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Who Owns the Blues?

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(December 2008) B.B. King fans wait outside of his bus trying to get a glimpse of the blues legend before he performs at his name sake club on Beale Street in Memphis. Fans from left to right Steve Eleogram, Danielle Foster and Jeff Pruitt. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)

Photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

(December 2008) B.B. King fans wait outside of his bus trying to get a glimpse of the blues legend before he performs at his name sake club on Beale Street in Memphis. Fans from left to right Steve Eleogram, Danielle Foster and Jeff Pruitt. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)

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  • (December 2008) B.B. King fans wait outside of his bus trying to get a glimpse of the blues legend before he performs at his name sake club on Beale Street in Memphis. Fans from left to right Steve Eleogram, Danielle Foster and Jeff Pruitt. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • Oct. 12, 2008- Blues legend B.B. King gets lost in the moment while playing some blues at his namesake club. King says 'Memphis is the home of the blues.' He came to Memphis from Mississippi when he was a young man establishing himself as a blues muscian in the 40's.
  • April 2nd 2011- Dancers swing and sway to the sensual blues rhythms, while Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith plays some authentic blues harmonica at the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He says it is his job to help keep the blues alive. They were at a tribute to Pinetop Perkins and a celebration of his life following his burial in March. (see related videos Blues Today Willie Big Eyes Smith) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • April 14th 2011- Blind Mississippi Morris, 55, is a blues harmonic player who still performs around Memphis today. He has been blind since age four, he has been married 14 times and he has 12 children. He believes you have to have lived the blues to be able to play it authentically. 'All the hard times I have witnessed from a child to an adult, gives me the fuel to keep playing the blues' he said. He is the cousin of bluesman Willie Dixon. His son Eurice Cummings,19, (in doorway) lives with him in their North Memphis home. (see related video: What is the blues? Memphis, Home of the Blues; Who owns the blues?; Blues Today: Blind Mississippi Morris; How do Blues Seeds Grow?')
  • Feb 3rd 2011- A blues singer known as Markey, basks in the light and sways to a slow sensual blues song at B.B. Kings club during the International Blues Challenge showcase this past spring. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • (Feb 2009) 11- year-old Tallan 'The T-Man' Latz, of Elkhorn, Wisconsin says he likes blues because 'it comes from your soul.' He came to Memphis to compete in the International Blues Challenge on Beale Street in 2009 at the age of 9. He has played over three hundred concerts. Latz's father Carl received a letter from the state of Wisconsin informing him that Tallan may not play clubs anymore, complaining that he was too young to be performing in nightclubs. 'When I got turned in for child endangerment that made me real, real blue' he said. He has played over three hundred concerts. 'Very, very long ago when there were slaves around and they were picking corn, they used to start singing the blues' he said. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • April 2009- Charlie Musselwhite, 67, is a master harmonica player who was born in Mississippi and grew up in Memphis. He was influenced by many of the street musicians on Beale Street. Today he plays all over the world, and he has recently been touring with Cindi Lauper, in Australia. Lauper released an album called Memphis Blues last year. Musselwhite says 'blues is your buddy in good times and your comforter in hard times' and that blues comes from your heart. (See related videos What is the Blues and Charlie Musselwhite) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal) (he is at B.B. Kings in this photo)
  • Feb. 3rd, 2011- Eli Catlin,15, of North Hampton, Mass. came to Memphis to compete in the International Blues Challenge on Beale Street this past spring. 'I think its and old soul thing' his father Robert Catlin said of his son's passion for the blues 'he hasn't had a hard life.' (related video: Blues Seeds Eli Catlin) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • Feb 3rd 2011- Blues fans from all over the country come to Beale Street to hear music during the International Blues Challenge in February. The competition is designed for musicians to compete, however, blues societies from all over bring their groups to celebrate the blues, dance and have a little fun in the land of the blues.
  • October 1 2010- The Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, Mississippi sets up an atmosphere of a real blues lifestyle on their property. People come from around the world, to the Hopson Plantation, to stay in sharecropper shacks and hear and learn about the blues.
  • April 2nd 2011-The daughter of the late Mississippi bluesman Pinetop Perkins, Erline Perkins, (rt) and Mississippi blues singer Mary Action Jackson, made fast friends during a jam and tribute to Pinetop Perkins following his burial in Clarksdale, Mississippi in April.
