August 11-13th, 1999, at the Delta Blues Museum
114 Delta Avenue in downtown Clarksdale (627-6820)

Made possible with a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the support of
the Delta Blues Museum and the Delta Blues Education Fund

Organizers: Mae Smith and John Ruskey
For more information see museum staff Mae Smith or Billy Williams,
or call them at (601) 627-6820, or dbmuseum@clarksdale.com

Wednesday, August 11th

3:00 - 4:45 P.M.

Johnnie "Mr. Johnnie" Billington

Children's Workshop

All invited. Bring your instrument along. Master musician Mr. Johnnie is the artistic director of the Delta blues Education Fund, and teaches daily class in Lambert, 15 miles East of Clarksdale.

Thursday, August 12th

1:00 - 2:45 P.M.

Phoenix Savage: "Why Do White Men Like the Blues?"

Artist/photographer Ms. Savage is a graduate student at Ole Miss's Department of Anthropology.

3:00 - 4:45 P.M.

Michael James "Dr. Mike"

Workshop for children and grown children.

Musician Michael James apprentices children on the blues and R&B at the Delta Blues Museum. His students, "The Interns" will be on hand to assist him in this workshop.

Friday, August 13th

10:00 - 11:30 A.M.

Charles "Wsir" Johnson

The African Origins of the Blues

Musician Wsir Johnson will perorm a drum demonstration of the roots of the blues in Africa.

12:00 NOON - 3:00 P.M.

The New World 1930's - 1950's

Special Oral History Program sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council

Interviewers: Dr. Sylvester Oliver, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Edward Komara

Interviewees: Rev. Uless Carter, Mr. Wade Walton, Mr. Timothy Gates, and others

3:00 - 4:30 P.M.

Jim O'Neal

A tribute to John Lee Hooker

Historian Jim O'Neal is the founding editor of Living Blues Magazine. He also started Rooster Blues Recording studio.

Abstract:
Oral history is a valuable asset towards self-knowledge, community knowledge, and the history of a region. It is necessary in a democratic society to make oral history available to the public. To fully appreciate oral history, it is further necessary to subject it to the scrutiny of academic discipline of the humanities.

History:
There is a wealth of information available that is transmitted orally from generation to generation in the black neighborhoods of Clarksdale. This project will make that knowledge available to the general public, including those who normally don't have access to this information, such as other residents of the Cit of Clarksdale and Coahoma County, and the festival goers of the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival.

Recording oral history is nothing new in Clarksdale and Coahoma County. As far back as 1901 when Charles Peabody made archelogical digs at nearby Stovall (and later reported the "weird" music he heard during the dig in the 1903 Journal of American Folklore), scholars and field workers have been interviewing and recording Mississippi Delta residents. (Peabody found the blues to sound "weird in interval and strange in rhythm; peculiarly beautiful").

The tradition of research in Coahoma County is richly sprinkled with luminaries. The aforementioned Charles Peabody (Harvard University) was one of the first known documentors of blues music. In 1903 - 1905 W.C. Handy lived in Clarksdale and witnessed America's "rich traditions and inspirational fertility" and wrote about it in his Autobiography. Alan Lomax ame from the Library of Congress in 1941 and made important recordings of Muddy Waters, Son House, and the other "folk" musicians. Marion Post Wolcott and Walker Evans came as documentors for the WPA. During the 1960s, when the popularity of the blues was at a low, historians Gayle Dean Wardlow and William Ferris were in Clarksdale. Their work can be read about in Blues From the Delta (Ferris) and Chasin' the Devil's Music (wardlow).

Dr. Sylvester Oliver, Gayle Dean Wardlow, and Edward Komara will do live interviews with elderly residents who lived in Clarksdale's "New World" during the peak of its blues activity, in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Clarksdale natives and longtime residents Wade Walton, Uless Carter, and Timothy Gates have been selected as interviewees.