Como Revisited
The small Mississippi town of Como in Panola County is a most unlikely dining destination. Traditionally a cotton and market town, Como came by its …
Blues
Boots on the Muddy Ground, But A Good Time
It has been my goal this year to go to a trail ride, and while the Michigan City Blues Festival in Benton County, Mississippi wasn’t …
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 …
A Delta Afternoon: The Sad Death of Parkin
The Cross County, Arkansas town of Parkin is yet another rural town ravaged by Arkansas’s forced school consolidation law. The loss of its local schools …
A Delta Afternoon: Wynne’s Abandoned Childress High School
I had been told that Wynne, Arkansas once had a number of juke joints in its northwestern section, which was the town’s Black community. But …
Wilson: The Jewel of the Arkansas Delta
The Arkansas Delta has definitely seen better days. The decline of the cotton economy, the loss of industry in the 1980s, and a declining population …
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 …