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Most of us know the tradition: on February 2, our old friend the groundhog will emerge from hibernation, come out of his den, and predict whether winter will deliver more cold weather this year. If the groundhog sees his shadow, the story goes, cold weather will persist another few weeks. If not, warm weather is around the corner. If you like the folklore of holidays, you may be interested to know that Groundhog Day is related to two of the other holidays we have written about extensively on this blog: Halloween and Mayday. In this post, we'll look at the ancient origins of the Groundhog Day t...

April 2021 MPB Classics television programs celebrate Mississippi Delta Blues music by Mississippi Delta Blues is the title of the MPB Classics series for April 2021.  MPB Classics is a collection of original television programs by Mississippi Public Broadcasting. The programs document the local culture and history of Mississippi through literature, visual arts, folklore, music, storytellers and more. Every month for the next three years, a new set of MPB Classics programs will be available for free on-demand viewing at video.mpbonline.org for two months....

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) George C. Wolfe, IN 1929, two years after the setting of Ma Rainey ’s Black Bottom and about seven months after Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” made her last recordings, another stylish Southern blues singer—the “Queen” of the genre—cut a song with her new husband. On “When the Levee Breaks,” Memphis Minnie looses her guitar on Kansas Joe McCoy, who starts to sing: If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s going to break If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s going to break And the water gonna come in, have no place to stay

Published: December 21, 2020 at 5:16 pm “They don’t care nothin’ about me. All they want is my voice.” These are the words Ma Rainey uses to describe her white record producers in new Netflix film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the life of trailblazing blues singer Gertrude Pridgett. With her carefully coiffed hair, bright make-up and trademarked gold teeth – Rainey (played by Viola Davis) is a vibrant figure with a powerful stage presence. But it is her voice – and not just the one she uses for singing – that shines through the story, as she pushed back against...