Tag: Bobby Rush

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Blues Music Awards: Kingfish is King

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram performing at the Blues Music Awards on May 9th (Photo: Christopher Caldwell)

Last week’s 45th Blues Music Awards (BMAs) featured many familiar faces in the spotlight, but none so familiar as Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, from just down the road apiece in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

He came away with a win in the “Album of the Year” category for his Live In London record, which was also named the best Contemporary Blues Album. The BMAs also recognized Ingram as this year’s best Instrumentalist – Guitar and the best Contemporary Blues Male Artist.

Ingram, featured prominently in the Memphis Flyer‘s 2022 survey of the regional blues scene, has become somewhat of a ringer at the BMAs, having first won in all four of the above categories in 2020, then garnering awards in every subsequent year since.

His talent and success are partly a testament to the power of educational programs like those he attended at Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum as a young man. As he told the Flyer in 2022, “My instructors were actual bluesmen, Bill ‘Howl-n-Mad’ Perry and Richard ‘Daddy Rich’ Crisman. They were my teachers and my mentors of the blues, from the time when I played bass through when I got into guitar. And when they found out I had a little voice, they even pushed me to sing. There were even times when we would do readings. It was a full-on educational class, for sure. And it still goes on today.”

Another local favorite who won big was living legend Bobby Rush, who was not only named the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year but also snagged the best Soul Blues Album award for his All My Love for You. And transplanted Memphian John Németh, fresh off a riveting performance with the Bo-Keys at this year’s RiverBeat Music Festival, also excelled in the soul blues category, winning the Soul Blues Male Artist award.

Other top titles went to Keb’ Mo’ (Acoustic Blues Artist), Danielle Nicole (Contemporary Blues Female Artist), and the Nick Moss Band (Band of the Year). “What Kind Of Fool,” written by Ruthie Foster, Hadden Sayers & Scottie Miller, was named Song of the Year, and The Right Man by D.K. Harrell was named the Best Emerging Artist Album. Like Ingram and Rush, Foster, Mike Zito, and John Primer also garnered multiple awards.

Visit the Blues Foundation‘s dedicated web page for a complete list of this year’s winners.

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Music Music Features

I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: Bobby Rush, Scribe of the Blues

Bobby Rush (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)

UPDATE: Bobby Rush to play Levitt Shell on July 2nd

The blues is all about perspective. Think of how many classic songs of the genre urge you to take a step back and reflect, either on what’s plaguing you or on your good fortune. “The blues ain’t nothing but a botheration of your mind,” Blues Hall of Famer and Grammy Award winner Bobby Rush sings in “What Is the Blues?” — and just by saying it, he’s inviting us to contemplate. “I think, therefore I’m blue,” he seems to say, and every witticism, wry observation, and double entendre in his catalogue seems to confirm it.

So it’s been clear to anyone paying attention that Rush was a doctor of philosophy long before he received an honorary doctorate from Rhodes College in May. Now, with the publication of his autobiography, I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story, written with historian and composer Herb Powell (Hachette Books), it’s clearer than ever that Rush is a thinking person’s bluesman.

The title itself suggests a kind of meta-awareness. If you ain’t studdin’ someone, you’re not “studying” their hogwash. You’re not letting anyone’s claptrap worry you. In high-falutin’ terms, you’re not letting them frame the situation with whatever catastrophe (or gossip) they’ve cooked up.

It’s worth spelling out in a literal way because, as you read Rush’s book, you have to connect the dots yourself. He shows meanings by example. “I started lying about my age when I was 12, becoming 15 overnight — and I ain’t never looked back,” he writes on page one. “If you can’t give me a pass on that, then I ain’t studdin’ ya.”

It’s playful, heady stuff, and it captures Rush’s manner of speaking. Co-writer Powell wisely steps back and lets Rush’s voice unfold in true storytelling mode. And nearly every word reveals his poet’s eye for detail, the eye of the songwriter who’s wryly observed human behavior for decades.

“The sugarcane stalks were just starting to turn yellow in late September,” the book begins. “I looked at the back of Daddy’s hands as he massaged the stalk. The contrast of his boot-black skin against the greenish-yellow leaf looked like the stark colors that I only saw on the shelves of the general store.” With such vivid language, Rush is especially eloquent on the subject of his parents, and it’s clear that his father, a preacher and “a true bookworm,” played a large role in Rush’s philosophical bent.

