King Biscuit Blues Festival presents 12th annual “Call and Response: Blues Symposium” in historic Helena, Arkansas

Join two blues journalism and preservation legends, Roger Stolle and Don Wilcock, for their eleventh annual Call and Response Blues Symposium. They moderate two one-hour-long “back fence” conversations with legendary blues musicians and personalities who are some of the most colorful people on today’s vibrant blues scene. “Come on home” to this lively confab that’s become a colorful highlight of the festival.

WHERE: Malco Theater, Cherry St., Helena, Arkansas

WHEN: Saturday, October 12th – 10:00am-12:15pm

FREE ADMISSION

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Part One – 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. 

Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport

Raised in Vicksburg, MS, “Young Rell” is a 17-year-old blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica prodigy to watch. He started learning to play at age 8 as an escape from personal struggles. Influenced by past legends from Jimmy Reed to Snooky Pryor, and championed by present legends from “Kingfish” Ingram to Charlie Musselwhite, Davenport has already played famous venues from Clarksdale’s Ground Zero to Chicago’s Rosa’s Lounge… and events from Clarksdale’s Juke Joint Festival to Helena’s King Biscuit.

Zakiya Hooker

Zakiya Hooker was born in the Motor City of Detroit, MI, in 1948—the same year that her father hit the big time with the #1 and #5 R&B charting songs, “Boogie Chillen” and “Hobo Blues.” Her father (of course) was blues legend John Lee Hooker, who hailed from near Clarksdale, MS. She grew up in the blues but also later fused her own personal successes and tragedies into her music. She first performed publicly in 1991 alongside her father and then on her own as well as with icons from Etta James to Charlie Musselwhite.

Johnny Rawls

Born in Hattiesburg, MS, in 1951, Blues Music Award winner Johnny Rawls has been playing music since he was a child—first learning guitar from his blind grandfather and later playing saxophone and clarinet in high school. Through the years, he performed or toured with a who’s who of blues and soul legends—including O.V. Wright, B.B. King, Little Milton, Little Johnny Taylor, Willie Cobbs and others. Rawls appears on over 20 albums and is included on the Mississippi Blues Trail marker in his native Hattiesburg.

Terry “Big T” Williams

Born in Clarksdale, MS, in 1960, Terry “Big T” Williams spent his early years on a Farrell plantation, hearing stories about Muddy Waters. At nine, his father gave him a guitar, and the young Williams soon began lessons with “Mr. Johnnie” Billington. By twelve, he was playing with bands like The Jelly Roll Kings (feat. his godfather “Big Jack” Johnson). Williams went on to play with numerous area acts as well as legends like Albert King and Bobby “Blue” Bland. He has run several blues clubs and has multiple recording credits.

Moderator: Roger Stolle
Roger Stolle’s Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art is celebrating 22 years as “Mississippi’s blues store” in downtown Clarksdale. He is a Blues Music Magazine and Twoj Blues columnist, Juke Joint Festival and Clarksdale Film & Music Festival co-founder, Hidden History of Mississippi Blues and Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential author, M for Mississippi and Moonshine & Mojo Hands co-director, Keeping the Blues Alive and Blues Music Award recipient, Visit Clarksdale Tourism board president, and Crossroads Delta Blues Hour radio show host (KSDS San Diego). His free Cat Head Mini Blues Fest is Sun., Oct. 13th. www.cathead.biz.

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Part Two – 12:15 p.m. -1:15 p.m.

Bobby Rush • Curtis Salgado • Anson Funderburgh

Bobby Rush

Bobby Rush, Bobby Rush, Bobby Rush! The mantra has been ringing out at the Biscuit for decades. Known the world over as the King of the Chitlin Circuit, he keeps re-inventing himself year in and year out, and finally at 90 years old he has three Grammys in his resume and is King Biscuit’s closing headliner Saturday night. As fundamental as blues itself, he is a walking history lesson in the form. “I still have hope. I’m still enthused about what I do and the way I do it. I have fallen down and I’m probably gonna fall again. If I do fall, I get up and dust myself off again and don’t give up. That’s what I want people to see in Bobby Rush. If Bobby Rush can do as a country boy, you can, too.”

 

Curtis Salgado

“It’s a bucket list thing,” says Curtis Salgado about playing the King Biscuit Blues Festival for the first time this year. His latest album Fine By Me is in the top 20 on The Roots Music Chart. He began his career almost half a century ago in the Robert Cray Band. He tutored John Belushi in how to play Jake Blues for the Blues Brothers film and was front man in Roomful of Blues in the ’80s. He’s one of the most unique artists in blues whose style runs from soul to hard driving electric blues, On “Fine By Me,” the title cut from his new hit album, he dreams he’s having lunch with Jackie Onassis and hanging with Iggy Pop and Mohammed Ali.

Anson Funderburgh

Anson Funderburgh developed his sound learning from the likes of Freddie King, Jimmy Reed, and Albert Collins when they played near his home town of Plano, Texas. His performances with his band the Rockets and vocalist Sam Myers on vocals between 1985 and 2006 are legendary among Biscuit fans. On stage Anson is a monster Texas guitarist whose sound is as timeless and earth shaking as the artists he’s played with and/or produced including The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Delbert McClinton, John Nemeth and Katie Webster. Guitar Player Magazine credited him with “achieving the classic Stratocaster tone defined by Otis Rush in the ’50’s and Magic Sam in the ’60’s.” He was the first artist signed to the first King Biscuit Blues Fetial since 1986.

Moderator: Don Wilcock
Don Wilcock is the author of Buddy Guy’s Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues biography that foretold his rise from a club act to the biggest blues legacy still alive. He has hosted the Call and Response Seminar since 2011 and was editor of The King Biscuit Times. He’s had cover stories in four recent issues of The Blues Music Magazine and is a regular contributor to American Blues Scene. This year he was inducted into The Thomas Edison Hall of Fame and is an arts writer for The Daily Gazette in New York’s Capital Region. He’s been writing about blues for 54 years starting in the Army Reporter in Vietnam. He was one of the producers of a follow-up film to Turning Pages about to be released nationally and is writing biographies of blues legends for a coffee table book featuring Clint Herring’s watercolor paintings.

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For more information contact:

Don Wilcock
donwilcock@msn.com
518-258-4373

Roger Stolle
roger@cathead.biz
662-624-5992

Last modified: September 13, 2024