University of Mississippi – the delta review

October 16, 2016

Cedric Burnside Live at Proud Larry’s On Oxford’s Biggest Day

Oxford was absolute pandemonium. The Crimson Tide of Alabama had come to town to play Ole Miss, and the result was the largest football crowd ever recorded in the history of Oxford as a town. Streets were gridlocked, and in the area around the courthouse square, streets were closed altogether. Parking was practically non-existent. So when my girlfriend said she wanted to go hear Cedric Burnside at Proud Larry’s, I envisioned a nightmare of no parking, and drunken, rowdy crowds that wouldn’t let us anywhere near the stage. Fortunately, I was wrong on both counts. We managed to find a parking place up on the hill by the Parks and Recreation office, and while Proud Larry’s was indeed crowded, it was not outrageously so, and many of those there were friends and relatives of Cedric Burnside. As for Cedric and his sidekick Trenton Ayers, they seemed to feed off the crowd’s energy, performing two rousing sets of Hill Country standards and originals before the closing hour of 12:30 AM. It was well worth the effort.

July 26, 2015

Blues In The Grove At Oxford

The Oxford Blues Festival was not held on the Square this year, as I would have expected, but rather on the Grove on the Ole Miss campus, and a good thing, since the entire Mid-South was under a heat advisory and the sun was beating down fiercely. Perhaps as a result, when I first got there, the crowd was rather small, and that despite the fact that the festival was also free. But as the day progressed, from the jazz of Doc Prana, to the bluesy rock of the Zediker Brothers, to the folk blues of Bobby Ray Watson (who had studied with Mississippi Joe Callicott), the crowd grew steadily in numbers and enthusiasm, and ever so slowly the heat began to subside. Female blues singer Joyce Jones was in the audience, and was called up on stage by Bobby Ray Watson and by Cadillac Funk to feature on a couple of songs. Then the Como Mamas came on stage to do some a cappella gospel numbers, and the afternoon was closed out by Blind Mississippi Morris as the sun was setting. Although there was a headline act for later in the evening, the people I was with wanted to head back to the Square for dinner. Despite the outrageous heat, it was a fun day of blues in a beautiful, shady setting.

Keep up with the Oxford Blues Festival:
http://oxfordbluesfest.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oxford-Blues-Festival/149263388461540

Keep up with the Zediker Brothers:
https://www.facebook.com/TheZedikerBrothers
https://thezedikerbrothers.bandcamp.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/randomiteversion2

Keep up with Cadillac Funk:
http://www.cadillacfunk.net
https://www.facebook.com/cadillacfunkband

Keep up with the Como Mamas:
http://daptonerecords.com/comomamas/
https://www.facebook.com/thecomomamas

https://thecomomamas.bandcamp.com

Keep up with Blind Mississippi Morris:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blind-Mississippi-Morris/180262462022644
https://myspace.com/blindmississippimorris

April 24, 2014

Celebrating the Hill Country Blues at Oxford’s Powerhouse Community Arts Center

While registering for the Southern Entertainment Awards at Resorts Casino in Tunica, I looked on my phone and saw where a concert of Hill Country blues was taking place at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center in Oxford. The weather had gotten really bad, with high winds, thunder and lightning, but I decided to drive over that way from Tunica, stopping for dinner at the Oyster Bar in Como. The concert had already started when I got to Oxford, and Sharde Thomas was on stage with the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. I learned that the event was being held for the attendees of the Southern Literary Festival, which was being held on the Ole Miss campus nearby. After the fife and drum band, Hill Country blues legend Duwayne Burnside came on stage with his band, including David Kimbrough Jr on drums, and played a selection of traditional and modern blues songs, getting the most applause for his reading of his father’s “See My Jumper Hanging Out On The Line.” (The strange title of that song had always mystified me, until I read recently that rural women who were cheating on their husbands used to hang a man’s jumpsuit on their clothesline as a signal to their boyfriends that the coast was clear and they could come over). Duwayne Burnside was followed by the Rev. John Wilkins, whose style of gospel is largely based on the music of Hill Country blues, despite the religious tone of the lyrics. Although I had seen all the performers elsewhere in the past, it was an exciting and enjoyable performance.