Author: Jack Austin

Left-handed and fiercely dedicated, Paul Kaye turned early obstacles into a lifetime pursuit of the ‘big sound,’ making one guitar carry rhythm, bass, and melody all at once.

Growing up, Stud Ford was no stranger to gritty blues clubs with dim lighting, smoke filling the room, and loud music in the air. As a child, Stud would sleep on the floor of blues clubs like Red’s Lounge in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as his grandfather, the Hill Country legend T-Model Ford, played from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. T Model Ford, born James Lewis Carter Ford, was the primary parental influence in Stud’s life and began teaching him music when he was about six years old. Stud said the two were very close, and that his grandfather was the “only…

Crate digging, Mississippi masters, and Chicago rhythm — Carter’s blues reflects a singular journey.

How the filmmaker, provocateur, and Panther Burns founder documented North Mississippi blues and forged his own art-action response in Memphis.

Hill Country blues as inheritance and trance: Kinney Kimbrough, Kody Harrell, and Eric Deaton share the rhythm, lineage, and joy behind North Mississippi’s hypnotic sound.

What it means to carry on the Burnside blues tradition: “I write for somebody else; you never know how that song might help a person.”

G. Love has always lived at the intersections—between blues and hip-hop, porch and pavement, tradition and instinct. Here, Garrett Dutton talks about the harmonica that opened the door, the records that stayed with him, and the sound that emerged when he stopped trying to belong to any one place.

Part Two of our North Mississippi Hill Country Blues series — Eric Deaton on learning the music at the juke joints where it was made.

How Luther Dickinson channels moonshine, memory, and modernity into the living pulse of Hill Country blues, told in a wide-ranging conversation.