2019 Christmas Journal

 2019 Jan 7, Day Trip Guntersville State Park AL with Travis 

2019 Jan 11 & 25 Worked Killen Book Store 9-1 PM

2019 Feb 10, Ava Grace Birthday Party Deibert Park 2-4 PM

2019 Feb 18, Day Trip to American Village Montevallo, AL with Travis

2019 Feb 25-26 Trip to Paris & Tiptonville, TN with Travis 

2019 Mar 1, Killen Book Store 9-1PM

2019 Mar 2, Wings to Soar Wheeler Wildlife Refuge Decatur 11-12 PM

2019 Mar 5, Through the Back Door the Music that Bridged the Bayou Mardi Gras Luncheon Sheffield Library 11-1:00 PM (Storytelling)

2019 Mar 6, Yellow Deli Pulaski 

2019 Mar 7,  Get Dirty at Library Pruning Fruit & Ornamentals 11:30-12:30 PM

2019 Mar 16, Trolley Miracle Ride: Helen Keller in Living History – Learn the amazing story of Helen Keller, led by her great-niece, Keller Johnson Thompson. Includes a tour of Ivy Green, Keller’s birthplace. 

2019 Mar 21, Get Dirty at Library Spring Vegetables & Seed Exchange 11:30-12:30 PM

2019 Mar 23, Fathers of our Faith Trolley Tour First Presbyterian, Leslie Chapel Tuscumbia 

2019 Mar 24-30 Trip Naples, FL (Naples Botanical Gardens)

2019 Apr 2,  Ate lunch at Brass Lantern and Mimosa Cemetery Lawrenceburg, TN 

2019 Apr 6,  Sheffield Historic Homes Walking Tour 10-12 with Jimmy Austin

2019 Apr 6,  Macy & Matt Green Wedding Stormi Jo’s Barn 697 Co RD 251 Moulton, Al 

2019 Apr 7,  Wilson Park, UNA, McFarland, Heritage Park taking pictures

2019 Apr 16, Attended Sheffield Paint the Town with Clay Allison Sheffield Library

2019 Apr 19, Worked Killen 19-1 PM & Funeral Kenneth Sykes

2019 Apr 20, Walking Tour Business downtown Tuscumbia with John McWilliams

2019 Apr 26, Chinese Lantern Festival @Huntsville Botanical Gardens, Al 

2019 Apr 27, Sheffield Business Historic Walking Tour 10-12 with Jimmy Austin

2019 May 3,  Birthday Dinner at Logan’s with Mike, Hannah, Jake, Lindsey, and Chad Going to be Grandmother (Jake and Lindsey are going to have a baby)

2019 May 6,  Literary Treason with Dolores Hydock at Helen Keller Library, Pictures Spring Park (Storytelling)

2019 May 8, Day Trip Memphis Botanical Gardens and Dinner Bell Corinth, MS 

2019 May 10, Worked Killen Book Store 9-1 PM 

2019 May 12, Mother’s Day, a Card from Lora, Andy & Charity gave me herbs Sage Parsley, Ron gave me a Coleus Plant, and Mike gave Red Rose & Hummingbird Welcome Flag.

2019 May 15  Day Trip to Decatur Old Bank Gardens, Frazier Gardens, Delano Gardens, Children Garden Delano Park & we ate dinner at Jack's Decatur 

2019 May 16, Po-up Concert with Josh Goforth at Florence Library (Storytelling)

2019 May 16, Dishing up Dirt Stories from the Garden by Dolores Hydock& brunch (Storytelling)

2019 May 17-18 Shoals Front Porch Storytelling Festival 9-5 both days (Storytelling)

2019 May 21, Florence Ophthalmology Dr. Gray's Eye press up to 34 made an appointment to see Dr. Slater on June 17, 2019(May need surgery)

