Keeping The Legacy Of Fife and Drum Music Alive
Each year, Sharde Thomas, the granddaughter of legendary fife-and-drum band leader Othar Turner, holds an annual picnic in her grandfathers’ memory at Gravel Springs, a …
musicology
Robert Kimbrough’s Blues Yard Parties in Benton County
Benton County, Mississippi is due east of Marshall County, and was once a part of it, having been carved out of it and Tippah County …
Celebrating R. L. Boyce’s Birthday With A Picnic in Como
Como, Mississippi is a town that sits on the border between the Mississippi Delta and a region known as the Hill Country. The styles of …
Brass Bands Clash on Frenchmen Street
Later in the evening, my homebody Darren Towns of the TBC Brass Band had a gig with a pick-up band of musicians from various brass …
The TBC Brass Band Plays For A Funeral Uptown
Funerals in New Orleans are fairly strange. It is common for the family members to hire a brass band for the funeral, and those in …
A Birthday Party Uptown at Sportsman’s Corner With TBC Brass Band
After getting off work, I changed clothes, packed my car and headed out Interstate 55 into Mississippi. My friend, the trombonist Edward Jackson had asked …
A Blues Porch Party On A Rainy Night In Taylor
It was a rainy Monday night, and a work night at that, and I was tired and not feeling like doing much of anything. But …
The Brunswick Picnic and the Independent Order of Pole Bearers
The modern concept of life insurance did not come to the South until after the Civil War, and when it did come, the early Southern …
R. L. Boyce, Lightnin Malcolm & Cedric Burnside Live at Oxford Blues Festival
The Grove on the campus of the University of Mississippi is a beautiful setting for any event, and it makes an awesome setting for the …
On the Trail of Lum Guffin, Bartlett’s Elusive Bluesman
I grew up in Bartlett, and went to Bartlett High School. A lot of my friends lived in the Black community along Old Brownsville Road, …