Weekends Away

The Mississippi Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music
A North Mississippi Family Affair: Takeshi
Imura's photo shows Sharde Thomas,
legendary fife player Othar Turner's granddaughter, playing fife at
the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic.
Potts Camp, Mississippi doesn’t necessarily spring to mind as an international music scene, but this Fourth of July weekend it claims its place as just that. Musicians who spend the year touring the globe will congregate to perform, kick off their shoes, and stay around for a couple of days as they head home for the third annual family-friendly North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic.

Just north of Oxford, Potts Camp’s third annual festival celebrates North Mississippi Hill Country Blues—a rural blues form inspired in part by the African-American fife and drum music indigenous to the area. With its two best-known artists, Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, recently passed on, Burnside’s former lead guitarist, Kenny Brown, put together this rural outdoor festival that centers around the new generation of artists who are carrying a vital and wholly unique form of blues music forward.

The weekend is a relaxed and safe weekend of unpredictable music performances for the audience. And organizers also mean the event to be a place for the musicians of Mississippi hill country to spend time catching up and playing together, as the diverse range of well-known and up-and-coming musicians spend all year performing separately around the globe, and they all have connections to family within a hundred mile radius of Potts Camp. Unlike most festivals, the musicians tend to stick around Potts Camp for the full two days. “It might say ‘This is the Duwayne Burnside Set’ here, but there’s no telling who’s going to sit in with them,” said Sarah Davis, event organizer.

It’s not all blues either. The region’s music has influenced plenty of rock musicians, and many of them come to play this party. Scheduled to perform are Jimbo Mathius (Squirrel Nut Zippers), T-Model Ford, Kenny Brown (R.L. Burnside’s guitarist for twenty years), Rocket 88 (rock, blues and rockabilly from Oxford), Blue Mountain (Cary Hudson and Laurie Stiratt), Robert Belfour (another north Mississippi elder statesman), Duwayne Burnside (R.L.’s son and Junior’s former guitarist), Alvin Youngblood Hart (rock and blues out of Memphis), Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (probably the only black fife and band corps around) the Hill Country Revue (which is the North Mississippi All-Stars and Duwayne and Garry Burnside), and many others.

Potts Camp is a 1100-acre hayfield with a creek running the length of it, rolling hills, and a camping area for RVs, tents, or any other portable lodging.

Those wishing to attend but not interested in the camp site may have missed the boat on staying in nearby Holly Ridge, as the popular festival has filled the B&Bs, but there are B&Bs with beds still available in Oxford, which is about a forty minute drive from the festival. Check www.oxfordcvb.com for more info on where to stay in Oxford.

Food is sold at the festival, and while alcohol is not available on site, anyone can bring in an ice chest for $10. The ice chest can contain any food or drinks, and once the ice chest is stamped, people can leave and return with it freely, making refill runs to nearby stores. Glass containers are strictly prohibited, though, as organizers want to be sure children (and grown-ups) can still safely run around barefoot to dance and play in the creek.

10 am–midnight Friday and Saturday, forty minutes north of Oxford off Highway 78. http://hillcountrypicnic.wordpress.com or www.myspace.com/northmississippihillcountrypicnic.