Johnnie Billington was born in 1935 in Crowder, Mississippi, a small community on the Quitman/Panola county line. His father was a sharecropper and he grew up working on the farm. He first became interested in music through listening to the legendary blues show, King Biscuit Time, which was broadcast from nearby Helena, Arkansas. Billington’s father […]
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Terry “Harmonica” Bean is still relatively young but has decades of experience with the blues. A lifelong resident of Pontotoc, Bean first heard downhome blues at home. His father Eddie Bean, a native of Bruce, sang and played blues guitar and prior to Terry’s birth traveled with an electric blues band. For many years Eddie
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Rockabilly and country musician Leon Bass lives in Farmington, just east of Corinth, and was born in 1937 in Alcorn County, “way back in the country,” in a home without electricity. His father died when he was three, and following his mother’s passing when he was just eight, he was raised by his older sister,
Mack Elmore Banks was born on September 17, 1934, in Jasper, Alabama, and moved with his family to Columbus, Mississippi when he was six months old. The family lived for a while in the Hogeye community in Noxubee County, where his father worked as a sharecropper, and later settled in Artesia when Mack was in
Earl “Little Joe” Ayers is a blues guitarist and singer based in Holly Springs, Mississippi. For over thirty years, he was a member of the Soul Blues Boys, Junior Kimbrough’s long-time backing band. Ayers was born in nearby Lamar and began performing at house parties in the area when he was 15. When asked what
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Harmonica player and vocalist Jimmy Anderson was born on a farm near Natchez on November 21, 1934. His parents were sharecroppers who also worked in Natchez, and Anderson’s first exposure to the blues was via hearing the harmonica of Alexander “Papa George” Lightfoot, a deejay and recording artist who often played while he sold snowballs
Hugh Addison was born and grew up in Tuna Puna, a small town on the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad. He went to school in nearby Port of Spain, the capital of the country. Addison’s father was an electrician and guitarist and frequently fixed radios for neighbors. The constant presence of the radios filled the
As far as he knows, Jackie Woods of Kilmichael is one of the two active chainsaw carvers in Mississippi. Originally from Webster County, Woods’ father was in the sawmill business for a time. But it was not until work took him to the Great Lakes region that he was exposed to artists who used chainsaws
Brian Willis brings a deep knowledge of Choctaw tradition to his job of Communications Editor for the monthly Choctaw Community News, the office of which is in the Pearl River neighborhood of Philadelphia. He was born in 1974 to Huey and Nancy Willis of the nearby Tucker community (there are eight Choctaw communities in Mississippi,
Edna White has had a life full of different experiences. She has worked as a florist, a furrier (fur salesperson), a cook on a Mississippi River towboat, and many other jobs. She has always sewn and done different kinds of needlework in her spare time. In the last ten years, she has become very active