The Mitchells were cleaning out the house because after 35 years they were moving. We all know what one can accumulate during that amount of time. George was surprised when came across a folder of negatives:
What’s this? R.L. Burnside on a tractor with a bunch of his kids? right after I met him? I don’t even remember taking that. And this?! Rosa Lee Hill and Jessie Mae Hemphill dancing? Where are they anyway? At Fred McDowell’s? And there’s Fred, leaning over Othar Turner, who’s playing the guitar, showing his some chords or something. I don’t remember that. And here are so many shots I took at what is now called the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic-the first time it was ever photographed by a white person. I didn’t know I took so many!
Mitchell hadn’t even looked at these negatives in 40 years since he chose photographs for his book Blow My Blues Away and for album covers. In 1967 George and Cathy Mitchell spent the summer in Mississippi and 13 days of the trip were spent in the hill country with some of the finest musicians from the area. Mitchell was welcomed into the homes of many of the musicians and was able to spend time with them and as well as their family and friends. He went to dinner in their homes, rent parties, and fife and drum picnics with the musicians posing for portraits and telling him stories. This book, Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967, documents this time.
I really, really, like this book. My husband and I love music, especially Hill Country Blues. In fact, when we married in June of 2009, part of our honeymoon was spent at the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp, MS. The festival line up always includes the descendants, friends, and disciples of most of the elder statesmen of MS Hill Country Blues. R.L. Burnside’s, Junior Kimbrough’s, and Othar Turner’s families are always well represented. It is really one of the most fun weekends of the summer in Mississippi.
Above right: Sharde Thomas, granddaughter of Othar Turner, at the 2013 Picnic.
George Mitchell will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, August 21 at 5:00 to sign and he will tell us a little something around 5:30. We can sit around with some cold beers and talk the blues!
Here is the late great R. L. Burnside performing Poor Black Mattie in 1984.
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