Juke Joint Festival | Hey, Hey, The Jab Is Okay!

"I'm goin down south. I'm goin down south. I'm goin down south.

I'm goin down south. Where the chilly wind don't blow."

(R.L. Burnside)

 "Hey, hey, the blues is alright. It's alright. Alright. Every day and night."

(Little Milton)

Mrs. L. and I each got the second COVID jab, as folks across the pond call it, in early April. By mid-month we were fully cooked and anxious, despite Mr. Baggins's words of caution, to seek adventure beyond the safety and comfort of our own front porch. First up, you ask? The Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi, of course!

Each April (except during the lost year of 2020) we drive south into the heart of the Delta for three days of blues and joyful reunions with friends from afar - both domestic and imported. In the daylight, the action takes place outside. The sidewalk of every downtown block hosts live music by the renown as well as the local and the obscure. Arts and craft vendors fill the streets hawking everything from cigar box guitars to R.P.'s custom made bird houses. (We have collected four over the years. You can see one of them below.) There's even a race track for monkeys riding dogs. After dark, the scenes shift inside. Every juke joint in town moans and howls until the wee hours and beyond. It's in these sordid places filled with the Devil's music that Mrs. L. and I are reminded that 6 a.m. hasn't always immediately followed 9 p.m. We know the answer to "why did we do that?," but it's "how were we even awake at that hour?" that continues to baffle us. I think it might be because we've had a whole year to rest up. A famous son of the Mississippi gulf coast once declared there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning. On Juke Joint weekend, I'm not convinced there's a line at all. Needless to say, this is our happy place.

Continued travel restrictions in Europe and South America limited our reunions to the domestic variety. We longed for the company of our friends from abroad, but their absence makes our hearts grow fonder. Still, it was healing, so to speak, to reconnect in-person with so many of the cast of out-of-town characters who fill and enrich our life. These are but two:

When seeing friends for the first time during the festival, it's important to follow the time-honored festival greeting ritual. This year, our ritual played out with an added twist:

Mr. and Mrs. L. spot friends down the street or across a parking lot and begin waving frantically. Said friends, in turn, notice Mr. and Mrs. L. waving and begin frantically waving back. Or, vice-a-versa. Everyone then runs towards each other screaming wildly, arms opened wide. Suddenly, about six feet apart, we all screech to an awkward halt and shout in unison, as if on cue, "Wait! Have you been vaccinated? We have." Once mutually confirmed, the long overdue hugs begin.

Mix. Stir. Repeat.

In another twist this year, some of the nighttime venues moved the bands outside. So, rather than jostle the crowd in a space too small to hold the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin, we grooved to tunes from the comfort of camp chairs with plenty of fresh air and elbow room. Both my body and my patience, which are now on the 60 side of 50 (or as Mrs. L. graciously says, "not in their twenties any more"), rejoiced at this arrangement. Photo above: Bill Abel and Deak Harp laying down some truly cosmic and mind bending blues.

For my money, the prize for festival highlight goes to the birthday celebration and performance by 94 year old Cadillac John Nolden (pictured above). Several international streaming services broadcasted it "live from Clarksdale." By the way, Cadillac's show started at one in the afternoon, so he could be home and in bed before nine. If you have the time and are so inclined, you can peruse the full set of photos from the 2021 Juke Joint Festival HERE .

Thanks for stopping by.

- Steve