  • May 2nd 2009- Robert 'Wolfman' Belfour checks out the weather during a rain storm at the Memphis in May, Beale Street Music Festival, while getting ready to perform. The late '90s career revivals of fellow North Mississippi bluesmen like R.L Burnside has helped him get his full due. He released two acclaimed albums on Oxford's Fat Possum a few years ago.
  • Sept.27th 2010- The trumpet player for B.B. King, James 'Boogaloo' Bolden, performs at King's club in September.
  • August 30th 2008- Beloved Bluff City bluesman, Daddy Mack, plays some down-home and funky blues at the Center for Southern Folklore Festival. Daddy Mack started playing guitar when he was 45.
  • Feb 3rd 2011- For the McCrary Sisters, 'music is a birthright, a lifelong love affair, a sometimes career, an indescribable joy, and occasionally, a cross to bear'. Regina McCrary wears out a tambourine while performing during the International Blues Challenge on Beale Street. (see related video Mike Farris and The Roseland Rhythm Review) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • Aug 30, 2008- Bobby Rush,76, and the Booty Girls entertain at the Center for Southern Folklore Festival in downtown Memphis. He holds the title 'king of the chitlin circuit.' Rush remembers a time when he had to perform behind a curtain because the customers 'didn't want to see our faces,' and they were paid in hamburgers. Today, Rush owns his own record label; he has made 249 records in his lifetime. (Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • July 2008-The sun sets over the festival field at the Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp Mississippi. The festival celebrates the legacies of departed North Mississippi blues legends and it features some of their children and grandchildren. The festival also offers blues workshops and camping on site. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • October 2010- People come from around the world to the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to stay in sharecropper shacks and learn how to play the blues harp. Rein Rudnick came from Canada to participate in Blues Harmonica Jam Camp last fall. (see related video Blues Jam Camp) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • May 2009- Tommy Sample, a banquet server, got to listen to some blues while serving guests and blues artists alike at the Annual Blues Music Awards in Memphis. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • September 27th 2010- Blues legend B.B.King,85, said 'some people say, well, I was born in the blues; I guess we were.' He said 'It was a type of music that I used to hear and people on the plantation would sing and play.' He reflected that eventually many of the great groups came out playing the blues and 'white America learned about it. We'd been around the whole time, they didn't pay us any attention' (See related video What is the Blues? and Memphis Home of the Blues) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • July 2008- T Model Ford waits backstage before he performed at the Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp Mississippi. (I believe that is his grandson Gentle White Jr. on left.. trying to verify) Ford says he can't remember how old he is, (it is believed he is in his 80's) nor how many times he has been in prison. (Karen Pulfer Focht/ The Commercial Appeal)
  • Aug, 30th 2008 - A raspy voice comes out from underneath Daddy Mack's tan fedora as he entertains the crowd at the Center for Southern Folklore festival in downtown Memphis. His band is known for playing down home and funky Memphis blues.
  • May 2nd 2009- Robert 'Wolfman' Belfour checks out the weather during a rain storm at the Memphis in May, Beale Street Music Festival, while getting ready to perform. The late '90s career revivals of fellow North Mississippi bluesmen like R.L Burnside has helped him get his full due. He released two acclaimed albums on Oxford's Fat Possum a few years ago.
  • April 23rd 2009- Will Tucker,16, (left) of Germantown got to sit in with harmonica great, Charlie Musselwhite, at B.B. King's Club when Charlie came to town. Will attends Briarcrest Christian School, and he plays regularly at B.B.Kings Club on Beale Street.
  • July 2008- Fans roar at the end of a blues performance at the Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp Mississippi. Blues music has been experiencing a steady resurgence with a growing number of new festivals each year. (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)
  • October 9th 2010- Mississippi Bluesman Pinetop Perkins visits with friends backstage at the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in Helena, Arkansas last fall. He performed at the festival in Helena which is near the plantation he worked on as a young man in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Perkins passed away this past spring.
  • April 2nd 2011- Pinetop Perkins passed away peacefully at home on Monday, March 21, 2011 at the age of 97. Pinetop was buried on April 2, 2011 in Clarksdale, MS. Pinetop Perkins, one of the last great Mississippi bluesmen. He performed at the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in October, not too far from the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, where he worked as a young man. (see related video Pinetop Perkins and What is the blues?, which show him performing and his funeral at Commercialappeal.com) (by Karen Pulfer Focht/Commercial Appeal)

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