Together We Stand: Celebrating the Soul of Como, Mississippi
The Hill Country blues season generally begins with the Juke Joint Festival in April, and ends with Como Day in Como, Mississippi, which is usually …
Sharde Thomas
Celebrating The Legacy of R. L. Boyce at Como, Mississippi
What Sherena Boyce, daughter of Hill Country bluesman R. L. Boyce, started as a birthday party for her dad in August of 2017 has now …
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, …
An Even Bigger Saturday at Coldwater’s GOAT Picnic
Although Saturday, August 25, 2018 was even hotter than the day before, the crowd that gathered in the late afternoon in Coldwater for the second …
Celebrating The Legacy of Otha Turner at Coldwater
Back in 1950, Othar Turner, of Gravel Springs, a few miles east of Senatobia in Mississippi’s Hill Country region, decided to hold a picnic for …
The Rising Star JuBallLee Takes Over Cherry Place At Waterford
Since the death of the legendary fife and drum musician Othar Turner, his granddaughter Sharde Thomas has done stellar work in preserving that musical tradition, …
R. L. Boyce, Cam Kimbrough, Joyce Jones and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band at the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival
New Orleans’beloved Jazz Fest celebrates the wide diversity of New Orleans music, but the Memphis equivalent, the Beale Street Music Festival generally does not feature …
Gravel Springs Block Party and Day 2 of the Otha Turner Picnic
The second day of the annual Otha Turner Picnic was much more crowded than the first, as crowds came out to hear such artists as …
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 …
Opening the Crosstown Concourse
I had driven out to Covington for the inaugural Isaac Hayes Day in Frazier Park, but found it disappointing, as there were no live bands …