2019 May 25, We Rocked the World Trolley Tour 12:20-4 Tuscumbia Visitor Center 

2019 May 26,  Memorial Day Celebration with family Cooked Chicken Stew & Grilled Hamburgers & hotdogs

2019 June 4,  Tuesday Day Trip to Atlanta Botanical Gardens Atlanta, GA

2019 June 7,  Worked Killen Book Store 9-1 PM

2019 June 12, Day Trip Cooks Museum Decatur 

2019 June 17, Doctor Appointment with Michael Salter Maynor and Mitchell Eye Clinic 

2019 June 25, Tube placed in Right Eye Surgery Center Huntsville Dr. Salter 

2019 June 22, Baby Hughes Revel (Hayne) BOY  

2019 June 28, Checkup on eyes with Doctor Salter 

2019 July 7,  Spring Park Tuscumbia taking pictures 

2019 July 10, Checkup on eyes Doctor Salter 

2019 July 12, Worked Killen Book Store 9-1 PM

2019 July 19, Visitors Center to listen to Angela Hacker and James LaBlanc(Handy Fest)

2019 July 23, Switched from Direct TV to Dish 

2019 July 25, Visitor Center to listen to Kerry Gilbert and Hugh Banks (Handy Fest)

2019 July 31, Stitches removed from the right eye, Doctor Salter 

2019 Aug 5,   Took Ava to Pre-school to Register 

2019 Aug 8,   Spent the day with old friend Dot Winstead

2019 Aug 9,   Killen Book Store 9-1PM

2019 Aug 13,  Lab work for Pellets and picked up Ava at School

2019 Aug 14,  Receive new passport in mail

2019 Aug 22,  Cataract Surgery on left eye Doctor Salter Dinner Walton’s Family Restaurant Huntsville

2019 Aug 29,  Recheck on Left eye Doctor Salter Ate lunch at Dave’s & Busters 

2019 Sept 9,  Grandparents Day at Rogers with Ava Grace(ME, Hubby, and Teresa Clanton)

2019 Sept 12, Return to Oka Kapassa Killen Town Hall W/Amy Bluemel, Lyndon Alec (Storytelling)

2019 Sept 13, Worked Killen Book Store 9-1

2019 Sept 14, Wilson Park Walking Tour led by Billy Warren

2019 Sept 16, Day Trip Huntsville Botanical Gardens 

2019 Sept 19, Cleaning Dentist 

2019 Sept 20, Chiropractor visit 

2019 Sept 30, Helen Keller Deliverance a Silent Film Helen Keller Library

2019 Oct 3,   Last stitch & scar tissue removed right eye, Dr Salter 

2019 Oct8-11  Trip to Pigeon Forge, Luminights Dollywood Pigeon Forge, TN 

2019 Oct 15,  Recheck on Right Knee Doctor Goodman 

2019 Oct 18,  Rogers Homecoming Parade with Andy & AVA 

2019 Oct 19,  Finding Huntsville Walking Tour 

2019 Oct 22,  Trunk N Treating Elgin took AVA

2019 Oct 23,  Belue Pumpkin Patch with Andy & AVA 

2019 Oct 25,  Killen Book Store 9-1 PM 

2019 Oct 27,  Historic Markers, Lagrange Park, Spring Park 

2019 Oct 28,  Day Trip Historic Markers, David Crockett Museum, Park, Brass Lantern

2019 Oct 29,  Trunk N Treating Killen Park Took AVA 

 

2019 Nov 2,   Killen Book Store 9-1PM 

2019 Nov 8,   Killen Book Store 9-1PM

2019 Nov 10,  Fiddlers, Banjo Players & Strawbeaters: Our First Pop Musicians Indian Mt

2019 Nov 13,  CBS

2019 Nov 16, Tracy totaled her car (Hit a deer)

2019 Nov 20, CBS, Dr Haggstrom 2:45

2019 Nov 23, Edith MIlberger dies

2019 Nov 28, Thanksgiving at Mikes

2019 Nov 29, Thanksgiving at Jenkins Went with hubby and his sister to buy a Nissan Sentra at Bramlett KIA Decatur, Wheeler Wildlife Refuge, Enchanted Forest Christmas Trees (they only had a few decorated).

