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 …
Barbecue
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 …
Cigars, Wine, Blues and Soul at Chulahoma
If anyone is familiar with Chulahoma, Mississippi at all, it is probably as the location of the late blues great Junior Kimbrough’s long lost juke …
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 …
Great Barbecue and a Fun Atmosphere at Oxford’s Lamar Yard
After my final performance at the Oxford Blues Festival with Duwayne Burnside, my friend and I were hungry for barbecue. Although there was a barbecue …
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 …
The Mason Family Reunion: Great Weather, Good Food, Fun and Fellowship, But No Musicians
Predominantly-African-American towns in Mississippi have a tradition of annual “days,” named for the towns, in which there are live performances, and in which people from …
Celebrating the Music of the Hill Country at Waterford, Mississippi
One of the best things about our slow return to normalcy has been the reappearance of the festivals we missed in 2020. The North Mississippi …
A Friday Evening in Jackson, Tennessee
I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner in Brownsville, so I headed out Highway 70 from Bartlett, and stopped in Mason, Tennessee to …
Duwayne Burnside and Ms. Nikki at a Really Big Backyard Party in Holly Springs
One week after the earlier graduation party, there was an even bigger outdoor backyard party in Holly Springs, this one at a large house north …