The philosophy includes many hard-won lessons on the deadly absurdities of race in America — “White Devils, Green Money,” as one chapter puts it. Rush doesn’t paper over the injustices of growing up in the South; nor does he let such prejudices define him. He clearly ain’t studdin’ ’em; rather, like his father, he carries an indomitable dignity that has helped him weather the good times and the bad.

Yet, the man who emerges from these pages is a man of great faith and hope. Yes, his faith is of the Baptist variety, deeply informed by his father, but it’s also a secular faith in the more progressive side of the American Dream, a faith that justice is worth pursuing.

As it happens, and with impeccable timing, his more secular faith as a citizen is about to get some extra play, just a week after his book’s release. As a capstone to his many years as a visiting scholar in the arts at Rhodes’ Mike Curb Institute for Music and on the eve of his July 2nd show in the Shell Yeah! Benefit Concert Series at the Levitt Shell (originally scheduled for July 1st), Rush is releasing the single “America the Beautiful,” by Bobby Rush and the Curb Collective, featuring Eddie Cotton. The funky redo of the patriotic classic is a collaboration between the artist and students from the Curb Institute at Rhodes College that “pays tribute to our musical roots and celebrates our collective sounds as a nation.” Watch for Rush and his students to perform it live at his Levitt Shell show.

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Music Music Blog Music Features

That’s Doctor Bobby Rush to You

Bobby Rush (Photo by Bill Steber)

Bobby Rush, the forever young blues man based in Mississippi who won his first Grammy Award at age 83, and his second this year, when his Rawer Than Raw record was named Best Traditional Blues Album, is no dummy. In fact, he’ll tell you how smart he is. “I’m smart enough to know I don’t know anything,” he says. “If a man tell what he know, he won’t talk long. ‘Cos man don’t know nothing.”

It’s a typically humble statement from a man who, paradoxically, is not known for his shyness or reticence onstage. When you speak with him, you hear the humility that has kept him working doggedly through the years. “I’m not just a blues man,” he says. “I’m God’s child. I’m another kinda person, you know? And I got by in this rat race, not because I was so good, but because I was so blessed, and God had so much mercy on me. I’m not here on my own. I’m not doing anything on my own.”

With such a philosophical bent, its should come as no surprise that the songwriter and performer has also been a teacher of sorts. Since 2014, he’s partnered with the Mike Curb Institute for Music at Rhodes College as the inaugural Curb Visiting Scholar in the Arts. He continues his relationship with the college to this day through immersive student experiences and historically significant public programs. Over this time, the relationship between Rush and the college has been a part of the educational experience of well over one hundred Rhodes students.

As a visiting scholar, Rush has taught a course on “Music and Community in Memphis,” and offered lectures and performances with Rhodes students in local venues. This semester, Rush partnered with the Curb Institute on a project involving dozens of students that culminated in a recording of an original blues version of “America the Beautiful,” which will be released in recognition of Memorial Day.

As a culmination of all of this and Rush’s own storied career in music, the Rhodes Board of Trustees announced today that Rush will be this year’s recipient of the Honorary Doctorate of Humanities. The degree will be presented at the Commencement Exercises of the Rhodes College Class of 2021, to be held Saturday, May 15th, at 8:30 a.m., in the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Congratulations, Dr. Bobby Rush!

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Music Music Blog

Memphis Area Talents Win Big at 2021 Grammy Awards

CREDIT: Catherine Elizabeth Patton

Several of yesterday’s winners at the Grammy Awards had connections to Memphis and the Mid-South, leading many music insiders to scratch their heads and tell themselves there must be “something in the water.” All “music industry” towns notwithstanding, there is no replacement for the local heritage and high standards that continue to cause local creatives of all generations to bubble up to the top.
Kim Welsh

Bobby Rush

Speaking of generations, 87-year-old Bobby Rush continues to show us how it’s done with his second Grammy win in the Best Traditional Blues Album category, for last year’s Rawer than Raw (see our interview with Rush here). “Wow … who’d have ever thought? A few years ago, I won my first Grammy at 83 years old. Now I’m this old and winning another one,” he exclaimed in a video acceptance speech. After thanking friends, media, and Recording Academy members, Rush added that his win “gives me the sense of knowing I’m on the right track. Because I’ve been writing this book for a while now. And now you certify that what I’m writing about is a true thing. I’m the true man, and I thank God for it. So I’ve got this book coming out called I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya. Some great things that I haven’t told about myself, but I’m telling on myself and about myself and others too.”

