Anthony “Big A” Sherrod – the delta review

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019

Delta Easter: Anthony “Big A” Sherrod and the Space Cowboy at Eighth Street Grocery in Clarksdale

When I finally made it back to Clarksdale, there was a fairly large crowd at the tiny Eighth Street Grocery, and a lot of cars parked in the block near it. But the musicians were still outside in the front yard, and though it was after 8 PM, things had not yet gotten underway.

The normal store stock had been moved to make way for tables and chairs, and the band had set up their instruments against the north wall of the building, near two television screens that were hanging there. A large table selling food had been set up near the entrance.

When Big A and Space Cowboy finally came inside and began playing, the place soon filled up to overflowing. The old building was set up on blocks off the ground, and the wooden floor sagged with the pounding it was taking from the dancers. There was hardly room for the tables and chairs, but somehow it all worked. Unlike the experience of hearing blues in a modern club or at a festival, this intimate setting was more exciting, as there was constant interaction between members of the crowd and the musicians, who after all, knew each other, Clarksdale being a small town.

I was having so much fun that I didn’t want to leave, but with me having to work the next morning, I had to leave at 10 PM to make the two-hour journey back to Memphis. I expect the revelry and good music went on far into the night.

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019

Delta Easter: A Blues Affair At A Clarksdale Grocery?

Roger Stolle, the arbiter of all things blue in Coahoma County had listed a strange and rather unusual entry in his weekly live music flyer- Anthony “Big A” Sherrod and the Space Cowboy performing at a place I didn’t know called Eighth Street Grocery in Clarksdale. I had thought I knew every place in Clarksdale, certainly every musical place, anyway, but this one was new. And a check of its location on the map showed that it was in a Clarksdale neighborhood that I had never been in really, although it was not all that far from Pete’s Grill where I had played with Duwayne Burnside the week before.

So, on the off-chance that I might want to check it out, I drove to the location to find out where it was and confirm that they actually were going to have live music. It was an actual grocery store, an old-school one, with a wooden floor, but a space had been cleared for tables and chairs, and a barbecue grill set-up.

I found out that it would start at 8 PM, and that admission would be $5, so I told the woman running the store that I would likely be back, and then headed out toward Hopson Plantation and Old Highway 49.

February 22, 2015

Stud & Cactus Live at the Delta Blues Alley Cafe in Clarksdale

Friday February 6 was some kind of special day for blues apparently, because there were blues performances everywhere. Ori Naftaly was at Lafayette’s Music Room in Memphis, Duwayne Burnside was at the Blue Monkey in Memphis, Leo “Bud” Welch was at Rooster’s Blues House in Oxford, Albert King Jr and the Final Touch Band was at Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Anthony “Big A” Sherrod was at Club 2000 in Clarksdale, and Bill Howl-N-Madd Perry was at Red’s Lounge in Clarksdale. Choosing between all of these great options was hard, but I finally decided to head for Clarksdale, stopping first at Sardis, Mississippi in order to enjoy a pizza at the superb Tribecca Alley Cafe, and then heading across the Delta on Highway 6. I had intended to check out the Albert King Jr. performance at Ground Zero, but when I first arrived in Clarksdale, I could hear a loud rock-influenced band playing elsewhere downtown, and since I could hear the Hill Country blues influence in it, I started looking for it. At first, I thought that the band was playing in an old warehouse on Sunflower Avenue, but it soon became clear that the sound was bouncing off that building and was coming from somewhere on Delta Avenue, so I walked around the Ground Zero club and found that they were playing in the new Delta Blues Alley Cafe, which is the former Club Vegas across the street from Ground Zero. It cost me $10 to go inside, and I proved to be the only patron, but the duo that was playing was Greenville, Mississippi drummer Stud, the nephew of the late T-Model Ford, and a Native American guitar player named Cactus from South Dakota who periodically hitchhikes to the Delta each year to play. They sounded good, and I spent some time checking them out before I finally headed back across the street to Ground Zero.