The old Black Prairie of Mississippi and Alabama, named after its fertile soil, has deep roots in the history of blues music.
When most people think of blues music, they think of the Delta blues, the Memphis blues, the St. Louis blues or the Hill Country blues, but there is just as strong a heritage in the Black Prairie. It was the Black Prairie that produced such blues legends as Howlin’ Wolf, Big Joe Williams, Bukka White, Lucille Bogan and Willie King.
Though I grew up in Columbus and knew who the local blues musicians were, it was not until I went to college that I began to appreciate blues music.
When I was at Ole Miss, my fraternity, DKE, would often have blues musicians perform. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Howlin’ Wolf played there on several occasions. When I was there in the 1970s, we would have Furry Lewis come from Memphis to play.
I would pick Furry up in Memphis and drive him to Oxford. I now want to kick myself for not recording the stories he told me on those rides or while sitting at his house drinking “a quart” with him. Taking him back to Memphis early one morning, he asked if I would join him for breakfast. When we got inside, he opened his refrigerator, pointed to two shelves of quart bottles and asked, “You want a Bud or a Schlitz?”
On one of the rides to Oxford, Furry described to me how he originated “bottle-neck blues.” He told me that once when he was playing at a bar, he had decided to use a broken bottle neck from a Gilby’s Gin bottle as a guitar slide. Furry said he discovered that “nothing resonates like a Gilbey’s Gin bottleneck.”
He thought nothing else ever sounded so good.
Furry was on two European tours with the Rolling Stones, and Joni Mitchell wrote a song about him, “Furry Sings the Blues.” He was playing blues in the 1920s and had played in the W.C. Handy Orchestra. In Furry’s music, we see the evolution of the blues.
The roots of the blues come out of African-American folk music and were popularized in the 1920s by Handy. Dorothy Scarborough interviewed Handy around 1924 for her book, On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs. Handy told her that blues “are folk music” and “each one of my blues is based on some old Negro song of the South, some folk song I heard from my mammy when I was a child. Something that sticks in my mind, that I hum to myself when I’m not thinking about it.”
The blues today still tells a story and will still stick in your mind, but are no longer just based on old folk songs.
It was on returning to the Prairie after graduating from Ole Miss that I rediscovered the Black Prairie Blues. We had Big Joe Williams play for a house party, and an old friend Joe Shelton became an accomplished and notable blues musician. I quickly came to a sad realization, though. The blues musicians of the Black Prairie had become more noted and famous overseas in Europe and in Japan than at home.
There is a great legacy of Black Prairie blues musicians. A legacy that extends back to the beginnings of blues as we now know it. When blues was first reaching the mainstream of popular music there was Bogan.
Bogan (1897-1948) is considered to have, with Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, one of the greatest female blues voices of all time. She was born in Monroe County, near Amory, and made her first recording in 1923.
More recent Black Prairie blues musicians have left huge footprints across the music world, from blues to Rock and Roll.
Howlin’ Wolf (1910-1976) is thought of as a bluesman, but he is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He both influenced and recorded albums with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton.
Big Joe Williams (1903-1982) was born in Crawford and has been called “king of the nine-string guitar.” He toured Europe and Japan, where he was more acclaimed than at home.
Bukka White (1906/09-1977) was born on his grandfather’s farm, between Aberdeen and Houston. His music influenced both Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, and his song “Fixin’ to Die” was a 2012 Grammy Hall of Fame Selection.
Willie King (1943-2009) was born in Prairie Point and lived in Pickens County, Alabama. He also was an internationally known bluesman, who won many national awards. He was even the subject of a Dutch documentary. Like Williams, in spite of international recognition, he still enjoyed playing locally.
The Black Prairie has a rich heritage of blues music and, though it is usually called Delta or Hill Country blues, it is in fact Black Prairie Blues.
On Friday, the Black Prairie Blues Festival will again be held in West Point. It will be a night of great blues music, featuring Lightning Malcolm, Stormy Monday Blues Band and The Jarekus Singleton Band. Tickets may be purchased at the Columbus Arts Council, Jack Forbus State Farm Insurance in Starkville and at the West Point Main Street office. The doors open at the Mary Holmes Gym in West Point at 5:30 p.m., and tickets are available there.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.