King Biscuit Time Helena, Arkansas

The Sound of Soil and Soul

The music of the Arkansas Delta is the music of America. With roots in the gospel or "church music," the blues, jazz, country, and rock n'roll flowed from the rich, fertile landscape bordering the lower Mississippi River and spread out across the country and the world. Follow the Arkansas Delta Music Trail to experience the sounds that shaped the land, its people, and the nation.

KFFA 1630 HELENA 

King Biscuit Time

"King Biscuit Time" first aired live on November 21, 1941, on Helena, Arkansas's KFFA 1360 AM radio. Since that time, the program has become the longest-running daily blues radio show in the United States, as well as an influential platform for up-and-coming blues performers. The award-winning program has aired more times than the "Grand Ole Opry" and has outlasted "American Bandstand" by at least a generation. Legendary bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson was the original host of King Biscuit Time, playing live with Robert Perkins and James Peck Curtis in the KFFA studio. The show was named after King Biscuit Flour, distributed throughout the Arkansas Delta by Interstate Grocer Company. The company agreed to sponsor a radio production for Sonny Boy and his band in exchange for live commercials for King Biscuit Flour.

King Biscuit Time was the first regular radio show to feature blues and has influenced generations of delta blues and

rock n' roll artists whose sounds are based on the raw energy of Sonny Boy Williamson's music. The daily programming of Sonny boy Williamson, Pinetop Perkins, Robert Jr, Lockwood, and other Delta blues legends laid the foundation for the blues, rock, pop, and hip-hop music of today.

Award-winning "Sunshine" Sonny Payne has hosted the show since 1951 and has been a presence on King Biscuit Time since its inception in 1941. A recognized blues musician in his own right Payne welcomes visitors to the live broadcast each week at noon. In keeping with tis tradition of broadcasting live music from the studio, King Biscuit Time still welcomes artists in the studio almost weekly, and the show's record-setting 15,000-plus broadcasts document the formation of a truly American form. Under Sunshine Sonny's direction, King Biscuit Time was awarded the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in 1992, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of radio and broadcast journalism.

The Delta Cultural Center became "home" to King Biscuit Time in the early 1990s, and the show is broadcast live daily from a special studio in downtown Helena and streamed around the world via KFFA's website,www.kffa.com 

King Biscuit Time with Sonny Sunshine Payne

Listening to Biscuit time with Sonny Sunshine Payne at KFFA 1360 AM

King Biscuit Time Sonny Payne St
Longest Running Blues Show

The music of the Arkansas Delta is the music of America. With roots in the gospel or "church music,"
the blues, jazz, country, and rock n'roll flowed from the rich, fertile landscape bordering the lower Mississippi River and spread out across the country and the world. Follow the Arkansas Delta Music Trail to experience the sounds that shaped the land, its people, and the nation.
KFFA 1360 Helena

King Biscuit Time
"King Biscuit Time" first aired live on November 21, 1941, on Helena, Arkansas's KFFA 1360 AM radio. Since that time, the program has become the longest-running daily blues radio show in the United States, as well as an influential platform for up-and-coming blues performers. The award-winning program has aired more times than the "Grand Ole Opry" and has outlasted "American Bandstand" by at least a generation.
Legendary bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson was the original host of King Biscuit Time, playing live with Robert Perkins and James Peck Curtis in the KFFA studio. The show was named after King Biscuit Flour, distributed throughout the Arkansas Delta by Interstate Grocer Company. The company agreed to sponsor a radio production for Sonny Boy and his band in exchange for live commercials for King Biscuit Flour.

Pass the biscuits! It's King Biscuit Time!

King Biscuit Time was the first regular radio show to feature blues and has influenced generations of delta blues and rock n' roll artists whose sounds are based on the raw energy of Sonny Boy Williamson's music. The daily programming of Sonny Boy Williamson, Pinetop Perkins, Robert Jr. Lockwood, and other Delta blues legends laid the foundation for the blues, rock, pop, and hip-hop music of today.

Tell it! Sing It! Shout it!
The King Biscuit Blues Festival

Award-winning "Sunshine" Sonny Payne has hosted the show since 1951 and has been a presence on King Biscuit Time since its inception in 1941. A recognized blues musician in his own right, Payne welcomes visitors to the live broadcast each week at noon. In keeping with its tradition of broadcasting live music from the studio, King Biscuit Time still welcomes artists in the studio almost weekly, and the show's record-setting 15,000-plus broadcasts document the formation of a true American art form. Under Sunshine Sonny's direction, King Biscuit Time was awarded the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in 1992, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of radio and broadcast journalism.

