Willy and the Planks Performing at Memphis’ Center for Southern Folklore
Willy and the Planks is a Nashville-based blues band with strong Hill Country influence, led by Bill Gibbs, whom I met through his friendship with …
musicians
Celebrating Tate County’s Blues Legacy at Senatobia Blues and Brews
On November 4, 2017, Senatobia launched its inaugural Blues and Brews festival in Gabbert Park, in unusually warm and wet weather. In fact, dense fog …
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 …
R. L. Boyce, Lightnin Malcolm & Jimbo Mathus at Clarksdale’s Deep Blues Festival
Robert Palmer’s movie and book “Deep Blues” was instrumental in introducing the world to the Hill Country Blues style and its stars, R. L. Burnside …
Another Day of Blues in Helena
I was late in getting to the second day of the King Biscuit Blues Festival because I had visited the massive Coldwater Trade Day sale …
The King Biscuit Blues Festival and the Decline of Helena
Like all of Eastern Arkansas, Helena had seen better days by the late 1970’s, but the worst was yet to come. When the Mohawk Tire …
Bikes and Blues On Historic Ground near Como
On the last weekend of September, Memphis-based blues and southern soul singer Gerod Rayborn asked me if I would play keyboards with his band for …
Some Ice Cream, A Snowball, Seafood and Blues
After the second-line, we were so hot when we got back to the car that I immediately started searching in my phone for ice cream …
Uptown with the Young Men Olympian and the TBC Brass Band
Sherena had never been to a second-line, so on our weekend trip to New Orleans, I wanted her to experience one first-hand. And by chance, …
An Afternoon in Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Dinner in Gulfport
My friend and I had visited my cousin in the Handsboro neighborhood of Gulfport, and then we had headed on east into Biloxi. We noticed …