2019 Dec 1, Tracy fell and broke her foot

2019 Dec 3, Keller Imaging Mammogram & Bone Density Test 12:45 PM 

2019 Dec 4, CBS, Dr. Salter 1:45 PM, Root Canal Shoals Creek Dental & Tinsel Trail Hsv

2019 Dec 5, Root Canal 1 PM did not take 

2019 Dec 6, Trees of Christmas @TVAM

2019 Dec 7, Christmas Brunch w/Dolores Hydock Clarion Inn 10 AM

2019 Dec 8-13 Pigeon Forge, TN w/Sherry, Bobbie, Teresa

2019 Dec 9, Tracy's foot surgery 

2019 Dec 14, Spend the morning visiting my new great-grandson, Hayne

2019 Dec 15, Athens North Pole Stroll, Decatur’s Enchanted Forest, and took Andy, River, and Ava to Santa Land 

2019 Dec 16, Two Root Canals Smith & Smith Endodontics 9:30 AM & glued Bridge back on

2019 Dec 17, Dr. Evans placed a post for the new Bridge & Travis temporary crown

2019 Dec 18, Christmas Brunch at CBS

2019 Dec 20, Pick up Lora at Nashville Airport

2019 Dec 21, Christmas @ Mikes 6 PM

2019 Dec 23, Took Lora to Nashville Airport 

2019 Dec 25, Ronald’s Birthday/Mike’s Christmas/Visit Dad

2019 Dec 27, Rock Pile, Spring Park, Railroad Bridge taking pictures

2019 Dec 31, Becky’s to play games with sisters

Highway 61 Blues - Tunica Miss US 61 South Haven, MS

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Miss US 61

Highway 61 Blues - Tunica

U.S. Highway 61, known as the "blues highway," rivals Route 66 as the most famous road in American music lore. Dozens of blues artists have recorded songs about Highway 61, including Mississippians Sunnyland Slim, James “Son” Thomas, “Honeyboy” Edwards, Big Joe Williams, Joe McCoy, Charlie Musselwhite, Eddie Shaw, Johnny Young, Eddie Burns, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. The original route, now called Old Highway 61, was just west of here.

HIGHWAY 61 BLUES

HIGHWAY 61 BLUES

Highway 61 Blues - Tunica

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Highway 61 Travel has been a popular theme in blues lyrics, and highways have symbolized the potential to quickly “pack up and go,” leave troubles behind, or seek out new opportunities elsewhere. As the major route northward out of Mississippi, U.S. Highway 61 has been of particular inspiration to blues artists. The original road began in downtown New Orleans, traveled through Baton Rouge, and ran through Natchez, Vicksburg, Leland, Cleveland, Clarksdale, and Tunica in Mississippi, to Memphis, and north to the Canadian border. Mississippi artists who lived near Highway 61 included B. B. King, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), Ike Turner, Robert Nighthawk, Sunnyland Slim, Honeyboy Edwards, Sam Cooke, James Cotton, Jimmy Reed, and Junior Parker.

The first song recorded about the road was Roosevelt Sykes’s “Highway 61 Blues,” cut in 1932; at the time Sykes was a resident of St. Louis, the first major city along Highway 61 above the Mason-Dixon line. In 1933 two Memphis bluesmen, Jack Kelly and Will Batts, recorded "Highway No. 61 Blues," and the Tupelo-born Sparks Brothers cut "61 Highway." Other 1930s recordings included "Highway 61," a sermon by Raymond, Mississippi, native “Hallelujah Joe” McCoy; "Highway 61" by Jesse James; and "Highway 61 Blues" by Sampson Pittman, recorded for Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress. In 1947 Gatemouth Moore recorded a jump blues version of “Highway 61 Blues,” and in 1956 pianist Sunnyland Slim (Albert Luandrew) of Vance, Mississippi, recorded “Highway 61.” Over the next decades, Highway 61 songs often appeared on albums by James “Son” Thomas of Leland, Honeyboy Edwards, Big Joe Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and other traditional blues veterans.

Although many bluesmen used the lyrics “Highway 61, the longest road that I know,” their descriptions of the highway’s route were often misleading. Some suggested that the road started at the Gulf of Mexico (100 miles south of New Orleans) and ran through Atlanta, New York City, or Chicago. Many Mississippians certainly did begin their migrations to Chicago via Highway 61, but most finished their journeys by continuing from St. Louis to the Windy City along the famous Route 66. In 1965 the road gained an even more mythological reputation when Bob Dylan recorded his influential album “Highway 61 Revisited.” Dylan was well versed in the blues, but his inspiration may also have come from the fact that Highway 61 ran through his home state of Minnesota.

