Juke Joint Festival #3

Roadkill count...

397 deer

14 armadillos

2 turtles

86 opossums

1 beaver

101 cockroaches

AND...

1 pair of really ugly flip flops with socks no less.  

(Jill, are you as appalled by this fashion as I am?  What would In Style or Tyra say about this?)

Over and Out,

KD

Juke Joint Festival #2

And Watermelon Slim goes for them blue ostrich and muddy boots...

(top:  Eddie Cusic - legendary Leland, MS delta bluesman)

Juke Joint Festival #1

Honeyboy wears sensible shoes!

Riverside Hotel

April 18, 2008 - Supper Time

Alrighty then...after Jessie Mae and Honeyboy I check in to the Riverside Hotel in downtown Clarksdale.  Frank 'Rat' , Joyce and their daughter, ZL, are keepin' history alive as this is truly a blues drenched atmosphere.  There is mojo and then there is MOJO...musicians that have stayed &/or lived here through history...John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Ike & Tina Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson, Levon Helm, Jessie Mae Hemphill and on on it goes.  

In 1944 Rat's mother Zee Ratliff converted the Afro American Hospital into this hotel.  As many of you know it was hearing Bessie Smith's - T'Ain't Nobody's Biziness - that woke me up from a deep sleep.  Once bitten I have been infected with the blues ever since!  Bessie, in 1937, was in a major car accident and she died later that day in this building in room #2.  As this room is not rented out (not that I wanted to stay in the room anyhow...spirits and such) Rat placed me in room 2A across the hall in the "JFK" room.  

There is a fine line between 'tourist' and blues history.  It wasn't until I played the blues for Joyce and Rat, smoked a cigar, drank beers, went to Red's Juke and hung out on the stoop that I really felt like I was living my blues history.  It wasn't about the reading any longer...this has become an integral part of my own story!

So many stories from Rat and Joyce and the other fine guests...so little time!

Bessie Smith...you were one amazing, complicated and tricky woman...

Kat

David 'Honeyboy' Edwards

April 18, 2008 - PM

So this day just keeps getting better and better!  My pants are on the right way and everything.  

David 'Honeyboy' Edwards is a handful of musicians still living from the years that birthed blues music.  Born in 1915, Honeyboy is a spry 92 year old and it was an indescribable honor to spend time being mentored by him.  I got a chance to play for him and, as you can see by the photos, he was interested in the Estralita so he took her for a spin too.  He conveyed many stories about Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Ma Rainey in a talk at the Delta Blues Museum before hand but it really was his presence that was most striking...and his playing...let's not forget those HUGE blues notes he can still pick out cleanly.  Wow!

I wasn't looking for anything specific from him but to just appreciate the life he has lived.  Toward the end of our time together he took my hands in his and said "Kat, you really got it goin' own.  Sweeeeet tone.  No matta what, keep playin' 'em blues.  It ain't gonna make you rich but it's gonna make you really happy...and other peoples gonna see that in you someday!"

As Yoda might say "insightful he is".

Knees A Knockin',

Kat

Women of the Delta Blues - Pt. 4-Jessie Mae Hemphill

April 18, 2008 - AM

Vines draping fences, mist stroking the rolling hills and the tapping drizzle of rain created a surreal feeling long highway #4 from Oxford to Senetobia this morning.  Jessie Mae has been a constant companion on this pilgrimage.  Previous entries make regular mention of this pioneering blues woman and I make consistent musical identification with her rhythm and trance like songwriting.  Indeed she is a regular in my thoughts as I write and record my new music here.  

I have managed to find all of her recordings and have immensely enjoyed her strength and spirit!  Her success was primarily through the 1980's and a stroke in 1993 ended her playing but not her sense of musical community.  The granddaughter of Sid Hempill (Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Fife & Drum Tradition, etc.), Jessie Mae indicated on a weird and wonderful segment on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (I saw it at the Blues Archives) that she began playing drum at age 9.  She is joined on that video by the legendary fife and drum player Othar Turner.  

This woman was as unique and lovely as any blues figure in history!  Thank you Jessie Mae.

Kat