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Sunflower River Blues & Gospel
Festival
Clarksdale,
Mississippi
By Patrick Totty
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/