Juke Joint Friday - Live Blues from Clarksdale, MS

Featuring "Super Chikan," "Kingfish" Ingram, and The All Night Long Blues Band
Join us for a musical trip to the juke joints of the Mississippi delta…where the blues were born! We’re proud to feature three extraordinary acts from Clarksdale, Mississippi - the epicenter of the original sounds that would re-shape the musical landscape of the world.
James “Super Chikan” Johnson is a Blues Music Award winning musician, guitar maker, folk artist and nephew of the legendary “Big Jack” Johnson. With multiple highly acclaimed award winning recordings to his credit, “Super Chikan” has toured the world and is best known in the Clarksdale area for performing regularly at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero blues club, and for being Freeman's favorite blues performer. Two years ago, he was honored with four Blues Music Award nominations, including BB King Entertainer of the Year, Song of the Year for "Fred's Dollar Store", Traditional Blues Male Artist, and he won the BMA for Traditional Blues Album of the Year for Chikadelic. He was previously nominated for the Best New Artist Blues Music Award in 1998, and has received five Living Blues Critics Awards. In 2004, “Super Chikan” received the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Accompanying him for this performance are “The Fighting Cocks,” his extraordinary all-female band.

At the age of 15, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram has already been tabbed as blues innovator. Exposed to the rich gospel music emanating from his family’s church, combined with the blues he heard in his Delta neighborhood, and being a cousin to the great and legendary Country music singer, Charlie Pride…”Kingfish” became a natural sponge of musical talent. His influences range from Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to B.B. King and Buddy Guy. “Kingfish” began playing blues at age 6, and, after several years of lessons at Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum and many nights playing with blues veterans at local juke joints like Red’s Lounge, he has emerged as a major draw for visiting blues tourists. Surprisingly at such a young age, he can play just like his idols and mentors and possesses the additional ability to create a style all his own.

Sean “Bad” Apple has studied at the feet of historical bluesman for the better part of two decades. He is also one of a growing number of musicians who have moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to absorb the area’s music and culture. In 1993, he spent time learning from the 88-year-old Bentonia, MS native, Jack Owens, one of Mississippi’s most-significant early bluesmen. Apple also served as guitar player for the Terry “Harmonica” Bean Blues Band for over two years out of Pontotoc, MS. A man on a mission, Sean synthesized the music of his mentors to assemble his own sound, his own brand of Delta-meets-Hill-Country (i.e. two regions of Mississippi) blues music. He is presented at the Franklin Theatre with his acclaimed The All Night Long Blues Band to share the lessons taught to him by the men and women who learned this music from the source.