Recently, I traveled with some other members of the Black Belt Blues Foundation to the B.B. King Museum in Indianola and the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale.
There, among the honored Delta blues musicians featured in the museums, were Big Joe Williams and Howlin’ Wolf. I found that interesting, not because of their status in the blues, but because they weren’t from the Delta. Wolf was from White Station, just outside West Point, and Williams was from Crawford, near Columbus and Starkville.
Blues musicians are often characterized by geography. There is the Chicago blues, the St. Louis blues, the Memphis blues, the Delta blues and the Mississippi Hill Country blues.
But what about the Black Prairie blues?
Though not as famous as a region, our own Black Prairie, or Black Belt as it is also called, has produced its fair share of blues musicians.
The Black Prairie was named after its fertile black soil. It runs in a narrow crescent shape from northeast Mississippi into south central Alabama. It was settled by Euro-Americans between 1816 and 1835. The African slaves they brought to farm the rich, dark land carried with them their musical heritage. It was a musical tradition predating that of the Delta, though it is often considered Delta blues. It is even sometimes referred to as Hill Country blues, though the hill country of northeast Mississippi lacked the large farms and African-American population of the prairie.
I have heard blues music all my life but paid little attention to it until I was at Ole Miss. Along with several other members of the DKE fraternity, I went to Memphis one weekend to hear a blues concert at the Overton Park shell. It was with bluesmen, such as Mississippi Fred McDowell and Furry Lewis. I realized then that the blues was not just music, for it told the story of life.
We contacted Furry to see if he would play for a fraternity party. He said he would, and I drove to Memphis to pick him up. I got to know Furry and picked him up a couple of times to play at Ole Miss.
On one ride, he complained that an airline lost his guitar as he flew back from Europe. I asked him what he had been doing in Europe, and he replied he opened for the Rolling Stones on a European tour. On another occasion, Furry told me how he had invented bottle neck blues. He said he began using a glass slide made from a Gilbey’s gin bottle neck. He added that nothing else had ever sounded as good. Furry begun playing blues in the 1920s with the W.C. Handy Orchestra. Though it was Furry who taught me to appreciate the blues, I digress, for Furry sang the Memphis blues.
My experiences with Furry made me realize that there are also some great blues performers from the Black Prairie area. There was Howlin’ Wolf; Big Joe Williams; Bukka White, from near Houston; Lucille Bogan, from near Amory; and Willie King, from Pickens County, Alabama.
Joseph Lee Williams was born in Crawford in 1903. As Big Joe Williams, he became a legend in blues and folk music. Big Joe’s early career began with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in the 1920s. In 1930, he recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band. In the 1960s and 1970s, he toured Europe and Japan. He became known as the “King of the 9-string guitar.” He died in Macon in 1982 and is buried in Crawford.
In 1910, Howlin’ Wolf was born Chester Arthur Burnett in White Station. He is said to have been taught to play the guitar by Charley Patton. He admired Jimmy Rodgers and developed his own famous howl based on Rodgers “blue yodel.” He sang the blues locally and in the Memphis area until discovered by Sam Phillips, who would later discover Elvis. In the early 1950s, Wolf moved to Chicago, where he was considered one of the classic Chicago blues men. He lived there until he died in 1976.
Some of the all time great rock musicians were inspired by Wolf. He especially influenced the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, who recorded albums with him in London. Howlin’ Wolf was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His biography there begins: “Howlin Wolf ranks among the most electrifying performers in blues history, as well as one of its greatest characters.”
Lucille Bogan was born near Amory in 1897 and died in 1948. She is considered to have, along with Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, one of the greatest female blues voices of all time. She made her first recording “Pawn Shop Blues” in 1923.
Booker T. Washington, also known as Bukka White, was born on his grandfather’s farm between Aberdeen and Houston in 1906 or 1909. His father was a fireman on the M&O Railroad who played the guitar. Bukka was considered a master guitarist. His music influenced both Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, and his song, “Fixin’ to Die,” was a 2012 Grammy Hall of Fame Selection. He died in 1977.
Willie King was born in Prairie Point. He also was an internationally known bluesman who was popular in France. He won many national awards but seemed to most enjoy playing locally. He was even the subject of a Dutch documentary. He died in Pickens County, Alabama, in 2009.
Like Furry Lewis, Wolf also played for DKE fraternity parties at Ole Miss, while Big Joe once played at a party for us in West Point. Those days are long gone, but the music lives on.
The Black Belt Blues Foundation celebrates the great blues legends of our region with the 20th annual Black Prairie Blues Festival (formerly the Howlin’ Wolf Memorial Blues Festival) at 6 p.m., Sept. 4, in West Point. The lineup of outstanding blues talent includes Eddie Cotton, James “Super Chikan” Johnson and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
The Black Prairie has a rich heritage of blues music. Though it is usually labeled as Delta or Hill Country blues, it is, in fact, the Black Prairie blues, and its musical heritage predates that of both the Hills and the Delta.
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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