Well, I'm leavin' here in the morning
I'm goin' down Highway 61.
Girl, I'm lookin' for my baby.
Boy, you know that ain't no fun.
If she done left Mamphis
There's one thing, boy, that worries me;
She's down in New Orleans
"Down on Rampart Street  Highway 61"
Suland Slim

The blues artists pictured here are among the many who lived along the route of Highway 61 It is the northern Delta area of Mississippi and or in Memphis or Missouri
Muddy Waters
James Cotton
Jimmy Reed
Junior Parker 
Sunnland Slim 

Cobra Record Corp
 “Highway 61”
Sunnyland Slim 

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

The Blues Foundation - Memphis Miss US 61 South Haven, MS

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Miss US 61

The Blues Foundation - Memphis

The Blues Foundation, the world's premier organization dedicated to honoring, preserving, and promoting the blues, was founded in Memphis in 1980. Mississippi-born performers and business professionals in the Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame outnumber those from any other state, and Mississippians have also won many annual Blues Music Awards, Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, and International Blues Challenge talent competitions sponsored by the Foundation.

The Blues Foundation

The Blues Foundation

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The Blues Foundation, the headquarters of an international network of blues appreciation with thousands of members, grew from a small base of Memphis supporters that presented the first W. C. Handy Blues Awards at the Orpheum Theatre on November 16, 1980. Balloting for the awards (later renamed the Blues Music Awards) and the Blues Hall of Fame was initially conducted by Living Blues magazine by polling a worldwide group of blues authorities, deejays, musicians, folklorists, record dealers, and producers. The majority of the first twenty inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 were born in Mississippi: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Son House, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed, Charley Patton, and Memphis Minnie. By 2012, more than fifty Mississippians had been inducted. As the Foundation grew, paid members became the Blues Music Award voters, while a select committee of experts elected the Hall of Fame inductees.

Over the years, the Blues Foundation expanded its activities to include education programs, blues conferences, health care, the Handy Artists Relief Trust (HART) Fund, Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and the International Blues Challenge (IBC). Hundreds of blues societies and organizations around the world have affiliated with the Foundation and many have sponsored bands in the IBC competitions. While the blues has become an international phenomenon, the Blues Foundation has continued to acknowledge Mississippi for its crucial role in blues history and as the home of generations upon generations of blues musicians. More than two hundred Blues Music Awards have gone to Mississippi natives or one-time residents as Performers of the Year in various categories or for their contemporary, traditional, acoustic, soul-blues, or reissue recordings. Multiple award recipients include B. B. King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Pinetop Perkins, Little Milton, James Cotton, Willie Kent, Magic Slim, Albert King, Eddie Shaw, Eden Brent, Hubert Sumlin, Bobby Rush, Cedric Burnside, Honeyboy Edwards, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, R. L. Burnside, Sam Myers, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon, Carey Bell, Eddy Clearwater, Otis Spann, Sonny Boy Williamson (No. 2), and Snooky Pryor. Zac Harmon, Eden Brent, and Grady Champion are among the IBC winners with Mississippi roots.

Memphis has long been a major gateway to and from the Mississippi Delta, both for musicians and for blues fans worldwide. In 2010 the Blues Foundation, formerly housed in small office spaces without room for a Hall of Fame exhibit, acquired this building to make 421 South Main Street the permanent address of the Blues Hall of Fame and the “International Home of Blues Music.”

Muddy Waters, a native of Issaquena County MS received more votes than any other artist in the first Blues Hall of Fame balloting in 1980. He recorded "Gone to Main St" in 1952.

The first album elected in the Blues Hall of Fame's Classics of Blues Recordings was King of the Delta Blues Singer by Robert Johnsson who was born in Hazelnuts, MS. In the singles category "Dust my broom" bu Elmore (Elmo)James from Richland, MS let the first-year voting. 

Pinetop Perkins of Belzoni, MS won so many annual honors in the piano keyboards category as "instrumentalist of the year" that the award was renamed for him. The Blues Entertainer of the Year was renamed after BB King a native of Berclair, MS who began his professional career in Memphis. 

Among the Blues Hall of Fame inductees or Blues Music Awards winners who lived in both MS and Memphis (or West Memphis) are Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Charlie Musselwhite, Litttle Milton, Junior Parker, James Cotton, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Honeyboy Edwards, Memphis Minnie, Furry Lewis, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Gus Caannon, WC Handy, Hubet Sumlin, Ike Turner, BB King, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Taylor, Robert Nighthawk, Big Walter Horton, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Johnson, Sonny Boy Willaimson, No 2, Billy Gibson, George Jackson and Jessie May Hemphill. 

