ARKANSAS

The role that Arkansas played in blues history has been obscured by the better-known contributions of its neighbors the Mississippi Delta and Memphis. But the Arkansas Delta, a musically rich area that includes all or part of twenty-seven counties in the state's eastern region, has produced an incredible array of blues talent.

Helena

Located on a high bluff on the Mississippi River, Helena was the most important river port between Memphis and Vicksburg. A center for the local cotton trade and a key point for the distribution of goods into the surrounding countryside, Helena attracted thousands of black people to work on riverboats and on shore. In a region where money was scarce, these workers attracted many bluesmen to the juke joints along Elm and Walnut Streets. Nearby West Helena also overflowed with clubs. Barrelhouse pianists and itinerant blues musicians with guitars and harps filled Helena's joints with raucous music. Piano legend Roosevelt Sykes learned much of his technique as a teenager in the early 1920s by observing the piano players in Helena.

On November 19, 1941, radio station KFFA went on the air in Helena. A few days later, Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) asked if he could perform on the station. The station's owners agreed that he could if he found his own sponsor. Sonny Boy quickly signed with the Interstate Grocer Company, whose owner, Max Moore, wanted to promote his local King Biscuit flour. Thus was born the King Biscuit Time radio show, featuring Sonny Boy's dynamic blues harp and sardonic singing, coupled with the innovative guitar playing of Robert Lockwood, Jr. Lockwood developed his skills under the tutelage of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson, who had been romantically involved with Lockwood's mother.

King Biscuit Time was an instant success and aired from 12:15 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. each weekday. The show also went on the road, airing live on Saturdays from many Delta towns in Arkansas and Mississippi. In 1947, Interstate Grocer Company introduced Sonny Boy Corn Meal—with a picture of Sonny Boy sitting on an ear of corn on the front of each sack—to further profit from the show's success.

Among the performers who appeared on King Biscuit Time were pianists Robert "Dudlow" Taylor, Willie Love, and Pine top Perkins, guitarists Joe "Willie" Wilkins, Houston Stackhouse, Earl Hooker, and Sammy Lawhorn, and drummer Peck Curtis.

Lockwood left the show after two years because of a dispute with Max Moore. He soon had his own show on KFFA, sponsored by Mother's Best Flour Company, which lasted about a year. Delta bluesman and Helena native Robert Nighthawk also had a show on KFFA, sponsored by Bright Star Flour. He also appeared on King Biscuit Time and replaced Sonny Boy as the show's regular star after Sonny Boy died in Helena in 1965. Nighthawk passed away in 1967 and is buried in Helena's Magnolia Cemetery.

Since 1968, King Biscuit Time has featured recorded music instead of a live band. Today the show is hosted by Sonny Payne, who has been with the program since the 1940s.

Helena blues has carried on in the juke-joint blues of harp player Frank Frost (who died in 1999) and drummer Sam Carr, the modern blues of west Helena native Lonnie Shields, and the creative down-home blues of John Weston. In 1986, Helena's Sonny Boy Blues Society put together a one-day blues festival to honor the city's rich blues heritage. The King Biscuit Blues Festival has since grown into one of the world's largest free blues festivals, attracting tens of thousands of fans annually.

West Memphis

West Memphis, located directly across the Mississippi River from Memphis, was by the late 1940s a more significant blues center than its larger neighbor. Founded in 1910 as a logging camp, West Memphis grew into a town known for its gambling, hot blues, and other vices. It had many jukes and clubs, especially along 8th Street, which included a variety of venues, from country-style jukes such as the Little Brown Jug to more substantial clubs like the Be-Bop Hall. Just fifteen miles to the west was the Top Hat club at Blackfish Lake, which held hundreds of people.

The most important blues musician on the West Memphis scene was Howlin' Wolf, who loomed large physically and musically. An energetic performer who sang with a voice that sounded like an earthquake feels and played raw, country-style blues harp, Wolf put together his first electric band in the late 1940s while living in West Memphis. Made up largely of musicians much younger than himself, Wolfs band featured many of the best players in the region, including harp players Little Junior Parker and James Cotton, pianist William "Destruction" Johnson, drummer Willie Steele, and guitarists Willie Lee Johnson, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, and Auburn "Pat" Hare. Johnson's guitar work, combining raw blues riffs with jazzy chord flourishes, in particular helped establish the signature sound of the band, which quickly established itself as the most popular in West Memphis and the surrounding Arkansas Delta.

In 1949, Wolf secured a radio show on West Memphis station KWEM, on which he advertised farm supplies. Memphis record producer Sam Phillips heard Wolf on the show and, impressed by his raw talent, began recording him for Chess Records in Chicago. Wolfs success on KWEM opened the door for other blues artists on the station, including Sonny Boy II, who advertised the patent medicine Hadacol, piano player Willie Love, and drummer Willie Nix. Other blues musicians active in West Memphis at the time included B. B. King, Joe Hill Louis, Rosco Gordon, Jr., and Hubert Sumlin. In the 1970s, locally owned 8th Street Records recorded West Memphis blues veterans Sammy Lewis and Sonny Blake, though their records were poorly distributed. Little remains of the West Memphis blues scene today.

Other Parts of the State

Many other Arkansas towns had active blues scenes. In Brinkley, the White Swan club regularly featured Robert Nighthawk, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and others. In Osceola, M. C. Reeder owned the T-99 club, whose In the Groove Boys band included young guitarist Albert Nelson, who later became famous as Albert King. Another Osceola guitarist, Son Seals, learned the blues at his father's juke the Dipsy Doodle. Forrest City lent its name to harp player "Forrest City" Joe Pugh, who made a handful of recordings for Aristocrat (later Chess) Records. Little Rock's blues scene produced the woefully underrated Larry Davis, best known for his recording of "Texas Flood" for Duke Records, and Elmon "Driftin' Slim" Mickle, who later moved to Los Angeles and worked as a one-man band. Also associated with Little Rock was bluesman Calvin Leavy, who achieved a surprise R&B hit with the down-home blues tune "Cummins Prison Farm."

Most unusual of all Arkansas bluesman is Cedell Davis of Pine Bluff. Born in Helena in 1927, Davis contracted polio as a child, which crippled his right hand. He learned to play guitar upside-down, clutching a butter knife as a slide in his crippled hand. The result is a uniquely discordant but powerful and eerie blues sound. Recently, Michael Burks emerged from Arkansas with an outstanding guitar style (influenced by Albert King) and strong vocals that are quickly making him a star.

Other blues artists born in the cities and towns of Arkansas include Luther Allison (Widener), Little Willie Anderson (West Memphis), Buster Benton (Texarkana), Willie Cobbs (Smales), Detroit Junior (Haynes), Art and Roman Griswold (Tillar), "Shakey" Jake Harris (Earle), Floyd Jones (Marianna), Charley Jordan (Mabelville), Louis Jordan (Brinkley), Sammy Lawhorn (Little Rock), Hosea Leavy (Altheimer), Larry McCray (Magnolia), George "Harmonica" Smith (Helena), Blue Smitty (Marianna), Johnnie Taylor (Crawfordsville), Washboard Sam (Walnut Ridge), Casey Bill Weldon (Pine Bluff), and Jimmy Witherspoon (Gurdon).

Bibliography

Guida, Louis, Lorenzo Thomas, and Cheryl Cohen. Blues Music in Arkansas. Philadelphia, PA: Portfolio Associates, 1982.

Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues. New York: Penguin, 1981. Rotenstein, David S. "The Helena Blues: Cultural Tourism and African American Folk Music." Southern Folklore Quarterly 49, no. 2 (1992): 133-146.