Another local talent also nabbed a golden phonograph for his mantel, none other than music writer Bob Mehr. Having written Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, his definitive biography of the Minneapolis band, he went on to write the liner notes for the group’s four-disc retrospective Dead Man’s Pop, released in late 2019, leading to his win for Best Album Notes yesterday. In a heartfelt comment on Instagram, Mehr noted that “this project began as an escape for me after the loss of two of my closest friends, Tommy Keene and Ali Borghei, and it was completed just as I lost my dear Uncle Shirzad Bozorgmehr. Those three guys would’ve been happier than anyone for me. I sure hope they’re proud, wherever they are.”
Catherine Elizabeth Patton

MonoNeon

It was also a big day for Memphis bass players. When rapper Nas won in the Best Rap Album category, for King’s Disease, there was much celebration in the Bluff City for the role bass virtuoso MonoNeon had in the track “All Bad.” Though he once played with Prince, and has many other high profile collaborations under his belt, this marks MonoNeon’s first involvement in a Grammy-winning record.

Meanwhile, another bass ringer, David Parks, aka PARKS (see this rare profile from The Daily Helmsman), was celebrating Ledisi’s win in the Best Traditional R&B Performance category for her ninth studio album, The Wild Card, to which he contributed parts. He briefly posted an Instagram comment recalling being exhausted, disembarking from a plane at 1 a.m., and going straight to the studio to add his contributions at the last possible minute. The moral of the story, for Parks, was to “always help your friends,” no matter how tired you might feel.

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Music Music Features

Bobby Rush: Rawer Than Raw

CREDIT: Kim Welsh

Despite having won a Grammy award a few years ago for his album Porcupine Meat, and several Blues Music Awards to boot, you can always rely on Bobby Rush to keep things down to earth. That’s obvious enough on the cover of his newest album, Rawer Than Raw (Deep Rush/Thirty Tigers), released last week, which features him chasing chickens in a farmyard.

That image is in perfect keeping with the album’s sound, and, like the recordings themselves, was only chosen for the album after the fact. “This wasn’t planned to be no album cover. It was something I’d done because I wanted to go back to my roots. An old friend that I knew, in his backyard. That’s where I was raised up. Every day, my mama would say, ‘Boy, we need a chicken to eat.’ And we’re out in the yard, we kill a chicken. That’s the way we did it!”

Kim Welsh

Bobby Rush

And that’s just how he recorded this album, accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica, his foot stomping the beat. While its closest precursor, 2006’s Raw, was similarly stripped down, it did feature a dobro player on some tracks. This one is different.

“Ain’t nobody there but me, mane! Nobody. I had a harmonica around my neck. And when I got to someplace where I’m singing, I went back and did a couple lines with the harmonica, but that’s the only overdub. If I messed up, it’s messed up. If I got it right, it’s right. It’s one take down! I got a board at my feet, and me patting with a damn board, man. Feet going one way, as a drum, and my thumb going one way as a bass player, and the fingers going one way as a guitar player. Doo-rwee-dap-dap, doo-rwee-dap-dap, bop bop!”

Like the cover image, the tracks weren’t made with an album in mind. He may well have been recording with his touring band now, but COVID-19 got in the way. Rush is convinced that the coronavirus was the illness that beset him in February and March. He’s grateful that he pulled through without any long-term effects but wants the world to know how serious the situation is. “It’s no joke. Wash your hands, keep your mask on, and try to stay to yourself as much as you possibly can. I know you wanna hug and kiss and touch, but that’s a no-no right now.

“I didn’t record this while I was sick. I had already done these things. I wanted to do something, and I thought, ‘What am I gonna do?’ You can’t go out. So I said, ‘Dog! I’ve got at least 150 songs already recorded.’ I picked out some that I started with my guitar, and I said, ‘Hell, these are already finished!'”

Choosing which of those would make a coherent album was another matter. “I said, well, let me try to salute all the people that I love and respect. Still, I couldn’t put all of them on one CD. I said, ‘Let me pick the guys from Mississippi. Like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. People that I knew back in the day, that I respect highly.’ That’s one reason. The second reason is, the guys from Mississippi never change. When they’re Mississippi blues men, you know who in the hell he is. ‘That’s it. It’s from Mississippi.’ But I’m not doing it just like they would do it. I’m doing it my way.”

