A Delta Afternoon: The Ghosts of Earle
On September 10, 1970, the Rev. Ezra Greer and his wife, Jackie, who was a candidate for mayor of Earle, Arkansas, led a march from …
Photography
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 …
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 …
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 …
A Day of Community and Fun in Mason, Tennessee
Mason, Tennessee was once known for the Lower End, a collection of juke joints on Front Street, colloquially known as “cafés,” but these days most …
Celebrating the Legendary Blues Researcher Axel Kustner in West Point, Mississippi
German blues researcher Axel Kustner was one of the last blues field workers to comb the southern United States looking for bluesmen, and he was …
The Blues is Front and Center on Clarksdale’s Biggest Day
Most people’s friends throw them a party on their birthday, but Roger Stolle, the owner of Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art throws the …
Garry Burnside Plays The Hill Country Blues at Booneville’s Fall Fest
Most Mississippi towns have some sort of community festival, so when Hill Country bluesman Garry Burnside told me he would be playing the Booneville Fall …
The Fading Ruins of Turrell, Arkansas
Turrell, Arkansas, about ten miles north of Marion, is like a number of East Arkansas Delta towns. Once dependent on agricultural, it is fading away …
A Blues Yard Party in Rosemark’s Chapel Hill Community
Chapel Hill Community is an odd subdivision in far north Shelby County between Rosemark and Arlington. It looks like a piece of Raleigh or Frayser …