Dancin’ Jimmy’s is a new club on Beale Street occupying the building that formerly housed Pat O’Brien’s and later the Memphis version of Ground Zero Blues Club. So far there has been no live music, but the atmosphere is nice, particularly in the New Orleans-style back courtyard.
Beale Street is crowded on most weekends, but never quite as much as it is during Music Fest weekend, 5/4/12
South Main Arts District, Memphis, 5/4/12
Memphis hometown veterans Three-6 Mafia take the Orion stage at the Beale Street Music Festival on Friday 5/4/12. Keep up with them at http://www.three6-mafia.com/us/home. Buy their merchandise at http://store.dangerusskandulus.com/.
The Tom Lee Park setting of the Beale Street Music Festival makes for a beautiful backdrop to the musical events taking place there, with the Mississippi River’s water flowing past quietly, barges and towboats drifting past, the old and new bridges, the Memphis skyline to the north, the lovely houses up on the bluff to the east, and brilliant sunsets.
North Mississippi All-Stars, Beale Street Music Festival, 5/4/12
North Mississippi All-Stars, Beale Street Music Festival, 5/4/12
Luther and Cody Dickinson are sons of legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, and they are the driving force behind the North Mississippi All-Stars. The rich Hill Country Blues legacy of Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside and the fife-and-drum band music of Otha Turner all have contributed heavily to the All-Stars sound, and while the band is very much a Mississippi entity, it is also a Memphis one, and there is no more appropriate act to open the Beale Street Music Festival.Â
Beale Street Music Festival, 5/4/12
The Beale Street Music Festival is the opening event of Memphis In May each year, and currently Memphis’ largest outdoor music festival, involving three stages, a tent and a small mini-stage, and three full days of music in Tom Lee Park. There are also all kinds of merchandise tents, and plenty of good food and drink. Although the event is usually harassed by rain, this year the gates opened on Friday May 4 to plenty of sunshine and an unseasonable 90 degrees.