Beyond that, he’s mixed in five of his originals, including the opener, “Down in Mississippi,” and the inimitable “Garbage Man,” best summed up by the line, “Out of all the men my woman coulda left me for, she left me for this garbage man. … Every time I see a garbage can, I think about her and the garbage man, all the time!”

It’s especially stark, featuring only Rush’s wailing harmonica, voice, and stomping foot. Rawer than raw, indeed.

Though he’s best known for his crack band on the touring circuit, he’s lost none of the chops he refined when he had no ensemble to rely on. “When things go wrong, I take it out on my guitar. And I sing about it and soothe myself.” The album’s climb up the charts suggests that listeners can relate. “Maybe they like it,” he surmises, “because it represents being alone by yourself, set aside, with nothing to do.”

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Music Music Blog

Bobby Rush Brings It All Back Home (and Online) for Education Initiative

Bobby Rush

Nearly six years ago, when Memphis Flyer film editor Chris McCoy first wrote about the innovative new documentary Take Me to the River, few could have suspected how viable the movie would remain to this day — or the many offshoot projects that it would spawn.

One reason for such longevity was the film’s reliance on actual performers, collaborating across the generation gap. The brainchild of North Mississippi Allstars’ Cody Dickinson and producer/director Martin Shore, the film’s central premise was bringing together old school soul singers with younger hip-hop talents, with footage of the recording sessions bearing witness to the creation of new, hybrid sounds. Featuring Bobby Blue Bland with Lil P-Nut, Booker T. Jones with Al Kapone, William Bell with Snoop Dogg, and other luminaries like Mavis Staples or the Hi Rhythm Section, the film could hardly go wrong, musically.

And, on the strength of that musicality, a perennial tour revue was launched with many of the same talents hitting the road together. The ongoing interest inspired a follow-up tour focused on players from New Orleans, and an accompanying film for that as well; not to mention the Take Me to the River Educational Initiative, which has provided instructional modules to hundreds of schools, and hosted several online webinars and other events.

One such webinar will be happening tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, as a star of the first film, Mississippi bluesman and Grammy-winner Bobby Rush, performs music from his new album, Rawer Than Raw, and sits for a Q&A with moderator Martin Shore. Though the full album is not due until August 16, its first single was just released this month.

Bobby Rush Brings It All Back Home (and Online) for Education Initiative

This will be the 16th online webinar or masterclass hosted and inspired by Take Me to the River, and surely not the last. Visit their website or their Facebook page to keep up with future events, and see why their banner motto is “A Movement of Social Consciousness.”

Take Me to the River: Modern Blues Music, with GRAMMY-winning legend Bobby Rush and Award Winning Filmmaker Martin Shore takes place Thursday, Jul 23, at 7 p.m., CDT. Click here to register.

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Music Music Features

Online Blues: Annual Blues Music Awards to Go Virtual

The Blues Music Awards (BMAs) are typically a centerpiece of sorts for the Blues Foundation. “This is the highlight of our year, where we share the very best in blues,” says Barbara Newman, president and CEO of the nonprofit. And it’s the highlight for many a blues performer, not to mention others in the industry. With the need for social distancing scuttling the gala event, creative measures had to be adopted. While many festivals have postponed or canceled proceedings, the BMAs will do neither, instead hosting an online event this coming Sunday, May 3rd, at 4 pm.

“We could have created a show with a payment portal, but it was more important to us that the entire community around the world be able to celebrate the music together,” says Newman. “Blues provides such a strong healing force for people, and we felt it was way more important for the Blues Foundation to make this gift to everybody, to watch for free wherever you live.”

Bobby Rush

And make no mistake, the foundation takes that last part very seriously. “Our goal this year is to create a global community from all corners of the world, coming together to celebrate the music and heal our souls,” Newman says. “We’ve timed the show so it will be late in the evening in Europe, or early in the morning in New Zealand or Australia, not at 2 or 3 a.m.”

Even with the traditional live events, the performers have usually been kept secret until the show itself, and that will hold true for the online awards this year. “We gotta have some surprise factor,” says Newman. “But I can tell you who our presenters are. Fantastic Negrito, Ruthie Foster, William Bell, Charlie Musselwhite, Beth Hart, Shemekia Copeland, Warren Haynes, and Keb’ Mo’ will be on camera to share the names of the nominees and the winners. Shemekia is hosting the show from her living room. Artists are sending us footage of themselves performing at home. And we’ve got a whole bunch of surprises that I can’t really share. But I encourage people to watch. They’re not gonna be disappointed.”

