“I timed my visit to go to the Blues and Soul Super Bowl there. “I love how integrated the river is into the cityscape,” he said. Speaking of Natchez, Barretta said nothing is as dramatic in Mississippi’s landscape as the bluffs. “I’m really looking forward to speaking about the artists there, particularly as I’ve never presented these stories in Natchez,” he said. “I spent the most time there in 2009-10 when I conducted oral histories of local musicians, including Hezekiah Early and YZ Ealey, for the Mississippi Arts Commission and then wrote up articles on many of the artists for a special Natchez issue of Living Blues,” he said.īarretta said he helped write and research multiple Mississippi Blues Trail markers in the Natchez area. The music connoisseur said he looks forward to a return visit to Natchez, which he first visited in 1999 when he came to Mississippi to edit Living Blues magazine. He is widely known as the host of the MPB radio show “Highway 61.” In addition to being a writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail, he teaches sociology courses about music at the University of Mississippi. “The legacy of the fire,” Barretta said, “was particularly important in terms of the songs that were written in the wake of that terrible tragedy.”īarretta noted, “Barnes himself was fascinating beyond his musicianship, as he was one of the leading journalists for African American entertainment at the time.”īarretta is a resident of Greenwood. Busby, the center’s executive director.īarretta’s talk, “Natchez’s Rich Blues Tradition,” will focus on musicians, including Papa George Lightfoot, Scott Dunbar, Hezekiah Early, the Ealey brothers, and songs about the Rhythm Club fire of 1940.Īccording to Barretta, Walter Barnes, the musician who died in the 1940 fire that killed more than 200 people, will also be mentioned. The free event is a “Coffee and Culture” initiative that is sponsored by the Southwest Mississippi Center for Culture & Learning at Alcorn State University, according to Teresa A. 8, at the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture. Specifically, he will talk about the key people in the city’s blues history in a presentation at 1 p.m., Saturday, Oct. – Blues historian Scott Barretta is coming to Natchez to talk about the blues.
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