When Preston Lauterbach set out to write The Chitlin’ Circuit I’m sure he never intended for it to be a “secret history” of Mississippi, but that’s what it feels like to me. As the dust jacket marketing says, The Chitlin’ Circuit is “The first history of the network of black nightclubs that created Rock ‘N’ Roll through an unholy alliance between vice and entertainment.” Lauterbach succeeds in writing the history he intended to write, but in doing so he fills in a blank space in Mississippi history for those of us who having been living here for years along side this interesting music and culture that is Chitlin’ Circuit music.
Sometime after moving to Mississippi in 1999 I began to notice some pretty interesting music on the radio. First I noticed a station that played classic soul music in the Stax vein. Then I noticed WMPR – a great station that plays blues, gospel, and talk shows. But the blues on WMPR didn’t sound a whole lot like the blues I know – very little Muddy Waters and very little John Lee Hooker. No, this music sounds more like a soul/blues fusion. In fact to my East Tennessee ears it sounded like a throw back to 1980s soul music, but it became apparent that this is not throw back music at all, but a vibrant and alive music culture.
Soon I started to hear a lot about a guy named Bobby Rush (find some of his CDs here) – a man who refers to himself as the King of the Chitlin’ Circuit. I did think, “what is the Chitlin’ Circuit” but I also thought, “wow, I like this”. If you’re in Lemuria late on a Friday afternoon Marvin Sease, Latimore, Ronnie Lovejoy, and Ms. Jody are just a few of the sounds you’ll hear. All of this led to Bobby Rush eventually playing a live show in our dot com building in 2007.
Now after all of these years of enjoying the music and the culture Preston Lauterbach gives us a wonderfully well written history of the Chitlin’ Circuit that explains how all of this came to be and fills a gap in American music history. To me this book fits perfectly between Robert Gordon’s Can’t Be Satisfied and Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music. So you can see why, to me, this feels like a “secret history”. The music is right here all around us in Jackson, MS, but for the first time the history has been researched and brought to light.
Join us Tuesday evening at 5.00 for a signing and reading with Preston Lauterbach, author of The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘N’ Roll.
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