L. V. Hull is an original, a self-taught artist and a lively raconteur. She has a house and yard incredibly crowded with her art. Hull was born and raised in McAdams, Mississippi, but moved to Kosciusko 35 years ago. Although no longer married, and with no surviving children, she retains an enormous “family” with the […]
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Saul Haymond, Sr. of Pickens, Mississippi is a self-taught painter who has been documenting life in the African American community in Holmes County for over forty years. Born in 1947 on a plantation near Ebenezer, Haymond’s first exposure to painting and the art world came through a mail-order book he received that featured the paintings
Anyone who has traveled on Highway 49 West through the Mississippi Delta has seen Larry Grimes’ work. His home is on the east side of the road, about halfway between Parchman Penitentiary and Rome, Mississippi. Grimes’ home is the only house for miles each way, and the place beckons like a neon sign. You notice
Bob Coleman was born in Doddsville, Miss. in 1928. The youngest of five children, Coleman grew up working on a farm alongside his brothers. As a child, Coleman stuttered which kept him in the background at school and church. In 1946 he started college and played football for Sunflower Junior College in Moorehead (now Mississippi
Louis Arzo Youngblood, aka “Gearshifter,” is a Jackson-based guitarist and vocalist who performs a unique blend of country blues, modern soul-blues, and everything in between. Louis was born in Picayune and grew up in Jackson, Bogalusa, and, mostly, Tylertown. There Louis was raised in a simple rural environment surrounded by older relatives. As a young
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Terry “Big T” Williams has dedicated his life to his music. Born in Clarksdale in 1960, he spent his early years on a plantation in Farrell, Mississippi, hearing stories about Muddy Waters attending Sunday picnics in his grandmother’s yard. These influences, as well as the music he was hearing on the radio by Deltans such
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Elmore Williams lives with his wife in a comfortable home in the suburbs of Natchez and is retired after years of working in sawmills, a bakery, and a dairy. Although he’s played music for nearly sixty years, Williams only spent about two years working full-time as a musician, and today he mostly plays at festivals,
Reverend John Wilkins is a gospel blues guitarist and vocalist based in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of the influential prewar blues musician Reverend Robert Wilkins, and also currently serves as the pastor for the Hunter’s Chapel Church in Como, Mississippi. Wilkins was born in Memphis in 1943 and remembers his father discussing his
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Leo Welch remembered well the day his cousin’s guitar came in the mail. Welch and another younger cousin brought the package to their house on a long walk up from the mailbox and were forbidden to play with it while the older cousin was away. But they could not resist and when the guitar’s owner
Every Wednesday evening, the members of St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Meridian begin their prayer meeting with a long-standing musical tradition. The group sings a series of long meter or “Dr. Watts” hymns. The hymns are sung in a slow, ornamental style, with each line being “lined out” (chanted in a quick, rhythmic manner)