We went on the road to Clinton, MS! Experience the show Saturday, June 23, at 7 p.m. on your MPB radio station or stream live here. Recorded at the Clinton High School Auditorium.
Your hosts: Jim Dees and house band the Yalobushwhackers.
The guests: Acclaimed bluesman Mr. Sipp, Mississippi novelist Michael Farris Smith, New Orleans's own Panorama Jazz Band.
Click here for more information about Thacker Mountain Radio Hour—celebrating the music and stories of the emerging South.
LITERATURE
Michael Farris Smith
Michael Farris Smith is the author of The Fighter (Little, Brown), a pulsating story of a burned-out fighter’s forced return to the ring under life-and-death circumstances. Kirkus Reviews said, “This ferocious fourth novel has vivid descriptions that never slow the pace of the plot, which moves swiftly toward an inevitable but still surprising climax. As violent as it is poetic, Smith’s novel draws the reader in from beginning to end.”
Smith’s previous novels include Desperation Road, an Indie Next selection; Rivers, which received the 2014 Mississippi Arts and Letters Award for Fiction; and his debut, The Hands of Strangers. Smith lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
MUSIC
Mr. Sipp
Gospel/blues guitarist Mr. Sipp (Castro Coleman) is originally from McComb, Mississippi. His many accomplishments include winning the 2014 International Blues Challenge in Memphis against 225 acts from 40 states and 16 countries. Coleman also took home the Gibson Guitarist award in the band category.
Coleman's work with gospel group the Williams Brothers has been nominated for four Grammys. His 2015 blues album The Mississippi Blues Child (Malaco Records) debuted at No. 6 on the Living Blues charts and was named in the top 50 of the year. Other albums include It’s My Guitar and Knock a Hole in It.
Coleman is also known for his after-school programs in area schools, teaching the young and old about the blues.
Panorama Jazz Band
The Panorama Jazz Band, New Orleans' “acoustic party band of the world,” enjoys mixing eclectic influences such as Jewish klezmer, the Creole biguines of Martinique, and folk music from the Balkans and Latin America. The band holds a regular slot at the Spotted Cat, among other clubs in their native New Orleans, where they also march in parades and perform at weddings and the city’s numerous festivals. Their discs include Dance of the Hot Earth (2013); Best of the Good (2016); and their latest, The Next One.
