Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival
Clarksdale, Mississippi

Clarksdale, Mississippi, is a farming town of 21,000 people in the northwestern part of the state, about 75 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, and about 13 miles east of Arkansas. By any measure, except one, it’s the kind of small, slow-going, not-so-very memorable town you can see hundreds of throughout the South.

The one exception is the annual Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival in August, a two-day event at summer’s lazy peak that puts Clarksdale at the epicenter of the worldwide blues map. The festival, which turns 17 this year, has been a free, non-profit showcase for blues local, regional and national blues talent, as well as a tribute to some of the great blues men that Mississippi seemed to grow almost as a crop over the past 100 years. 

In fact, the roster of greatest names in blues history is dominated by Mississippians: Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Jessie Mae Hemphill, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Mississippi John Hurt, Jimmy Reed, Willy Dixon, Otis Spann, Big Joe Williams, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Big Joe Williams.  

It’s unlikely that any other state in the Union has ever produced so many great artists in one field as Mississippi has in the blues. 

Clarksdale’s festival, which will start this year on Friday afternoon, August 13, and run through the evening of Saturday, August 14, is sponsored primarily by the Sunflower River Blues Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to “preserving, perpetuating and promoting the blues.” The association has four co-sponsors, including the City of Clarksdale, the Delta Blues Education Fund, the county chamber of commerce and, perhaps most significantly, Clarkdale’s Delta Blues Museum.  

The museum, known nationwide among blues fans, has done more than any other U.S. institution to preserve the history of the blues (we’ve listed its URL below). Traditionally, it precedes the festival with educational events, including lectures and exhibits, aimed at acquainting visitors with the history and importance of the blues. 

Although the festival has modest means, it has garnered yearly recognition from the Southeast Tourism Society as one of the South’s Top 20 destinations in August. In 1996, Travel and Leisure magazine declared Sunflower "one of the top five blues and jazz festivals in the country." 

Keep in mind that Mississippi in August is sweltering and sticky hot. Attending Sunflower isn’t like dallying in the cool grass at Tanglewood. On the other hand, the torrid days of late summer are the same kind that drove the old blues men out to their stoops over the years, guitars in hand, sitting in the listless air and defying the heat to sing about love and life.

Two useful URLs that will tell you about Sunflower and acquaint you with the Clarksdale area: 

http://www.sunflowerfest.org/ 
http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/

— Patrick Totty