King Biscuit Time
Radio Station
K.F.F.A. & W.R.O.X
KING Biscuit Flour
Sonny Boy
Meal

The Delta Cultural Center became "home" to King Biscuit Time in the early 1990s, and the show is broadcast live daily from a special studio in downtown Helena and streamed around the world via KFFA's website, www.kffa.com 

Listen
King Biscuit Time
over
K.F.F.A HelenaW.R.O.X. Clarksdale Miss
12:15 Monday thru Friday
King Biscuit Flour Sonny Boy Meal

Arkansas Delta Music Trail
Paid for with a combination of state funds and regional tourism promotion association funds
www.deltabyways.com

The Biscuit

The King Biscuit Blues Festival is the largest free blues festival in the south and one of the best-loved blues festivals in the world, attracting tens of thousands of fans to historic Helena in the heart of the Delta each October for three days and bights music multiple stages.
From its outset in 1986, the Festival has been a collaborative effort between Main Street Helena, a non-profit group dedicated to the revitalization of downtown Helena, and the Sonny Boy Blues Society, a volunteer-based group dedicated to the preservation of Delta Blues.

"Da Biscuit," as it's affectionately known, is not devoted exclusively to blues from the Delta. Rather, in celebration of the Delta as a birthplace of the blues, the Festival showcases blues of all styles and from all regions of the country. 

The Blues Trail Mississippi to Helena, Arkansas

Blues Brothers

"Pass the Biscuits "" ITS KING BISCUIT TIME"

Main Street Blues 

Helena has played a vital role in blues history for artists from both sides of the Mississippi River. Once known as a “wide open” hot spot for music, gambling, and nightlife, Helena was also the birthplace of “King Biscuit Time,” the groundbreaking KFFA radio show that began broadcasting blues to the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta in 1941. The program had logged over 15,000 broadcasts by 2009 and inspired Helena to launch its renowned King Biscuit Blues Festival in 1986.

The Blues Trail Mississippi to Helena

The Blues Trail Mississippi to Helena

The town emerged as a major center of culture and commerce in the Delta during the steamboat era and maintained its freewheeling river port atmosphere well into the mid-20th century. Cafes, night spots, and good-time houses flourished, and musicians flocked here to entertain local field hands, sawmill workers, and roustabouts who came off the boats ready for action. Many bluesmen ferried across the river from Mississippi or later motored across the Helena Bridge. Others came from elsewhere in Arkansas, up from Louisiana, or down from Memphis.

Helena was at one time home to Mississippi-born blues legends Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), James Cotton, Honeyboy Edwards, and Pinetop Perkins, as well as to Arkansas natives Roosevelt Sykes, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Lockwood Jr., Frank Frost, Jimmy McCracklin, and George “Harmonica” Smith, all of whom became influential figures in the blues. Williamson, Nighthawk, and Lockwood were among the first bluesmen to play their instruments through amplifiers, paving the transitional path of blues from acoustic to electric music–a development often attributed to Muddy Waters in Chicago in the late 1940s.

Soon after KFFA went on the air on November 19, 1941, Williamson’s broadcasts on “King Biscuit Time” brought blues to an audience that had seldom if ever heard such music on the radio. Up-and-coming bluesmen B.B. King, Albert King, Jimmy Reed, and Muddy Waters all tuned in to the lunchtime broadcasts from the KFFA studios, or on occasion from WROX in Clarksdale, advertising King Biscuit Flour and promoted their upcoming shows at local juke joints and house parties. The sponsor, Interstate Grocer Company, even introduced a Sonny Boy brand of cornmeal. During Williamson’s extended stays away from Helena, drummer James “Peck” Curtis kept the program going with an assortment of band members. The show eventually switched to records instead of living music and continued with deejay Sonny Payne at the helm. Off the air only from 1980 until 1986, it still ranks as one of the longest-running programs in radio history. The Delta Cultural Center began hosting the broadcast in the 1990s.

The Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival, a favorite event among blues enthusiasts around the country, began as the King Biscuit Blues Festival in 1986, welcoming back former King Biscuit Entertainers Robert Lockwood and Pinetop Perkins for the first of many annual appearances, along with a variety of other acts including perennial local favorites Frank Frost, Lonnie Shields, Sam Carr, and CeDell Davis.

Blues Artist