Lemuria Bookstore Blog

I was looking through some old records and found the first one I ever bought by B. B. King, Sweet Sixteen. I can’t remember which year, but it was a long time ago. My first live baptism from B.B. was probably in the late sixties at the Jackson Colosseum. Also, I can remember an early [...]

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After cutting his teeth on the 60s Chicago blues scene, Bobby moved to Jackson in the early 80s. Rush is now Mississippi’s Blues Institution and Chitlin’ Circuit King. Few people seem to enjoy performing as much as Bobby–having a ball with his outrageous stage antics, singing, dancing all around like a young man while playing [...]

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In 1941, John Work and Alan Lomax made the first recordings of Muddy Waters (i.e., McKinley Morganfield) on Stovall Plantation outside of Clarksdale. The site of Muddy’s cabin is marked by a blues trail marker and a holy place to tip your glass and toast something very special. Inside The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale [...]

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For the past four years around the first of June a question forms on many mouths: “Are you going to The Picnic?” The most common answer: “Yep!” We had all been listening to R.L Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Othar Turner for years and then the rest of the world caught up with us.  These gentlemen [...]

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Teen-aged David “Honeyboy” Edwards met Charley Patton. Soon he left home with Big Joe Williams to hobo and ramble. He played with Robert Johnson and was with him the night he was poisoned. Big Walter, Sonny Boy and Little Walter all played harp with Honeyboy. He became pals with giants Son House and Roosevelt Sykes. [...]

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Ground Zero in Clarksdale is a blues person’s institution. A must for anyone forging a blues trail. Here music, beverage and joyful good times create special memories. Bill Luckett and Morgan Freeman shared this gift with Mississippians. Not only is Zero a must for any blues fans, but it is  already an elite Mississippi institution. [...]

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Mississippi, the State of the Blues, giving birth to this truly American art form. Baptizing of a music all its own to spread to the world. Mississippi, the State of the Blues today, Scott with words, Ken with eyes, picture our blues in the present. Young and old musicians are alive and well, performing and [...]

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Last year about this time, I made a pilgrimage to West Point paying respects to an all-time hero, Howlin’ Wolf. I started listening to his music over 40 years ago, and to say his musical influence on me is huge is an understatement. The Howlin’ Wolf Blues Museum is really a small room in size [...]

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On April 12, 1973, at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, (my first jazz fest), I heard and saw 300 pounds of heavenly joy. Howlin’ Wolf, though ailing, worked his magic which still lives for me 37 years later. His gripping voice, primal and nasty, rocked my house. Wolf’s passion transferred his presence into my world [...]

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Moanin’ at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin’ Wolf by James Segrest and Mark Hoffman Pantheon (2004) Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett)–all six feet three inches and 300 pounds of him–is a god of the blues. Moanin’ is the first full length biography capturing this giant of American music. From a hard childhood around [...]

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