According to Newman, many blues fans are making the most of it. “People are creating watch parties, where they watch together while they Zoom, or have a cocktail party beforehand. A lot of people are going to be dressing up in their usual black-tie attire.” But even as the good times roll on, Newman has an even higher priority.

“The COVID-19 Blues Musician Emergency Relief Fund is the biggest initiative that we’re working on right now. The BMAs are important, but right now everybody is very focused on what’s happening in the music community — with festivals and clubs closing or postponing or canceling their events. So the fund has already helped close to 100 musicians. And we’re continuing to bring in more resources to keep on covering housing or utility bills for blues musicians who really don’t have any income stream right now. And with musicians not being able to perform, that trickles down to the rest of the industry, impacting the managers, the clubs, the festivals, the agents, the labels, the publicists, the studios. All of their income streams are being cut as well.

“Some people donate directly. And we’ve gotten tens of thousands of dollars just through ticket holders waiving their refund and donating that amount to our relief fund. Granted, we understand and respect that a lot of people who come to the music awards are also being impacted by COVID-19, and we honor refunds, no questions asked. A few have chosen to just hold their ticket purchases till next year.”

While the pandemic has recently taken the lives of several legendary musicians, luminaries of the blues world have mostly been spared thus far. Many have closely followed the Facebook page of Rev. John Wilkins, who had developed acute pneumonia, possibly due to coronavirus, but it was announced on Thursday that he was “off the ventilator and breathing on his own. He still has a long road to recovery, but is getting a little stronger day by day.”

Bobby Rush, who is nominated in the BMAs’ Best Soul Blues Album category, also took ill recently, but announced last week that his doctor “gave me the green light and good report. I’m well and up in spirit, physically and in mind.” Thanking his fans for their support, Rush added, “Stay in and sanitize … because it saves lives.”

The Blues Music Awards take place Sunday, May 3rd, at 4 p.m. CDT, on the Blues Foundation’s Facebook and YouTube pages. blues.org

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We Recommend We Saw You

Grandma’s Heavenly Meatball Eating Contest and More

CREDIT: Jon W. Sparks

Jon W. Sparks

This probably is what THE LAST MEATBALL on the plate looks like when you’re close to winning Bardog Tavern’s annual meatball eating contest. (And thanks to Leon and Manny at Bardog for making this monster meatball.)

Michael Donahue

A plate of meatballs before the contest began at Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Alex “Mac” Fairly was top banana when it came to meatballs at Grandma’s Heavenly Meatball Eating Contest at the Breakaway Bardog 5K and Monroe Avenue Festival.

He was declared the winner after eating 31 two-ounce meatballs in 40 minutes and seven seconds at the festival, which was held August 18th in front of Bardog Tavern.

I asked Fairly what his trick was to winning the contest.

“It’s no trick,” he says. “I could just eat a lot. It hurts right now. It’s hard to think.”

Fairly is a veteran at the annual contest. “This is my third time. I finished third my first time in 2016 and second in 2017. And then here I am in Victory Lane.”

Former contest champion Brett Healey was on stage lending a hand, but not participating. Healey, who moved to Memphis in June 2017, won the meatball contest in 2017 and 2018. “Breaking the record for 40 meatballs each time,” he says. “In 2017 my time was 13:14. In 2018 it was 9:38.”

Healey didn’t participate this year for two reasons. “August has been a busy month for me with eating contests and food challenges, so I need to give my body a break to maintain my health. Also, since I signed with Major League Eating in May, I am not supposed to participate in any contests that are not sanctioned by the league. Since going semi-pro in May, League Eating has ranked me No. 215 in the world.”

Just so you’ll know what type contests Healey has been participating in, he says he competed in a Nathan’s hot dog eating contest regional qualifier for the Nathan’s Finals in Coney Island. “I set a new personal record with 32 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes to win the regional qualifier and secure a spot at Coney Island next July 4th, 2020. That contest will be televised on ESPN and will take place seven days after my wedding.”

Healey is engaged to Gina Picerno. If they do a conventional wedding reception, Healey won’t have to use his hands when it comes to eating wedding cake; the bride usually feeds a piece of cake to the groom.


Michael Donahue

Mac Fairly and Brett Healey at Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Michael Donahue

Emcee Sam Prager, Yours Truly, and Bardog owner Aldo Dean at Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Michael Donahue

Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Michael Donahue

Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Michael Donahue

Breakaway Bardog 5K & Monroe Avenue Festival

Michael Donahue

Cassie Wiegmann were at Science of Wine.

