At last year’s Juke Joint Fest, there was no place to buy coffee in Clarksdale, but this year there was Yazoo Pass, a really good coffee bar on Yazoo Avenue that also features sandwiches and the current trend of frozen yogurt in cups charged by weight. Yazoo Pass became a center of activity during the festival, perhaps because of its location between stages at Bluesberry Cafe and Yazoo Park on one end, and the Bank Stage in the former Coahoma Bank at the other end.
Juke Joint Festival
The Juke Joint Festival is held annually in April in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and is probably the biggest tourist event in the city, and one of the biggest in the state. Originally a one-day event, the festival now stretches across all or part of four days, with movie screenings, concerts, a parade, kids’ activities and more. Central to the event are legendary Clarksdale jukes, such as Red’s Blues Lounge and Messengers Pool Hall, while newer clubs, such as Bill Luckett and Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero are also important venues. On Saturday, there are arts and crafts, and numerous outdoor stages across the downtown area and in the adjacent New Era district.
The former Hopson Plantation just outside of Clarksdale has become the Shack Up Inn, a boutique hotel consisting of motel rooms in the former cotton gin and rentable sharecroppers’ shacks, as well as the former commissary which is now a bar and live music venue. The grounds are decorated with old signs and bottletrees, and there is the Juke Joint Chapel, which serves as a second music venue on the premises. Needless to say, the hotel is extremely popular with visitors to the Juke Joint Festival, and a special excursion train of the Mississippi Delta Railroad is run between Hopson and the Clarksdale depot every half hour during the festival days.
Watermelon Slim Live at Cat Head Delta Blues During Juke Joint Fest 2012, Clarksdale
Watermelon Slim at the Cat Head stage, Juke Joint Fest, Clarksdale, MS (Taken with Instagram at Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art)
Thursday night, April 12, 2012, Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, MS
Thursday night, April 12, 2012, Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, MS
The Juke Joint Festival begins tomorrow in Clarksdale, MS and runs through Sunday. Click on the banner for a schedule and further info
If you are a fan of Mississippi blues, you don’t want to miss this. Great music, great fun in Clarksdale, Mississippi. It’s probably too late to get rooms in Clarksdale, but you can probably stay in Tunica, Greenville, Greenwood or Cleveland. See you there!
4/15/10: Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale
I drove down to Clarksdale last Thursday to meet up with Justin Showah, the owner of Hill Country Records, who was playing the opening night …