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Hill Country Blues
Hill country blues (also known as North Mississippi hill country blues or North Mississippi blues) is a regional style of country blues. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove", which has been characterized as the "hypnotic boogie". The hill country is a region of northern Mississippi bordering Tennessee. It lies in the counties of Marshall, Panola, Tate, Tippah, and Lafayette and straddles the ecoregions of the North Hilly Plain (Red Clay Hills or North Central Hills), the Loess Plains, and Bluff Hills. The hills have poor agricultural soil and wide forested areas, which led to the development of a lumber industry but only small farms. Holly Springs and Oxford, Mississippi, are often cited as centers of hill country music. The style is regarded as distinct from the blues of the Mississippi Delta, which lies west of the hill country. An ann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballad (music), ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the Call and response (music), call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in Pitch (music), pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffle note, shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove (popular music), groove. Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, Bassline, bass lines, and Instrumentation (music), instrumen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mississippi Blues Trail
The Mississippi Blues Trail was created by the Mississippi Blues Commission in 2006 to place interpretive markers at the most notable historical sites related to the birth, growth, and influence of the blues throughout (and in some cases beyond) the state of Mississippi. Within the state the trail extends from the Gulf Coast north along several highways to (among other points) Natchez, Mississippi, Natchez, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Vicksburg, Jackson, Mississippi, Jackson, Leland, Greenwood, Clarksdale, Tunica, Grenada, Oxford, Columbus, and Meridian. The largest concentration of markers is in the Mississippi Delta, but other regions of the state are also commemorated. Several out-of-state markers have also been erected where blues with Mississippi roots has had significance, such as Chicago. Implementation The list of markers and locations was developed by a panel of blues scholars and historians. The trail has been implemented in stages as funds have become available. The Nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Palmer (American Writer)
Robert Franklin Palmer Jr. (June 19, 1945 – November 20, 1997) was an American writer, musicologist, clarinetist, saxophonist, and blues producer. He is best known for his non-fictional writing on the field of music; his work as a music journalist for ''The New York Times'' and ''Rolling Stone'' magazine; his production work for blues recordings (including the soundtrack for the film '' Deep Blues''); and his clarinet playing as a member of the 1960s jazz band the Insect Trust. Early career Robert Franklin Palmer Jr. was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the son of a musician and school teacher, Robert Palmer Sr. A civil rights and peace activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, Palmer Jr. graduated from Little Rock University (later called the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) in 1964. Soon afterward he and fellow musicians Nancy Jeffries, Bill Barth, and Luke Faust formed a psychedelic music group, the Insect Trust, blending jazz, folk, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napoleon Strickland
Napoleon Strickland (October 1, 1919 – July 21, 2001), sometimes known as Napolian Strickland, was a fife and drum blues artist, and songwriter, and vocalist specializing in country blues, specifically North Mississippi hill country blues. He also played guitar, drums, harmonica, fife, and all manner of percussion instruments. Life Born near Como east of the Mississippi Delta in hill country, United States, Napoleon Strickland learned music as a boy from his father. Later Othar Turner taught him how to play. He became adept with guitar, drums, harmonica, diddley bow, fife, and all manner of percussion. He was primarily a fife player and singer, playing a great number of festivals. He also performed on several compilation albums of North Mississippi hill country blues, as the music was recorded in the late 20th century. He appeared in the biopic documentary film, ''The Land Where The Blues Began''. Strickland was considered by many to have been the premier fife player of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Mississippi Allstars
North Mississippi Allstars is an American blues and southern rock band from Hernando, Mississippi, founded in 1996. The band is currently composed of brothers Luther Dickinson (guitar, lowebow, vocals) and Cody Dickinson (drums, keyboards, electric washboard, vocals). Their most recent album '' Set Sail'' was released in 2022. History The group was formed in 1996 by brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson (sons of Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson), along with bassist Chris Chew, with the intention of combining the blues and bluegrass of the North Mississippi region with rock and other modern forms. Their first album '' Shake Hands with Shorty'' was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Their later albums '' 51 Phantom'' and '' Electric Blue Watermelon'' have received nominations in the same category. The group also won a Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut in 2001. Starting in 2000, the Dickinson brothers and Chew have also participated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fat Possum Records
Fat Possum Records is an American independent record label based in Water Valley and Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording previously unknown Mississippi blues artists (typically from Oxford or Holly Springs, Mississippi). Fat Possum has signed younger rock acts to its roster. The label has been featured in ''The New York Times'', '' New Yorker'',McInerney, Jay. "White Man at the Door: One Man's Mission to Record the 'Dirty Blues' - before Everyone Dies." ''The New Yorker'' (February 4, 2002): page 55 ''The Observer'', a Sundance Channel production, features on NPR, and a 2004 documentary, ''You See Me Laughin''.''You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen'' (2003). Produced and directed by Mandy Stein. Fat Possum also distributes the Hi Records catalog. History Fat Possum was founded in 1991 by '' Living Blues'' editor Peter Redvers-Lee, who went to the University of Mississippi for his MA studies in Journalism. He pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deep Blues
''Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads'' is a British documentary film, released in 1991, and made by music critic and author Robert Palmer and documentary film maker Robert Mugge, in collaboration with David A. Stewart and his brother John J. Stewart. The film provided insight into the location, cast and characteristics of Delta blues and North Mississippi hill country blues. Filming took place in 1990 in Memphis, Tennessee, and various North Mississippi counties. Theatrical release was in 1991 and home video release in the United Kingdom, the next year, as was a soundtrack album. A United States consumer edition came in 2000. Stewart initiated and financed the project, inspired by Palmer's 1981 book of the same name. Palmer provided many of the insights into the background and history of the blues, as a guide to Stewart and the film narrator. Musicians Musicians appearing in the film are: Roosevelt Barnes, R. L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill (with Napoleon Strick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jessie Mae Hemphill
Jessie Mae Hemphill (October 18, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was an American electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage. Life and career Hemphill was born near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in the northern Mississippi hill country, just east of the Mississippi Delta. She began playing the guitar at the age of seven. She also played drums in local fife-and-drum bands, beginning with the band led by her paternal grandfather, Sid Hemphill, in which she played snare drum and bass drum. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings, such as picnics with fife-and-drum music, until she was recorded in 1979. Her first recordings were field recordings made by the blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and the ethnomusicologist David Evans in 1973, but they were not released. She was then known as Jes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Othar Turner
Othar "Otha" Turner (June 2, 1907 – February 27, 2003) was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition. His music was also part of the African-American genre known as Hill country blues. Early life and education Othar Turner, nicknamed "Otha", was born in Canton, Madison County, Mississippi in 1907. He moved further north, living his entire life in northern Mississippi hill country as a farmer near Como, Mississippi in Panola County. In 1923, aged 16, he learned to play fifes fashioned out of rivercanes and gradually learned other instruments as well. Musicmaking In the late 1960s and 1970s, scholars from nearby colleges made field recordings of Turner and his friends' music, as examples of local traditions, but did not release these. Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (which consisted of friends and relatives) primarily played at farm parties. In the early 1970s the band was called "The Gravel Springs Fife & Drum Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sid Hemphill
Sid Hemphill (1876 – 1963) was an American blues multi-instrumentalist and bandleader who played in his own string band mainly in Mississippi. He recorded for Alan Lomax in 1942 and again in 1959. Born in Panola County, Mississippi, Hemphill was the son of a slave fiddle player, crafted instruments, and was a blind musician. Trained as a multi-instrumentalist, he could effectively play fiddle, banjo, guitar, jaw harp, piano, organ, quills, and the cane fife, while also penning songs. Hemphill and his string band, composed of Alex "Turpentine" Askew (guitar), Lucious Smith (banjo), and Will Head (bass drum), played a combination of old time, blues, popular music, and spirituals for both black and white audiences mainly in Northern Mississippi. The same group also identified as a fife and drums band, with music infused in European military drum tradition and African polyrhythms, talking drum influences. According to blues writer Edward Komara, Hemphill's quill playing was hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calvin Jackson (drummer)
Calvin Jackson (January 22, 1961, in Holly Springs, Mississippi – February 10, 2015, in Senatobia, Mississippi) was an American drummer from north Mississippi. He is considered an innovator in the Hill country blues style of drumming, having incorporated elements of the regional Fife and drum bands style in the blues band setting.Robert Palmer. Liner notes to ''Too Bad Jim'', 1994. (Fat Possum 80307scan As a young teen he sang in the choir, and then joined the Jubilee Hummingbirds. At age 16, Jackson was drumming with bluesman R. L. Burnside. Burnside's daughter Linda had Jackson's son 1978, Cedric Burnside, and they would later marry. Jackson appeared in recordings of Burnside's band, sometimes called The Sound Machine, starting in 1979. Beside the traditional influence, David Evans credited him with bringing in the modern funk, RnB and soul influences of the band.David Evans, notes to High Water 410 EP, 1980scan, and to ''Sound Machine Groove'', 1981/1997scan. Later Jackson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Belfour
Robert "Wolfman" Belfour (September 11, 1940 – February 24, 2015) was an American blues musician. He was born in Red Banks, Mississippi. When he was a child, his father, Grant Belfour, taught him to play the guitar, and he continued his tutelage in the blues from the musicians Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Kimbrough, in particular, had a profound influence on him. His music was rooted in Mississippi hill country traditions, in contrast to Delta blues. His playing was characterized by a percussive attack and alternate tunings. When Belfour was thirteen, his father died, and music was relegated to what free time he had, as his energy went to helping his mother provide for the family. In 1959, he married Noreen Norman and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked in construction for the next 35 years. In the 1980s, Belfour began playing on Beale Street. Eight of his songs are included on the musicologist David Evans's compilation album ''The Spirit L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
