That’s me on the right with the video camera. My wife and I made our annual pilgrimage to the hill country of north Mississippi for the 5th annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic on June 25th and 26th, 2010. Cindy took some still pictures and I shot some video. The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band put on a wonderful performance with Sharde Thomas singing and playing the fife. Ms. Thomas is the granddaughter of the late Otha Turner of Gravel Springs, Mississippi. African-American fife and drum music was heard across the Southeast at one time but Rising Star is [...]
The North Mississippi Allstars perform at the 5th annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp, MS on June 26, 2010. The Allstars are a trio but bassist Chris Chew could not be a part of this performance, so they were billed as the NMA DuoLuCo with Luther and Cody Dickinson performing. (Cody Dickinson plays the bass line on a keyboard while also playing drums!) Here’s the opening of their set: A the end of the set, the Allstars invited guitarist Kenny Brown and members of the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band to join them for a medley: [...]
If you haven’t seen this video yet, you’ve got to check it out… Coffee spills in the BP conference room and things get out of hand.
My wife and I recently attended the 5th annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp, Mississippi. We’ve attended every one so far and it has become an annual tradition for us. The two-day festival features over 20 bands from the hill country of north Mississippi, an area with rich musical traditions and some very musically talented families. One of those families is the Burnside family. R. L. Burnside was a blues legend who passed away a few years ago. I loved his music and was thrilled to get to meet him and interview him for my documentary on [...]
