The Marianna Cut-Off: Singing the Blues in Hughes
The St. Francis County, Arkansas town of Hughes looms large in the blues world. Alan Lomax visited in 1959, recording musicians like William Brown, Roland …
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Iyuana Patrice and Jonathan Ellis Bring the Blues to Broadway in West Memphis
Blues Off Broadway is a weekly blues concert every Thursday evening in the month of May in West Memphis, Arkansas, usually held on a portable …
Juke Joint Love in Whitehaven at the VIP
Memphis, Tennessee is a fairly common destination for tourists, and Beale Street is the usual attraction that many want to see. Memphis does a considerable …
West Memphis’s New Amphitheater at Hightower Park
While Memphis has struggled, West Memphis has been making a considerable amount of progress under the leadership of its young mayor Marco McClendon. Every year …
In Search of Harlem Alley
In the spring of 1983, I was going to Central Baptist School in the Bartlett area, and I rode with our basketball team to Forrest …
A Day of Blues at Fordyce’s Cotton Belt Festival
It is often hard to be a journalist or observer and also a working musician within the scene I am trying to document. But I …
Out in Memphis on a Friday Night
What does the music fan do in Memphis on a Friday night? On one particular December Friday, I headed down to the lobby of the …
A Veteran Memphis Drummer Celebrates His Birthday With A Concert
Memphis drummer Danny Peterson has played with any number of bands in both gospel and rhythm and blues music. Starting out with quartets like the …
A Day of Community and Fun in Mason, Tennessee
Mason, Tennessee was once known for the Lower End, a collection of juke joints on Front Street, colloquially known as “cafés,” but these days most …
Celebrating the Legendary Blues Researcher Axel Kustner in West Point, Mississippi
German blues researcher Axel Kustner was one of the last blues field workers to comb the southern United States looking for bluesmen, and he was …