Weather created issues on the Saturday of Juke Joint Festival weekend for the third consecutive year.
Heavy rain and storms caused vendors throughout downtown Clarksdale to leave early in the day.
“That’s the thing we feel terrible about,” said JJF co-founder and director Roger Stolle. “We hate the fact these folks came all over to vend, were very excited about it. Many of them tried to do it and the weather just made it impossible.”
Stolle said there were close to 100 blues acts and the majority of them played since the plan was to have them inside if rain occurred. He added there may need to be a similar plan for vendors for the 17th JJF in 2020.
“We’re definitely talking about it,” Stolle said. “We’re going to meet at some point and we’ll sit down and talk about what our options are. It’s a challenge. Our festival, by design, we want as much outside as possible. We want people to come downtown and be like, ‘Wow,’ and come downtown and meet people. At the same time, we don’t ever want things to not be able to happen.”
Stolle said just four music acts did not play due to weather.
One of them was Hal Reed from Iowa, who was scheduled to play on The Paramount stage.
Stolle said Reed told him he came to the festival to play in Clarksdale, not for the money. He added some of the animal shows, including the pig races and monkeys riding dogs, were cut short due to the weather.
“Except for that, and that’s a big that I realize, it’s amazing talking with folks today and yesterday who went through the rains how much fun they still had, how much music they still saw,” Stolle said Monday.
Stolle said there was a power outage Saturday morning. However, he was prepared since there was a power outage for much of the afternoon the Saturday of the festival in 2018.
“Look at last year when the power went out,” Stolle said. “This year, we had some generators. We were ready if that had happened.
“Every year, we’re trying to improve things.”
Clarksdale Public Utilities, Entergy and Coahoma Electric customers in the area all experienced power outages.
CPU general manager Curtis Boschert said a power outage occurred downtown near the old Greyhound bus station at 6:45 a.m. Saturday for less than an hour.
“I can’t say that it was weather, but we had a breaker trip on the circuit and we got it back in,” he said.
Boschert said CPU had a tent near Shankerman’s on Yazoo Avenue, but everyone packed up at around noon because of the heavy rain.
Tree limbs fell due to lightning later in the day, causing further outages.
“We had extra people on standby and we had a lot of people called that night,” Boschert said. “I don’t think there were any outages downtown, but there were some in neighborhoods.
“When anybody’s lights out, that is important. We were on it quickly. We called extra crews to get on it as quickly as we could.”
He said one of the neighborhoods that experienced a power outage was the Sasse Street area.
Boschert said CPU is trying to lessen power outages with its tree trimming program.
W. A. Kendall & Co., Inc. out of Lawrenceville, Ga., has been working since March 1 to trim trees in the Greenbough, Oakhurst and Delta Avenue areas. W. A. Kendall & Co., Inc. employees will back during the summer to continue work.
In spite of the weather issues, Stolle saw many first-time visitors who stayed throughout the festival from locations such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil and Canada.
“It’s just interesting,” Stolle said. “We get so many people from so many places.
“Someone made the comment to me today – they felt like 30 percent of the people hadn’t been at the festival before, like they were new. I really liked that because we love to get return people, but it’s cool to expose new people to Clarksdale and what we have to offer here.
“To grow that, we need more hotel rooms and opportunities like that in the future.”
Stolle said the way Clarksdale continues to grow keeps the new tourists coming.
“We keep rolling in Clarksdale,” Stolle said. “With regards to tourism and downtown revitalization, we have much more to offer than we did before. If you look at it, we have everything from a new Travelers Hotel to a new restaurant, Hooker Grocer & Eatery, to a new audio walking tour – all these new offerings. We have more musicians who keep coming here.
“What Clarksdale has built in just the past couple years, we can now handle anybody who wants to come here.”
Stolle said JJF used to be primarily one day, but it has expanded to Thursday through Sunday.
Adrian Kosky, who lives in both Clarksdale and Dayles Ford Victoria, Australia, helped renovate the Holy Moly building on Third Street. He has a nighttime venue at the old masonic hall in the Holy Moly building and has come to several festivals in recent years.
“We build our lives around it,” Kosky said. “We return every year in April and we stay until June.
“Our lives are geared toward arriving before Juke Joint and contributing in some small way to the event.”
Fernando Rolim from Recife, Brazil, has been to eight festivals after meeting Stolle in 2011. He has brought several bluesmen to Brazil and bought a shack across from the Shack Up Inn. He arrived Wednesday and left Tuesday.
“I think it improved a lot in the years I have been here,” Rolim said. “Last year, the power went out. Despite that, everyone had a blast. This year, the weather was a little bit tough.”
The 2020 festival will be the weekend of Saturday, April 18. There are no plans to have the JJF on a different weekend to try and combat weather issues, but representatives will continue to be prepared.
“We’ll put raincoats on all the monkeys next year and we’ll take care of that,” Stolle joked.
