The Jones Sisters are a gospel group from Oxford comprised of five sisters who span eight years in age; in early 2005 they ranged from 18 to 25. The oldest sister, Tambra, began singing when she was just three and was soon joined by her sister Tara, two years her junior. In order, the others […]
James “Super Chikan” Johnson was born in the small Delta community of Darling in 1951 and grew up in rural towns around the area. As a young boy living in the country, he developed an interest in his family’s chickens and spent time trying to understand the meaning of the noises they made. His friends
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Guitarist and vocalist “Big” Jack Johnson was born in Lambert, Mississippi, in 1940. He was inspired to play music by his father, Ellis Johnson, a fiddler, banjoist, and guitarist who played blues, breakdowns, and country music. Johnson, a lifelong fan of country music, began playing guitar with his father at age thirteen, and later mastered
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Bassist, vocalist, and bandleader Wesley Jefferson has been a stalwart of the Clarksdale blues scene since the mid-1960s. He was born in Roundaway in Coahoma County on March 23, 1944, the oldest boy of thirteen children. As a youth, he picked and chopped cotton, plowed with mules and later with a tractor, and lived in
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Jamie Earl Isonhood was born in Benton in Yazoo County in 1944. An only child, he grew up in the Yazoo City area with his grandparents while his mother worked in Jackson and then later Memphis. He learned to play the piano on his own when he was five years old, and his first music
Bud and Hazel Huddleston were working musicians in Tippah County and across North Mississippi for over 50 years. Music brought the couple together; they played country and bluegrass throughout their years together at local dances, festivals, and on the radio. Bud was a native and lifelong resident of Tippah County. Hazel, a Tennessean by birth,
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Blues guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader John Horton was born in Arcola in 1959. His family initially lived in Holly Ridge, and then moved to the outskirts of Greenville, where he currently resides. He grew up with his father, who worked as a bulldozer driver, a job that Horton has had since shortly after graduating from
Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is the proprietor of one of the oldest juke joints in Mississippi, the Blue Front in Bentonia. In the mid-2000s he began performing blues actively after many years of performing casually and has already garnered several awards and many accolades. He is a practitioner and conscious advocate of a distinctive blues style
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Melvin “House Cat” Hendrex has been an active musician and performer for several decades. He grew up in Jackson, close by to Jackson State College (now University). He was influenced early on by the music of the choir at College Hill Missionary Baptist Church. His grandmother was a member of the choir and would often
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Saucier resident Bernadette Goodness began learning the traditional dances of her native Philippines while attending high school in her hometown of Davao City. Traditional dance is part of physical education classes in the Philippines, just as square dancing used to be in many American schools. Francisca Reyes Aquino had conducted systematic research on Philippine national
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