A Day of Gospel and Blues at Zodiac Park in Mason, Tennessee
Zodiac Park north of Mason is the last of a vanishing breed, rural Black baseball and softball parks. Such parks used to be found in …
Gospel Music
The Covington Community Comes Together For Bull Day
Orlandus Cobbins Sr. was known to his friends as “Bull,” and was a positive influence on young people on the westside of Covington, Tennessee, until …
A Day of Gospel Music in West Tennessee at Mason’s Zodiac Park
Black baseball fields were tremendously important in rural Black communities into the early 1970s. Every community had baseball teams and softball teams, but the ballfields …
Blues at Nightfall: How Dr. David Evans and High Water Records Tried to Secure A Future For The Blues
High Water Records was founded in 1980 by Dean Richard Ranta and Dr. David Evans, an eminent folklorist who was brought to what was then …
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 …
A Hot Drum Shed on a Cold Night in South Memphis
Drum practice can be noisy, and in the early days of young people learning to play, whether snare drum or the set, parents demanded that …
A Hot Evening of Blues for a Mississippi State Senate Candidate in Senatobia
Old habits die hard in Mississippi, and candidates for office still see a value in hiring the old-time blues musicians to play for rallies. With …
The Rev. John Wilkins at Beale Street Caravan’s Big Night
Lightnin Malcolm was playing in Merigold at Crawdad’s, and the original plan was for me to head to Senatobia and pick Sherena Boyce up, and …
Breakfast, Worship And Black History at Salem Missionary Baptist Church at Mason, Tennessee
A while back, I had crossed paths on Facebook with the Rev. T. Ray Greer, pastor of Salem Missionary Baptist Church in the countryside just …
Together We Stand: Como, Mississippi Celebrates Its Vibrant Legacy
“Can’t One Make One” read the shirts with the iconic image of the Como water tower on the front, and the legend “Together We Stand” …