Page 99 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019

hill-country patriarch Sid Hemphill in Senatobia, MS, Jackie
Brenston’s recording of “Rocket ‘88’” (placed in Lyon, MS, close
to the cemetery where Brenston and fellow Ike Turner band
member Raymond Hill are buried), Buddy Guy in Lettsworth, LA
(saluted for his connections with Mississippi blues), and the blues
communities of Ocean Springs, Meridian and Newton County,
MS, and Pensacola, FL (a city with a surprisingly rich musical
history).
The Mississippi Blues Trail website (www.msbluestrail.org)
provides a wealth of information and can be downloaded as an
app. The app includes a map of all markers with photos and texts
from each marker; videos documenting Muddy Waters, Bobby
Rush, Little Milton, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Trumpet Records and
more; a historical timeline; latitude and longitude of each marker
for GPS navigation; and a make-your-own-itinerary function. The
website includes additional features, including a calendar of
blues events, a blues curriculum for teachers, a list of museums,
a link to Mississippi Blues Trail merchandise and information on
the Mississippi Blues Foundation and the Musicians’ Aid Fund,
established by the state “to provide assistance to any blues
musician in need.” A detailed guide to the Mississippi Blues Trail
is also available in issue #233 of Living Blues magazine.
There is plenty to read, hear and watch even for those who
can’t make a pilgrimage to Mississippi. But nothing compares
to being there. Pick an event from the Mississippi listings in the
online calendar or here in the Blues Festival Guide and map out
a blues trail itinerary. You may find yourself having the blues
experience of a lifetime in Mississippi.

Texas Johnny Brown, a renowned guitarist born in Ackerman, MS, broke into tears when Jim O’Neal is a cofounding editor of Living Blues magazine,
he saw photos of his father, blind guitarist Cranston "Clarence" Brown, on the marker in
Ackerman named after Brown's song, "Two Steps from the Blues." research director with the Mississippi Blues Trail and coeditor
Photo by Wanda Clark, courtesy of the Mississippi Blues Trail of the book The Voice of the Blues. He operates a mail order
business (Stackhouse & BluEsoterica, 3516 Holmes St., Kansas
to honor the connections and contributions of Mississippi blues City MO 64109, www.bluesoterica.com) buying and selling
with markers in Memphis, Chicago, Florida, Wisconsin, Maine, records, magazines and memorabilia.
Norway, France and elsewhere, with more still to come.
The Blues Trail honors many legendary heroes of the blues
with markers at their birthplaces or gravesites, especially in the
Delta region, but it also celebrates hometown performers who
kept the blues alive in places like McComb, Gulfport, Natchez,
Pontotoc, Tupelo, Grenada and Meridian. The markers cover
nightclubs, juke joints, record companies, hotels, radio stations
and plantations, as well as topics including race, gambling,
cotton and transportation.
The chronicles of local blues history in many towns and
counties have never been published in any book. Scott Barretta
and I research and write the marker texts, and we have used the
opportunity to dig deeper into regional history and genealogy,
rather than simply relying on previous biographies and accounts.
With so much more data available now, even the basic details
of many artists’ lives, such as dates and places of birth, have
been revised. Located in the Belmont-DeVilliers historic African American neighborhood, the Blues
The most recent markers honor Prince McCoy (whose music Trail marker in Pensacola, FL, was unveiled in January 2019.
was a major inspiration to W.C. Handy) in Greenville, MS, Photo by Brenda Haskins

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