A Little Rock Day
Because I had to do research at the Butler Center for Arkansas History and Culture, I drove out to Little Rock early, and after completing …
Arts
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 …
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 …
Hot Weather and Hot Blues at the Mississippi Hill Country’s Biggest Weekend
Each year, on the last weekend in June, blues musician Kenny Brown and his wife Sarah host the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic at Betty …
A City of Murals
While the city of Memphis has struggled in recent years with abandonment and economic problems, one of the bright spots has been an explosion of …
Some Like It Black: Cxffeeblack Celebrates Coffee and Black Culture in Memphis
Years ago, Memphis was coffee-challenged, to say the least. After reading liner notes off my favorite Style Council album attributed to The Cappuccino Kid, I …
Garry Burnside Plays The Hill Country Blues at Booneville’s Fall Fest
Most Mississippi towns have some sort of community festival, so when Hill Country bluesman Garry Burnside told me he would be playing the Booneville Fall …
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 …
Celebrating the Blues Culture of Brownsville and the Memory of Tina Turner
The death of soul and pop icon Tina Turner, who was a Haywood County, Tennessee native, hung heavy over this year’s Exit 56 Blues Festival …