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 …
venues
A Day of Blues at Fordyce’s Cotton Belt Festival
It is often hard to be a journalist or observer and also a working musician within the scene I am trying to document. But I …
Out in Memphis on a Friday Night
What does the music fan do in Memphis on a Friday night? On one particular December Friday, I headed down to the lobby of the …
A Veteran Memphis Drummer Celebrates His Birthday With A Concert
Memphis drummer Danny Peterson has played with any number of bands in both gospel and rhythm and blues music. Starting out with quartets like the …
Hot Weather and Hot Blues at the Mississippi Hill Country’s Biggest Weekend
Each year, on the last weekend in June, blues musician Kenny Brown and his wife Sarah host the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic at Betty …
Earl the Pearl’s Authentic Blues on Historic Beale Street
Memphis bills itself as the Home of the Blues, and markets Beale Street as “the street where blues was born.” But since the street’s redevelopment …
A City of Murals
While the city of Memphis has struggled in recent years with abandonment and economic problems, one of the bright spots has been an explosion of …
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 …
Easter Afternoon at a Blues Juke in the Hill Country
Holly Springs, Mississippi is home to one of the state’s youngest juke joints, the Burnside Bar and Grill, which belongs to Hill Country bluesman Duwayne …
Duwayne Burnside at The Lamplighter in Midtown Memphis
The Lamplighter Lounge is one of Memphis’s classic dive bars, but it is not a place I had ever been. As a bar and not …