Any homework involved with Science of Wine has to be fun. But this Science of Wine was a fundraiser, which was held August 16th at the Pink Palace Museum.

Including staff and volunteers, 750 people attended the event, says Luke Ramsey, who put on the event with John Mullikin and Alex Eilers. They raised more than $30,000.

More than 120 varieties of wine were featured at the event, which is “first and foremost a fundraiser” for the museum’s education department, Ramsey says. All the wine was brought by West Tennessee Crown. “All under one distribution umbrella. It’s their fifth year in a row with us.”

What’s the purpose of Science of Wine? “We’re hoping to connect people directly with the creators of wines and foods, so they can learn a little more about the science behind that. We don’t want to just have wines that they can sample and see what they like and don’t like.”

They also want actual vintners who can answer questions such as why a wine is packaged a certain way, Ramsey says. “There are just so many facets that go into wine from ingredients to packaging. And that does affect the taste.”

And a shout out goes to sponsor Bluff City Land Rover. They provided all the glasses.


Michael Donahue

Luke Ramsey at Science of Wine

Michael Donahue

Bobby Rush and Barbara Newman at Rush’s CD release party

The Blues Foundation hosted a special 75th CD party for Bobby Rush August 16th at the foundation on South Main.

Rush chatted with the crowd and then he played selections from his album, Sitting on Top of the Blues.

“Bobby Rush is a blues treasure,” says Blues Foundation president/CEO Barbara Newman. “Because of his position as a Blues Hall of Famer, we at the Blues Foundation wanted to celebrate his newest release with him and with Memphis.

“It was a wonderful evening for blues lovers and those who want to learn more about the blues to hear some great music and meet Bobby in person. Ultimately, we created the opportunity for the community to come together to celebrate this important musical art form, the blues.”


Michael Donahue

Peabody Rooftop Party

Up on the Roof by the Drifters is a good song to remember when you attend Peabody Rooftop Parties:

“Right smack dab in the middle of town

I found a paradise that’s trouble proof.

And if this world starts getting you down

There’s room enough for two up on the roof.”

The Peabody is sort of right smack dab in the middle of Downtown. And there certainly is room enough for two.

The roof was packed during the recent Rooftop Party, which was held August 15th. “About 1,000 is average, but we did 1,235 last week,” says Peabody marketing director Kelly Brock. “The band was Burning Las Vegas and the DJ was DJ Epic.”

The parties will return in mid April, Kelly says.


Michael Donahue

Silas Gaither, Chris Bramlett, Kevin Fair, and Shannon Dyson were at Peabody Rooftop Party.

MIchael Donahue

Burning Las Vegas performed at the Peabody Rooftop Party season finale.

Michael Donahue

Stepping Out at Napa Cafe

Darlene Winters is excited about “Stepping Out at Napa Cafe,” her first dinner/fundraiser for Company d. The event, which was held August 12th, also included a performance by the dance company.

The purpose of the event was “to build support for and increase awareness of a pre-professional dance company of adult dancers with Down Syndrome,” says Winters, who is the company’s artistic director.


She described the event as “a total success.”

“So many of those who attended did not know about Company d — or very little,” she says. “Having the event at Napa Cafe was a perfect setting to talk one on one with new people or stop by a table.”

The event also was “a wonderful way to share and increase awareness of the dancers’ abilities. The short program was perfect to highlight the dancers.”

Michael Donahue

Stepping Out at Napa Cafe

MIchael Donahue

Darlene Winters, Sancy Schaeffer, and Napa Cafe owner Glenda Hastings at Stepping Out at Napa Cafe

                                       WE SAW YOU AROUND TOWN

Michael Donahue

Jay Knight and Orlandria Harper at Gibson’s Donuts

Michael Donahue

Jeremy Leake, Savannah Jordan, and Landon Hammonds at Gibson’s Donuts

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Music Music Blog

North Mississippi’s Museum de Sankofa Honors Bobby Rush

Bluesman Bobby Rush

The word Sankofa, originating in Ghana, means “Go back and get it” in the Twi language, and the concept is often represented by the image of a bird flying forward while looking behind. It’s an appropriate concept for a museum of history, as in the case of Robinsonville, Mississippi’s Museum de Sankofa. Founded a decade ago by Stanley and Maxine Taylor, the museum is dedicated to West African art, music and culture, drawing heavily on the Taylors’ private collection, amassed during their own extensive travels in the area. It also celebrates the African influences on the blues and Mississippi culture in general. 

