A Reception for the Mentors and Apprentices of the Tennessee Folklife Arts Project
After the six months of mentoring under the Tennessee Folklife Arts Program, mentors and apprentices were invited to a reception at the Tennessee Arts Commission …
Drummers
Celebrating West Tennessee’s Lost Fife and Drum Tradition
Last summer, the Tennessee Arts Commission began a Folklife Apprenticeship program to preserve endangered folkways in the state, and one of the areas of interest …
Hezekiah Early and Robert “Poochie” Watson at the Juke Joint Festival
Blues veteran Hezekiah Early is associated with Natchez, Mississippi, and with the towns on the other side of the river, like St. Joseph and Ferriday, …
Jukin’ at Cat Head in Clarksdale
Juke Joint Fest weekend in Clarksdale is generally rain-free, but the last couple of years have been an exception. 2017 was a complete wash-out, and …
“They Got To Sew, Sew, Sew”: Mardi Gras Indians Uptown and Downtown
The traditional Mardi Gras parades can be fun, but my favorite part of carnival is in the ‘hoods and backstreets, where the gangs of Mardi …
Robert Kimbrough and Lady’s Night at The Hut
Authentic blues in an authentic environment is hard to come by these days, and when the Memphis juke joint Wild Bill’s closed in December, it …
Fife and Drum Returns to West Tennessee at the Sleepy John Estes Blues Jam
Although fife and drum bands once were common in West Tennessee, the phenomenon had largely died out by 1980. The Tennessee State Archives created a …
Debut of the Lucky 7 Brass Band at Growlers
I got an invitation on Facebook a week or so ago from a musician friend, trombonist Victor Sawyer, to come to the debut performance of …
A Fife-and-Drum Workshop in Brownsville, Tennessee
Fife and drum music once flourished in West Tennessee, but similar to what happened in Georgia, disappeared rapidly in the 1970’s. The last evidence we …
Celebrating the Hill Country Tradition at Como’s Annual Day
Each October, the City of Como, Mississippi sponsors a large, daylong festival and picnic called Como Day, featuring vendors, food trucks, custom cars and excellent …