis is known for great barbecue, but strangely, barbecue is rarer in Mississippi, so when a new place appeared in the town of Coldwater, in Tate County, advertising itself as “blues and barbecue,” my interest was piqued, to say the least.
Coldwater is an interesting town in its own right, having been founded by the Federal government in 1942, to replace an older town of Coldwater that was flooded by the construction of Arkabutla Dam and Lake. The old town had been something of a prosaic railroad town with a traditional grid pattern of streets, but the new town was designed by an urban planner in Memphis, with curved streets typical of subdivisions. Highway 51 was four-laned and given service roads on either side, and a long, rectangular square was developed instead of the traditional four-square parks that older Southern towns were built around. Many of the old town’s houses and businesses were disassembled and trucked to the new site prior to the lake bed being filled.
But Coldwater has not been a place for eating out, or for live music, as a rule. Part of the problem was that until a few years ago, Tate County did not permit any alcohol sales, which pushed restaurants, clubs and live music to the neighboring county of Panola, where Como developed a sort of rural equivalent of Beale Street along its Main Street. So I was curious to check out this new restaurant and see what it was about.
Red’s Coldwater BBQ and Blues, despite the name, has no connection to the famous Red’s Juke Joint in Clarksdale. The latter is primarily a blues venue, the former a restaurant. But the decor of the new Coldwater restaurant does emphasize blues and music, with a piano, saxophone and other instruments on the walls, and cheerful bright colors and lights everywhere. The back room has a fairly small stage, which is used for bands on nights when the place has live music. Despite the name, the emphasis currently seems more on country music than blues, but Red’s features a weekly jam session on Thursdays, and karaoke on Fridays. The large, circular kitchen out back resembles a grain silo, and behind it is an old, historic smokehouse that was full of smoking meat when it was shown to me. It smelled delicious. There is apparently ample room for outdoor music events in warmer weather.
As for the food—delicious, but some words of caution are in order, as things are done a little differently at Red’s. The menu is quite simple, as there are basically two choices: three meats and two sides for $15, or one sandwich and one side for $10. Ordering is done buffet style; the meat choices are pork shoulder, brisket and pulled chicken, and the sides include potato hash (which has onions and peppers) and homemade macaroni and cheese. Drinks are from cold cans. It’s hard to get decent brisket outside of Texas, but Red’s has decent brisket, and in fact all the meats were really good. As for the sides, I was especially impressed with the macaroni and cheese, which had a dark golden color and sharp cheese flavor.
The owner indicates that he intends to add blues to the live entertainment mix in coming weeks, so I look forward to that. Live music opportunities are seriously lacking in Tate and Panola Counties.
As a state, Mississippi has largely chosen to avoid the stricter lockdown measures that other states have imposed during the pandemic; although many blues events have been cancelled this year, some live music has been ongoing in the state, especially in the Hill Country region. Mattie B’s, located in the rural areas between Independence and Holly Springs has been a bright spot in that regard, sponsoring blues on Sunday nights with greats such as Duwayne Burnside and Robert Kimbrough Sr. , who are children of the North Mississippi legends R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough respectively.
On a recent Sunday night, Robert Kimbrough took to the stage to play selections from his new album The Pain Won’t Stop, which is out now and available from his website. Robert calls his music Cotton Patch Soul Blues, which is a reference to a community at the intersection of Highway 7 and Highway 72 in Benton County where his dad Junior Kimbrough and the rockabilly musician Charlie Feathers once played a small juke joint in the late 1960s. Robert’s music, although unique, shows points of similarity with his father’s music, and the music of his late brother, David Kimbrough Jr.
Robert’s appearance on stage was followed by Duwayne Burnside, whose style involves many separate influences, including his dad’s music, as well as the guitar styles of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
As for the venue, Mattie B’s has the true ambiance of a rural juke, with pool tables, a bar, and a large baseball field out back. Occasionally, it is the site of car shows and rap shows, but recently, the emphasis has been on blues. Beginning in December, Duwayne Burnside has moved his weekly blues shows from Sunday nights to Friday nights.
One of the worst things of 2020 was the cancellation of nearly all live music events, gigs, festivals and parties. It was understandable, in the light of COVID, but it was still disappointing. Having not played a gig since August, I was thrilled when the great blues guitarist Duwayne Burnside called me to play his birthday party out in the rurals between Independence, Mississippi and Holly Springs. With the weather unseasonably warm, I imagined there would be a fairly good turnout.
Duwayne chose to have his party at a rural club and baseball field called Mattie B’s along the Wall Hill Road east of Independence in Marshall County. The place has the look and feel of a real Mississippi juke, complete with pool tables, but it has a surprisingly ample stage. When I arrived, there were a lot of cars in the back near the baseball field, and a food truck had set up there selling plates. The inside was not drastically crowded, but there was a good number of people inside, among them the blues musician Robert Kimbrough, and the DJ was playing good blues and southern soul inside.
Duwayne took the stage at about 8 PM, and we played until around 10:00 PM, with Pinkie Pulliam on bass and Artemas Leseur on drums. Perhaps the highlight of the evening was when Duwayne played the late David Kimbrough’s song “I Got The Dog In Me,” which was the first time I had heard him play that song. Blues musician Kenny Brown and his wife Sarah also made an appearance, and Kenny briefly joined Duwayne on the stage. The crowd especially took to the more upbeat Hill Country tunes, filling the dance floor in front of the stage. It made a nice throwback to how things were before the pandemic.
The sudden closure of everything in mid-March due to Covid-19 had a devastating effect on all live music, including the blues. Nearly everything was closed down through April, but as weather warmed up in May, things began to slowly reopen, and I began to venture out more. Having acquired an iPhone 11, I decided to experiment with its photo capabilities, using some of my favorite photographic apps. I am especially partial to one called Filca, which lets you photograph with filters based on popular color and black-and-white films. The Agfa and Ilford filters really do resemble the old films they are based on, and the effects are really neat. Furthermore, the iPhone 11 boasts by far the best camera ever on an Apple phone.
Although live concerts did not resume in May, several artists performed live concerts intended for streaming. Duwayne Burnside did such a show outdoors at Red Banks in Marshall County, and the next day R. L. Boyce and Lightnin Malcolm did one at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale for the virtual Oxford Blues Fest.
Across the Mississippi River Bridge from Greenville, Mississippi, a traveler immediately gets a view of a beautiful blue lake to the northwest. This long lake, for which the Chicot county seat of Lake Village is named, is a former channel of the Mississippi River, and is known as Lake Chicot. Lake Chicot is what is known as an oxbow lake, a lake formed when a meander stream cuts off loops and bends in shortening its channel to the sea. This particular lake is lined with gorgeous houses and boat docks, as well as an occasional motel, restaurant or bait shop. Boating and fishing seem to be the main attractions.
Some twelve miles to the south is the town of Eudora, an old and fairly-typical Delta town that has clearly seen better days. Once a refuge for people escaping river flooding, Eudora has a history of racial conflict, and in more recent years, white flight, mysterious arson fires, and wholesale abandonment of the downtown area. Like so many towns in eastern Arkansas, Eudora has also had its schools closed by the state, and its children are bused to Lake Village. But the stretch of old juke joints and cafes along Armstrong Street has always made me believe that Eudora might have blues stories to tell. One of them, Harris Cafe, still remains, although whether the place ever features live bands is unclear, and there are a couple of buildings nearby that look as if they once were clubs. Although the available newspapers do not tell much of the story of Eudora’s nightlife, aside from an occasional shooting or stabbing, I am hoping to eventually determine some of the community’s music history.