It’s an inspiring labor of love and cultural pride in a landscape dominated by casinos, and a welcome diversion for those flocking to the area for typically more hedonistic activities. In addition to their museum’s celebration of African culture, the Taylors have begun the “Preserving the Heritage Benefit and Awards Ceremony,” now in its second year. The ceremony is happening tonight in Robinsonville, with this year’s honorees being blues legend Bobby Rush and local community leader and advocate Joan Richardson. All proceeds will benefit the museum and its youth engagement programs, and tickets include a dinner buffet, a silent auction, a tour of the museum, a live concert performance, and a meet and greet with the honorees.

Preserving the Heritage Benefit and Awards Ceremony, Feb. 10th, Blues Belt Entertainment Complex, (3468 Casino Way, Robinsonville, MS), 6:00-9:00 pm. See www.preservingtheheritage.myevent.com for tickets and more information.

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Music Music Blog

The Blues Music Awards: A Funky Family Reunion

William Bell and Bobby Rush

The Blues Foundation’s 38th Annual Blues Music Awards (BMA’s) were held Thursday night at a packed Cook Convention Center, and for those few hours, a kind of blues utopia materialized in downtown Memphis. First and foremost, it was a utopia for blues fans of all stripes, with performances by luminaries old and new keeping everyone moving and “rattling their jewelry” at the gala event. But it was a utopia as well for the performers and others in this niche of the music industry, coming together to renew old friendships, forge new ones, and see the once-humble world of blues entertainment exploding before their eyes. Paradoxically, and perhaps due to the blues’ homespun values, the community has lost none of its personal quality even as the industry of the blues has grown.

“It’s the biggest night in blues. We have two Grammy award winners, Fantastic Negrito and Bobby Rush, and they presented together,” explained Blues Foundation president Barbara Newman, who noted that the personal quality of the gathering remained intact. “It’s all about relationship-building. It’s a big reunion. And everybody’s looking out for everybody else. All the nominees want to win, but they’re really happy for their friends if they don’t.” Having headed the organization for less than two years, she’s made it her goal to reach beyond the established community. “The blues world knew about the Blues Foundation, but people that love the blues, but aren’t necessarily entrenched in the blues, didn’t know us, and we’re working to get them to know who we are. We’re seeing a lot more excitement and energy. Our social media has popped. There’s been huge growth there.”

Highlights of the night included a soulful set by Betty Lavette, who fondly recalled recording one of her hits here in Memphis forty-eight years ago, and a bristling performance by longtime Muddy Waters sidekick John Primer. Primer delivered the most gripping solos of the night, playing bottleneck slide in frenzied, coruscating sheets of sound, invoking the early Chicago scene one minute, quoting the Star Spangled Banner in the next. Pausing between numbers, he noted, “You know, I won one of these trophies last year. But I’ll be so happy when someone else wins. I don’t need five or six trophies. Let these young people win some and keep the blues alive.”

And while many young talents were recognized last night, the royalty of the evening was clearly Bobby Rush, fresh off his recent Grammy win for Best Traditional Blues Album. At the BMA’s, not only did his Porcupine Meat win Album of the Year, his fifty-year career retrospective on Omnivore Recordings, Chicken Heads, won Historical Album of the Year. “It makes me feel old!” quipped Rush. “But it’s a blessing to get old. You put your mark on a wheel and you roll it down a hill, and your mark come back to you.”

Musing on the four disc set, Rush noted, “to have a CD out with this many records, you have to be blessed enough to have that many masters. Because the masters that I have, I own. Not many artists, especially black artists, own their own masters.” Was this due to his business smarts at the time? “Now I think it’s smart. But I was blessed, because I think what happened was, they counted me out, ‘cos I was just a little blues guy, would never amount to anything. ‘Let him have it, he’s not gonna do anything with it.’ And all of a sudden I get 80 years old, and I have a valuable piece of property.” Rush hinted at more retrospectives to come. “That’s not even about half of it. I probably have another 120 songs in the can,” he said before adding, with his eye on the future, “My motto is, ‘I must do all I can while I can.’ The best song never been sung yet.”

For a complete list of winners and other information, go to https://blues.org/blues-music-awards/