Two Night of Jam Band Fun at the inaugural Duwayne Burnside Festival in Marshall County
Over the last decade or so, Hill Country bluesman Duwayne Burnside has sponsored a fall picnic, usually in September. It was usually called the R. …
Rising Star Fife and Drum Band
75 Years of Hollering “Goat” in Tate County, Mississippi: Blues and Fife and Drum
For 75 years, there has been a Labor Day picnic in Tate County, Mississippi, featuring barbecued goat and fife and drum music. The tradition was …
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 …
Preserving The Black Fife and Drum Culture in Coldwater
For 73 years, people in North Mississippi have been going to the Goat Picnic for goat sandwiches, music, dancing, and one of the rarest and …
Together We Stand: Celebrating the Soul of Como, Mississippi
The Hill Country blues season generally begins with the Juke Joint Festival in April, and ends with Como Day in Como, Mississippi, which is usually …
The Rising Star JuBallLee Takes Over Cherry Place At Waterford
Since the death of the legendary fife and drum musician Othar Turner, his granddaughter Sharde Thomas has done stellar work in preserving that musical tradition, …
Keeping The Legacy Of Fife and Drum Music Alive
Each year, Sharde Thomas, the granddaughter of legendary fife-and-drum band leader Othar Turner, holds an annual picnic in her grandfathers’ memory at Gravel Springs, a …
Opening the Crosstown Concourse
I had driven out to Covington for the inaugural Isaac Hayes Day in Frazier Park, but found it disappointing, as there were no live bands …
The Hurt Family Celebrating The 4th of July With Fife and Drum
As I have discussed before in this blog, Black fife and drum music is an endangered form of pre-blues that probably played a role in …
Juke Joint Festival: Andre Otha Evans Fife & Drum Band
Black fife and drum bands were once ubiquitous in the rural South, but time has not been kind to this style of music, a sort …