Beauty Emerges From Struggle In Memphis
The designation of Memphis as “Grind City” seems fairly well-entrenched at this point. The city’s modern image as a decidedly working-class place synonymous with struggle …
Murals
Grooving On A Sunday Afternoon
It was the first really warm Sunday afternoon of the year, and one where I had a rare Sunday afternoon gig with Big Don Valentine …
Afternoon in Shreveport and the Strange Emptiness of a Lost Downtown
I had ridden to Shreveport with someone else, and although I wanted to eat at Orleandeaux’s now that it had opened in the old Smith’s …
Coldwater: A Struggling Town Celebrates Its Legacy
The original town of Coldwater, Mississippi was founded in Tate County, Mississippi in 1872 along the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad, which ran from Memphis to …
Whistling Past The Graveyard: Helena Celebrates Amidst the Ruins
The annual King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas is one of the United States’ major blues festivals. But time has not been kind to …
Celebrating the Blues and Juke Joint Culture in its Birthplace
Saturday April 23 was the main day of Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, a bright and sunny day, but extremely windy. In fact, the wind …
A Welcoming Mardi-Gras Barbecue in New Orleans
For Mardi Gras 2022, I decided to ride the Amtrak train down to New Orleans instead of driving my car. I learned that train travel …
A Wedding, Kermit’s and the Treme Hideaway
On my previous birthday weekends in New Orleans, the TBC Brass Band was usually playing the Dumaine Street Gang second-line, but that didn’t happen this …
“If You Love It, Do it Everyday”: Glenview Murals in Memphis
Glenview, a neighborhood of single-family homes along Lamar Avenue southeast of downtown Memphis was one of the first historically-white neighborhoods to open up to African-American …
Blues in the Alley in Holly Springs
Each summer, the town of Holly Springs, Mississippi in Marshall County usually has a series of blues concerts on or near the town square. The …