Chess Recording Company
“Gone to Main St”
Muddy Waters 

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

From Mississippi to Memphis Miss US 61 South Haven, MS

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Miss US 61

From Mississippi to Memphis

The bright lights of Beale Street and the promise of musical stardom have lured blues musicians from nearby Mississippi since the early 1900s. Early Memphis blues luminaries who migrated from Mississippi include Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Jim Jackson, and Memphis Minnie. In the post-World War II era, many native Mississippians became blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll recording stars in Memphis, including Rufus Thomas, Junior Parker, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley.

B.B. King 

Elvis Presley 

From Mississippi to Memphis

From Mississippi to Memphis

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Memphis blues was discovered by the rest of the world largely via the works of Beale Street-based bandleader W. C. Handy, who began using blues motifs in his compositions shortly after encountering the music in the Mississippi Delta around 1903. By the 1920s many musicians from Mississippi had relocated here to perform in local theaters, cafes, and parks. The mix of rural and urban musical traditions and songs from traveling minstrel and medicine shows led to the creation of new blues styles, and record companies set up temporary studios at the Peabody Hotel and other locations to capture the sounds of Mississippians who came to town to record, such as Tommy Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as some who had settled in Memphis, including Robert Wilkins, Jim Jackson, Gus Cannon, Memphis Minnie, and Joe McCoy.

In the decade following World War II musicians from around the Mid South descended upon Memphis, and their interactions resulted in the revolutionary new sounds of R&B and rock ’n’ roll. Riley King arrived from Indianola and soon became known as the “Beale Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “B. B.” Many of King’s first performances were at talent shows at the Palace Theater, 324 Beale, co-hosted by Rufus Thomas, a native of Cayce, Mississippi, who, like King, later worked as a deejay at WDIA. King and Thomas were among the many Mississippi-born artists who recorded at Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service, where Tupelo’s Elvis Presley made his historic first recordings for Phillips’s Sun label in 1954. The soul music era arrived with the Stax and Hi labels in the 1960s, and again many Mississippians were at the forefront: Stax’s roster included Little Milton, Albert King, Rufus Thomas, and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, while Hi producer and bandleader Willie Mitchell, a native of Ashland, oversaw recordings by soul and blues artists Otis Clay, Syl Johnson, Big Lucky Carter, Big Amos (Patton), and others with Mississippi roots.

WC Handy Statue on Beale St Memphis, TN 

The revitalization of Beale Street as an entertainment district, beginning in the 1980s, resulted in new performance venues for Mississippi natives including Daddy Mack Orr, Billy Gibson, and Dr. Feelgood Potts. The Mississippi-to-Memphis blues tradition has also been promoted by the Center for Southern Folklore, radio stations WEVL and WDIA, and labels including Inside Sounds, Icehouse, Memphis Archives, Ecko, and High Water. Mississippi has been well represented in the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s International Blues Competition and Blues Music Awards (formerly W. C. Handy Awards), and thirteen of the first twenty artists inducted into the foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 were born or raised in Mississippi.

Brunswick Recording Company “Fourth and Beal” Cannon and Woods “The Beale Street Boys

Jim Jackson, Rufus Thompson (at microphone), and Furry Lewis (right)became Memphis music icons after moving here from Mississippi. They all settled in Memphis prior to 1820.

The Handy Sheet is from 1917.
In 2003 WC Handy awards, Sam Phillips with four of the Blues legends is recorded in the early 1950s. Seated, from let are Ike Turner, BB King and Little Milton (all natives of Mississippi). Standing with Phillips is Memphian Rosco Gordon. Phillips also recorded Little Junior Parker Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, and Doctor Ross, among others Mississippi bluesmen.
Beal Street at night the late 1930s.
WC Handy Shown at a parade held in his honor here in 1953 came to Memphis form Clarksdale, MS. The park is a block north of this marker was renamed for him in 1931.




Ecko Records, founded by Mississippian John Ward in 1995 became a leader in the soul-blues market with releases by Mississippi natives including Ollie Nightingale Sheba Potts-Wright, Denise LaSalle, OB Buchana, David Brinston, and Lee "Shot" Williams.
High Water Records under the direction of Dr. Davis Evans at the University of Memphis documented more traditional blues.

Beal Street as it appeared in the summer of 1944.

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146489606/b.b.-king