23rd Annual Juke Joint Festival - 2026
April 11, 2026, Clarksdale, Mississippi, "In the Belly of the Sun..."
In 1903 he moved to Clarksdale to become the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias. In that same year, he documented one of the most well-known observations ever made about the beginning of the Delta Blues form. While waiting for a train in nearby Tutwiler, Handy observed:
“A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept… As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars….The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.”
Handy lived in Clarksdale for six years, then he moved to Memphis to form the W. C. Handy Orchestra. Some of his most known songs are “Memphis Blues,” “Beal Street Blues,” and “St. Louis Blues.” He was a founding father in elevating the blues out of the Delta into what became one of the most significant forces in American music ever.
WMR takes a couple of days to attend the 23rd Annual Juke Joint Festival - 2026 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. We will have something for readers when we get back.