I grew up in Columbus surrounded by blues music but not fully appreciating the level of talent I was hearing.

At Ole Miss my fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, 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 early 1970s we had Furry Lewis play for a party at the fraternity house. I went and picked him up in Memphis and now want to kick myself for not recording the stories he told me. He had begun playing blues in the 1920s and had played in the W.C. Handy Orchestra. Furry described how he invented “bottle-neck blues.”

He had been playing at a beer joint, and a fight broke out. Someone busted a Gilbey’s Gin bottle over another person’s head, and the neck of the bottle rolled over next to Furry’s foot. Looking down at the bottleneck, he noticed it was a clean break and thought it might make a good guitar slide. He put it on his finger and began to play. He told me that “nothing resonates like a Gilbey’s Gin bottleneck.”

Driving Furry to Oxford I put in a Joan Baez 8-track. She was singing John Herry. Furry told me to cut that thing off. I asked him what was wrong. He said, “I taught her that song and that’s not what I taught her.” He also recalled two European tours opening for the Rolling Stones and talked about Joni Mitchell and her song about him, “Furry Sings the Blues.” At first, I thought all that can’t be true but it was.

Furry even played a bluesman named Uncle Furry in the 1975 Burt Reynolds movie “W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings.” During the filming Furry would mess up his lines, but the director thought his ad libs were better than the script and left them in the movie. His antics during filming resulted in a Rolling Stone Magazine article about him.

I remember thinking of him as a very friendly and amazingly talented person who was better known and appreciated on the stages of Europe than where he lived. Several years ago I was looking for Furry Lewis’ greatest hits. I found it. It had been put out by the Smithsonian.

In 1979, Michigan State University began a multi-year archaeology project on the Tombigbee River. We decided to have a barbeque for them and got Big Joe Williams to come up from Crawford and play. I was amazed when the folks from Michigan all brought their “Big Joe” record albums to get autographed and asked how we could afford to get such a famous artist to play for a private party. He had charged us all of $50. Like Furry, Big Joe just liked to play for people who enjoyed his music.

In Columbus it was around the Queen City Hotel and the Seventh Avenue North neighborhood that the blues not only took root but thrived. The hotel attracted some of the most famous names in the history of American music. This week the neighborhood’s music legacy continues with the Seventh Avenue Heritage Festival, which has been taking place with a grand block party including the presentation of Community Impact Awards. Today the festival continues with a celebration of 50 years of hip-hop. Also today is the Bukka White Music Festival in Aberdeen.

Blues is a great unifier. Blues brings together people of all sizes, shapes and colors, the Black Prairie has produced some of the greatest Blues men and women. Howlin’ Wolf (1910-1976) who was born at White Station near West Point 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 has been called “king of the nine-string guitar” and has toured both Europe and Japan. 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, Mississippi. He also was an internationally known bluesman who was the subject of a Dutch documentary. It is both interesting and sad that the blues musicians of the Black Prairie have been all too often more noted and famous overseas in Europe and in Japan than at home.

At the sites of old tenant houses on area farms, it is not unusual to find broken harmonica reeds as evidence of the blues often played by the tenants working the cotton or corn fields. The verbal and physical relics of the origins of the blues still surround us. The Black Prairie Blues Museum at 640 Commerce St. in West Point is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the blues men and women of the Mississippi and Alabama prairie belt region.

On Thursday evening the museum will present Light up the Night, its annual fundraiser. There will be music, food and beverages. Tickets are $150 and provide funding for the museum’s projects. Please support the museum and enjoy an evening of great music. For tickets call (662) 275-7819.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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